HLL hands over Lakme hair brand a/c to Lowe

Close on the heels of realigning its advertising agencies for personal wash brands "� Liril and Hamam, FMCG major Hindustan Lever has awarded the advertising assignment of the hair segment of its Lakme brand to Lowe, taking it away from Ambience Publicis.

Anil Chopra, head of Lakme cosmetics, Hindustan Lever, said, "We have shifted the entire Lakme hair care range to Lowe from Ambience. This was done as there was a conflict of interest with Marico's hair care range being handled by Ambience."

Ambience would continue to handle the cosmetics segment of Lakme, he added.

Earlier, Ambience was in charge of the entire range of Lakme products, hair care and cosmetics. Chopra also stated that the company would push the Lakme hair care segment aggressively this year, as it was a relatively new product. He, however, refused to divulge any numbers.

Last week, HLL realinged its advertising agencies for Liril and Hamam. Hamam moved from Bates to Lowe and Liril from Lowe to McCann to balance the personal wash brands across the main agencies HLL works with. The move follows HLL's adoption of the Unilever way of utilising regional synergies for a brand.

According to a company source, the realignment of agencies began with Vaseline being moved from McCann to BBH. Lowe used to handle both Liril and Breeze.

Later, Liril was given to McCann. Lowe, in turn, was given Hamam, a regional brand in Asia, and now, the hair care section of Lakme.