Hindustan Unilever's “pureit” Water Purifier

Hindustan Unilever's “Pureit” Water Purifier

What was so compelling for HUL to develop a product like Pureit? What factors accounted for its success?

        In 2000, the UN released eight millennium development goals and the target related to water was to reduce the proportion of people without drinking water to half. In 2010, it was estimated that roughly 2 billon people didn’t had access to safe drinking water. It was estimated that an investment of $25 billion per year for the next 25 years. But the actual spending was lower than this. So there was a scope for innovative business in this field. Hindustan Unilever saw an opportunity here. HUL ventured into making a water purifier and storage unit at point-of-use. After analyzing several options HUL concluded that

• Boiling water is a time consuming, cumbersome task that changed the taste of water.
• Existing water purifiers were commonly RO or UV type that were expensive and required electricity and pressurized water supply.
• Bottled water was too expensive.
• A paradigm shift in consumer behavior could only be bought by innovative technology not making products that doesn’t use electricity and pressured water supply.

So HUL decided to make a product that could fill these vacancies and ‘Pureit’ was made.

The main factors that accounted for its success are

• Target Customers: Large consumer base at the bottom of the pyramid.
• Pricing: Low margin high volume products (as low as $22).
• Revenue Model: Much of the profit was to be made in sales of consumable purifying kit.
• Advanced Technology: No need of electricity or pressurized water.
• Warning System: Auto shut-down when the consumable purifying component is completely consumed.
• Selling Strategy: Started as DTH (Direct to Home) sales and then used retail chain when there was a consumer pull for the product.
• Marketing Strategy: HUL used ‘Pureit water experts’ for DTH sales and cold calling. They were advertising in media. They made use of doctor’s and NGO’s to educate the poor and thereby making them buy the product.
• After Sale Follow-up: ‘Pureit water experts’ would do a after sale follow-up to places where they sold the product to. They would collect feedback from the customers and they would also obtain contact and referral for friends and family from the consumer.