Hyderabad: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) has launched the Cinthol Deo soap in the domestic market and claims it to be the first deodorant soap in India. The soap is positioned on the fragrant body odour platform and according to the company the soap is aimed at satisfying a latent problem: hesitation to get close to people because of body odour.

According to Dr Rakesh Sinha, vice president (soaps) GCPL, "Product offerings under the Cinthol brand have always been based on a deep understanding of consumer needs. Body odour is a common problem faced by everyone today. Cinthol tackles this by a long lasting 'deo' formula.

Cinthol Deo soap, available in the spice and cologne variants comes in pack sizes of 75 gms and 100 gms and is priced in the popular category at Rs 13 and Rs 20 respectively.

The nation wide launch of the soap is backed by a new ad campaign with the tagline 'get ready-get close,' that will hit TV screens and the print media soon. The commercial, which has a beach and sun setting, features a band of young people engaged in a tug of war contest. A new boy joins in who is confident of his body odour and helps his side win the contest.

According to Sinha, "Cinthol Deo soap provides an emotional benefit of confidence to get close to others. The commercial is filmed on a male model, which is the first of its kind in beauty soaps advertising. Most soap commercials are filmed on women as if men don't suffer from body odour. We felt we should get rid of this gender discrimination as actually body odour is a problem for all of us."

According to Sinha, "Beauty soaps are now graded by the bureau of Indian standards according to their total fatty matter and manufacturers have perforce to mention the grade on the wrappers. Godrej is the biggest marketer of Grade 1 soaps including Godrej No I and Godrej Fairglow soap," he says.

He said manufacturers marketing low- grade soaps tend to display the soap grade in extremely small lettering and consumers should look out for the grading on the soap wrapper before buying the product.

He said most soaps available in the market including the highly popular and high selling ones are actually grade II and grade III category soaps with low TFM and therefore of inferior quality.

He said Cinthol Deo soap has been available in shops in Maharashtra for sometime and has garnered a very positive response from the trade particularly for its metallic wrapper.

The media plan for the soap comprises extensive advertising on major entertainment channels such as Star Plus, Sony, Zee, HBO, V channel and MTV as well as regional channels like Sun TV and Vijay TV. The soap will also sponsor TV serials with high TRPs like 'Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki.'

Without revealing Cinthol Deo soap's ad budget he said that it would be supported by huge budget bigger than that for any other Godrej soap.

He said the company is targeting a market share of 2 per cent in the overall soap market or sales of about Rs 80-90 crore in value terms for Cinthol Deo soap. Godrej has a market share of about 10 percent in the toilet soap market while Cinthol soap has a 3 percent market share.