The Vicks Story
Till yesterday, I thought Vicks was an indian brand. Currently I am reading a great book by Gurcharan Das called "India Unbound". It is one of the most insightful book that I have ever come across. check out the reviews.

coming back to story, Vicks was facing severe profit crunch and losses when all the chemists united and boycotted the product unless the company agreed to their demands. During one of these meetings, one of the manager joked about ayurvedic medicine. and bingo! they had an idea. They classified vaporub from western medicine to ayurvedic medicine after discussion with their lawyers, r&d. This enabled them to reach a greater market segment and vicks was available at anyone's neighbourhood store. In the words of Das himself "It seemed too good to be true".

So, just a change in classification got them out of the trouble. It is this kind of discontinuous, out-of-the-box ideas that is critical for the business to grow. The further effect of this classification was localization of the brand. Indian consumers were able to identify much more with the brand, and even do.

time to get back to the book..