£5m ad campaign to launch Surf products
Unilever is launching a range of products under the Surf brand name and is backing them with a &£5m marketing campaign.
There will be a roll-out of a brand extension called Surf Cotton Fresh, a detergent which contains whitener, in both powder and tablet formats. Surf is also to launch Surf Capsules and Surf double-layered tablets in three fragrances. All the products will be available on the shelves in the next couple of weeks.
The move follows the detergent’s recent sponsorship of Crossroads, Carlton TV’s relaunched soap opera, on March 5 (MW March 1). There will be a new set of ads along with a new logo and packaging for the brand.
The new Surf advertising, created by Lowe Lintas, will not change the “Birds of a Feather” theme. The ads will break nationally next month.
According to Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), Surf is ranked fourth by value in the laundry detergents market (July 2001 figures). TNS ranks Unilever’s Persil as number one, followed by Procter & Gamble’s Ariel and Bold.
Last year Surf launched an interactive online soap opera, Foam and Away, which marked the brand’s first venture onto the Internet (MW September 28, 2000). Foam and Away has now been scrapped.
