Where did all the Burnol go?

Where did all the Burnolgo?

The household product is missing from pharmacies in Pakistan. But its brand recall still holds

By Abdullah Niazi

Walk into any pharmacy in Pakistan and ask for Burnol. The pharmacist will definitely recognise the drug but will very quickly tell you that the quick-acting, iconic, yellow antiseptic cream that has been a mainstay in kitchen cabinets and medicine boxes for decades has not been on the market for a couple of years.

While Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturers of and owners of the ‘Burnol’ name in Pakistan, have not commented on the famed burn remedy being discontinued, the word from sources in the pharmaceutical industry is that the cream is not being manufactured for the past couple of years after Abbott tried and failed to relaunch the cream in back in 2016.

This is in stark contrast to India - where the cream has not just been a mainstay but its ownership has switched hands at heavy prices over the decades and continues to be a sought after product. The name Burnol both in India and Pakistan has become synonymous with any remedy cream that gives quick relief from burns or cuts.

It is also a product that has an entrenched stake in the subcontinent’s ‘meme’ culture. Everytime a person feels that someone they disagree with has undergone a setback or humiliation, cheekily suggesting that they ‘apply Burnol’ is a retort that started off as childishly charming and has now been used ad nauseum.

Where did Burnol originate?

One of the first mentions of ‘Burnol’ as a brand name can be found in the first volume of ‘The British Medical Journal’ from 1934. A small paragraph long section under the heading ‘Acriflavine Cream’ reads “Burnol acriflavine cream (Messrs. Boots) contains about 1 per 1,000 of acriflavine dissolved in a base of which the chief ingredient is liquid paraffin. It is intended as an antiseptic but soothing application suitable as a domestic and first-aid remedy in a wide variety of minor conditions. The valuable antiseptic properties of acriflavine are well known, and hence the cream appears to be very suitable for the uses for which it is recommended. The cream is put up in tubes.” While the formula for the cream has changed, and is now marketed under the slightly different salt name ‘Euflavine’, not much else has changed. The cream is still used as an antiseptic to treat minor cuts and burns that one might expect to get around the house. Acriflavine, the formula on which Burnol is based, has been around for a while. Originally introduced as a reddish-brown antiseptic powder in 1912 by the German medical-research worker Paul Ehrlich, it was used extensively in World War I to kill the parasites that cause sleeping sickness.

The topical cream took off quite well after its successful use in the great war. A volume of The British Medical Journal’ from 1917 points towards pharmaceutical companies fast adapting towards using the formula, which is how it was first turned from a powder into a cream. “Boots has several forms of Acriflavine, one of them as an emulsified cream for the first-aid treatment of wounds, abrasions, and burns. Reckitt and Sons Ltd meanwhile presented a new germicide called Dettol,” reads the journal.

Boots, of course, would go on to mass produce Acriflavine under the brand name ‘Burnol’ and find great success in India, where a marketing campaign targeting women working in the kitchen sick of minor burns would prove to be wildly successful.

It is, however, a curious coincidence that Reckitt and its new product Dettol would be mentioned in the same breath as the Acriflavine that Boots was producing - particularly because eventually in post-partition India Reckitt would end up buying Burnol. And they would not be the only ones.

Enter India

India was one of the first markets where Burnol actively found a receptive audience. Most Indian women that worked in kitchens were constantly facing

burns because of the wood-fuelled ovens and stoves they used. Local remedies like applying turmeric were popular options, but did not have the same convenience as a tube sized solution.

At the time of partition, much like everything, Burnol was also split between the two countries. In India, it continued to be popular and saw a high-rise in the public imagination during the 1960s after the company was acquired by Dettol manufacturer Reckitt. With stoves still predominantly either wood or kerosene based, the brand managed to connect with the woes of regular, minor, burns that those working in the kitchen faced.

In the 1970s, the company launched its popular punchline: “Hath jal gaya? Shukar hai ghar mein Burnol hai.” (Burnt your hand? Thank goodness there is Burnol at home). Because of its name ‘Burnol’ - the immediate association of it being a solution to minor burns was obvious and the campaign worked wonders. Even though the cream is meant to be for more than burns and is a general antiseptic medication, because of its name and its marketing it became the go-to remedy for minor burns despite other antiseptics being as effective in reality.

In Pakistan, marketing professionals went in a slightly different direction. Around this time in the late 60s that TV made inroads in the world of advertising in the late, meaning products had to be promoted in a fresh way. The legendary Pakistani marketing expert Khaula Qureshi in an interview with Aurora recalled with some pride an ad for Burnol she worked on that is still a part of common parlance today. “Jalgaya? Burnol Lagaye. Cut gaya? Burnol lagaye. Keere ne kata? Burnol Lagaye. Boots ka Burnol.”

