The acquisition announced in late March is now complete !!
“VWash acquisition is strategic and gives us an entry into rapidly growing female intimate hygiene segment. It enables us to serve consumer needs through scientific solutions. This acquisition is also timely given heightened focus on health and hygiene,” HUL Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta said.
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With this acquisition, HUL is looking to scale up the brand by building awareness, driving penetration, leveraging distribution and enhance offering for chemist channel.
Although VWash website lists only the intimate wash and the intimate wipe, there are two other products in its stable according to Amazon brand page:
VWash Bikini Line Hair Removal Cream & VWash Wow Sanitary Napkins.
It is obvious that HUL will have these products too in its stable.
Sanitary Napkins, I feel is the most lucrative segment as the market size is much bigger than other categories of VWash.
Only problem is that VWash has brand strength in the Hygiene wash category only!
Although, VWash Wow Sanitary Napkins have good quality (as it seems from reviews), they lack any substantial brand power compared to Whisper, Stayfree, Kotex or Sofy. Glenmark did launch some advertising campaigns (Link 1, Link 2).
Motilal Oswal’s initiating coverage review on PGHH (published on 2016) examines the competitive intensity in this segment in detail (page 9-12).
So, this segment is characterized by strong brand moat although sustained promotion can create a dent, as happened in case of Sofy.
HUL can surely do the extensive campaigns, plus its WiMi and Project Shakti led deep penetrations may just help them to reach more places.
HUL isn’t actually new at promoting sanitary pads, as they had a 22 year old JV with Kimberly-Clark (1995-2007) during which they used to promote the Kotex brand of sanitary pads. Globally Unilever don’t have any Sanitary Pad brand.
PS: The Motilal Oswal report talks about a Wow sanitary napkin brand owned by future retail (private label probably). I’m not sure whether Glenmark acquired the brand rights from them because there is just no such reports. However, Glenmerk’s 2018-19 annual report, Page 42, mentions that “VWash WOW sanitary napkins were introduced as an extension to the VWash franchise”.