Omo, Unilever’s international-brand washing powder

Omo is a blue detergent powder launched in 1954, and became the Unilever spearhead in the synthetic detergent market. New Blue Star Omo was introduced at the end of March 1963. Today, Unilever is aggressively promoting Omo all over Asia and Africa, packaged in quantities down to 35 gram. Unilever’s brands Persil, Omo and Skip (other Unilever brands include the pre-war brand Sunlight, Sun, Vim and Surf) are engaged in fierce competition with Procter & Gamble's washing powder brands for pole position in just about every world market.

P&G was the first to use one brand name for its leading detergent (Tide) in some countries and another brand name, with a different package (Ariel) in the others. Unilever copied this policy. The company markets Surf in many countries and Omo in the remainder. The products are almost identical. But the packages are dissimilar enough that retailers stock Surf in the same section with Omo, often at the same price, so consumers must believe they are different products.

My favorite price! How could I pass it up? I bought two boxes.