While the brand had changed hands from Boots to Reckitt in India by the early 1970s, in Pakistan it was still being provided by the original company Boots. The Burnol brand would eventually be bought by Abbott and launched in a yellow-brown packaging that is still remembered with great fondness by people that grew up from the 1970s and onwards

From here on out Burnol seemed to become stagnant in Pakistan. In India, it reached new highs.

The importance of brand recall

Here was one of those rare products whose brand name becomes synonymous with the function of the product. Not only this, for problems like minor burns, people rarely go to doctors and a product like Burnol is easy to self-prescribe due to its popularity and age-old brand name - it is also an over the counter medication.In Pakistan, even though Burnol is not available in pharmacies anymore, any antiseptic cream meant to treat cuts and burns is called ‘Burnol.’ In India a similar situation exists.

However in India there was a very clear recognition of this brand recall, which has made pharmaceutical companies constantly invest in the product and spend money on acquiring it, and Burnol has remained a flagship over-the-counter-product for a number of large pharmaceutical companies.

The brand was acquired by Dr Morepen, an arm of listed pharma-cum-healthcare firm Morepen Laboratories, in 2001 for Rs 8.95 crore. Soon, Dr Morepen earmarked Rs 2.5 crore for promoting the brand. But in 2002, Burnol clocked sales of Rs 4 crore in just three months, which was reportedly 80 per cent of the ointment’s total sales the previous year.

Other than this one hitch, Burnol has seen itself be a reliable cash-cow for Dr Morepen, with the company seeing a 35 percent rise in Burnol sales in their last reports from 2019. In fact, the brand recall of Burnol is strong enough that when Swiss firm Corinth announced they would be investing $100 million into Dr Morepen, the headlines read “Swiss firm Corinth to invest $100 mn in Burnol owner Morepen” - clearly indicating that Burnol was more recognisable than the company’s own name.

In Pakistan, a failure to capitalise on this brand recall has resulted in Burnol still being a part of the national consciousness, but no longer being a necessary part of the kitchen cabinet. With no marketing effort since those early days after Abbott took over, the cream was slowly taken over by antibiotics and new formula antiseptics. After all, Burnol is a very old formula and better and more versatile products to treat

Burnol - production and packaging

Burnol Cream is a combination of Aminacrine and Cetrimide. It is an antiseptic used for the treatment of minor burns. Burnol Cream provides immediate relief in burns, prevents infection, and helps in quick healing. It is also used for minor wounds, cuts, scrapes, abrasions, and insect bites. Originally in the form of a reddish powder, the salts are mixed with oil and water and emulsified to form a cream-like consistency. After this, the flexible squeeze tubes for creams and gels are filled using an automated machine which ensures a secure seal. These filling devices typically fill product from the base of the tube, rather than the dispensing end, using a piston which pushes the product up towards the nozzle. The end is then heat sealed, and excess material is trimmed to create an attractive tube design.

burns have been produced. In the early 2010s, Burnol was actually discontinued by Abbott.

In 2016, it was relaunched in a new 30gram tube with new colours and packaging, but not real marketing efforts were made to promote the product and it once again disappeared from the market in a couple of years and is currently nowhere to be found.

The memefication of Burnol

Burnol has always been a cultural product as much as it is a pharmaceutical product, but it really saw a boost in profile in the 2010s with the advent of social media. The household name has been turned into a witty punchline, used both in online cross-border skirmishes and domestic disputes.

The trend seems to have begun with the large, unruly presence of India’s ruling BJP on social media, with party stalwarts often responding to clips or statements of Prime Minister Modi with statements like “Burnol needed for Congress.” From here, the Burnol burns (pun intended) grew, with trolls from India commenting on any kind of negative news coming from Pakistan with Burnol related quips. Their Pakistani counterparts were quick to act. A simple search on the website of Dawn for the word ‘Burnol’ will turn up hundreds of results of comments on different stories about CPEC where Pakistanis comment things like “Burnol moment for Indians.”

The online battle of Burnol has gotten to a point where every time a Pakistani would use Burnol as a quip, Indians would respond by thanking them for promoting an Indian brand. The Pakistanis would then respond by pointing out that Burnol was actually produced by Abbott Pakistan in the country, leading to senseless if spirited and often profane exchanges over where the cream originates from. n

PHARMACEUTICALS