Free phone to aggrieved Snapdeal customer: Unilever proves it can dance

In the early 1990s, I had my first interaction with Hindustan Unilever (HUL), when , as a salesman, I had a meeting with a brand manager. Everything about the meeting was daunting; the building one entered, the attitude of the guy at the door, the receptionists (there were more than one), the liftmen - and my prospective client, dressed in a jacket and tie.

Today, things have changed dramatically. The jackets and ties are a rarity, the reception is far more friendly and warm, access to Unilever India executives is easy - and they’re all fun to have a drink and a chat with.

With all these changes, Unilever is still an elephant - and we all know that elephants can’t dance.

They can’t, you say?

Events over the past few days demonstrate the contrary.

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Here’s the history in a nutshell. Laxminarayan Krishnamurthy (LK) ordered a Samsung Core duos phone at Snapdeal - but received a bar of Vim bar soap instead of the phone he had ordered.

Just picture the situation. LK expects a shiny, cool phone that will make him shiny and cool as well. When he opens the package, he sees a bar of Vim soap. He doesn’t see a less cool phone - he sees a bar of, hell, detergent soap, immediately conjuring up images of the drudgery of squatting and washing soiled clothes in his cramped bathroom
That’s not cool. LK does what he thinks he needs to do - and complains to Snapdeal and rants on social media.

He waits, indignantly, for a response - and gets one from a direction that he least expected - from Vim.

HUL decided to send him a Samsung Core duos phone with a letter that read: “The pictures you posted online show that our brand was used in this incident. Vim is one of our iconic brands with some great consumer franchise. We felt bad about it, not to mention what you went through. Here is a small gesture from our side to cheer you up.” More details here .

When the negative reference to Vim first popped up on the dashboard of a Unilever executive, it would immediately have been apparent that Vim and HUL were not in the dock - and the executive could have moved on.

But this is the new, improved, HUL - and HUL decided to dance.

They sent a free phone to the aggrieved Snapdeal customer, causing surprise and delight, leading to a new post from a grateful LK, which in turn led to retweets, positive comments and shares.

And thousands of consumers across the country think better of HUL and HUL products; Vim gets a fillip; HUL gets immeasurable returns in earned media (including this piece). All because someone at HUL forgot that elephants could not dance.