Do you really need Kotler

This is my first posting from the B school, there is a lot to write, Hostel, weather, food, classes, courses, profs, peers, seniors, canteen, girls, guys (I have to act without gender bias), parties, sleep deprivation etc. BUT I will just touch upon something totally different, a visible case of superior marketing of a controversial and taboo product and converting it from "proper noun" to "common noun".

The case is of Cipla, pharmaceutical giant and manufacturer of Levonorgestrel tablets, The tablets were introduced in India in early 1990s and were sold as Pill 72. Pill 72 was contraceptive pill with two 0.25 mg tablets (0.5 mg) sold in 1 pack, and was available as over the counter pill. The number 72 in name signified that it is instructed to take both the pills in pack withing 72 hrs of unsafe sex.

Since its launch in 1990s to 2005, it sold mostly by word of mouth awareness and to some information privy urban middle class. It was one of those drugs whose development would be quoted as an example of sunk cost in Microeconomics books. Adding to CIPLA's worry was also the problem that they could not market it, since India in 90's was fairly conservative and Religious issues apart (All major religious establishment oppose contraception at some level or the other), the middle class had not expanded enough to make buffer for the risk they would have taken by openly marketing it. Here one might say, 90's was a time when govt. was out and out campaigning for family control and "population explosion" was buzz word, but all they were promoting were preventive contraception, emergency contraceptives were still considered killing.

Still CIPLA continued to market it till 2004, when came a sex survey on Indian youth and it said that majority of abortions are taking place in urban india in the age group of early twenties. CIPLA saw this as a moment of enormous opportunity, and even though the religious establishment was still there, this time the middle class had grown enough to support its campaign. They combined the two pills of PILL 72, and produced a single pill of 50 mg and called it iPILL. iPILL took the market by storm and became a better known word for emergency contraceptive pill. CIPLA didnt loose any aspect of milking the given opportunity and while Pill 72 came at Rs 43 per pack, iPill was priced at Rs 90 per pack.

What i felt typically wonderful about this case was that, CIPLA didn't create a product to cater to consumer demand, Its market research in early 90's failed terribly, in short all the major frameworks of text seemed to have failed, when they took advantage of a situation and made the product into a success. It was all about intuition and I firmly feel, even if the bosses at CIPLA would not have read marketing texts, they would have done the same thing.