Brand and Lifebuoy

Industry Overview The impede lash pains in India is extremely orgai&ed with an annual growth rate of 13% and both over RS 9,193 Crores in 2007. The industry is fragmented to a moderate ex ext with a a fewer(prenominal) international players having grand commercialize constituent and few local players occupying minor sh ar. The spiritedness- coatdst companies in this piece ar HUL, Wipro, Godrej, Nirma, and Reckitt Benkiser. The bath and waste yields miscell any bulk of this industry with a contri scarcelyion of Rs 8,678 Crores1. The lather industry in India is secernateified into three categories base on the scathe Product overviewLifebuoy is one of the oldest disfigurements of exclusive chuck out that is grocery store by the Unilever group. The sure Lifebuoy was first produced in 1895 in the UK. though the gook is no longer produced in the UK, it is still produced in umpteen countries slightly the world and is the merc playscriptise draw in e truly(p renominal) Asian mart that it is sold. The strike off is genuinely touristed among the c poornish plebeianwealth with more than 50% of its sales in plain Asia. With a goal to get out afford subject and entrance moneyible hygienics and tumesce upness solutions to bothone. Lifebuoy sponsors a Health Education com be sicker curriculum in India and has sphereed more than 70 one million million pack with this beginning(a). trade history of lifebuoy Lifebuoy was launched in India in 1935. Origin solely in ally Lifebuoy was positioned as a masculine gunk with sports and fitness as the background theme in its pass water nonice (of)ment. The larger-than-life 1992 football ad with the resound Lifebuoy hai jahan, Tandurusthi hai wahan (Wherever Lifebuoy is, strongness is at that place) positioned it as masculine scoop shovel. The strap contained carbolic dot which gave it its exemplary red color and odor. Lifebuoy went finished a major speck shift in 2002 w hen it shed it masculine depiction and positioned itself as a family goop.The comp each changed the tinct, pulp and odour of the soap to appeal to all members of the family. The company adopted a young noise Koi Darr Nahin (No Fear)(sample adv) with 100% tri nonwithstandinge against generators as the exchange point. Today Lifebuoy is an umbrella flaw for different harvests corresponding Hand Sanitizer, torso drizzle, stripe soap, commit wash, Men automobile trunk wash and Clear skin. For the rest of our report, we bequeath only discuss Lifebuoy soap barricade and its post 2002 marketing scheme. selling dodging The marketing strategy of Lifebuoy is closely relate with its vision of fulfilling the intrinsic need of ein truthone to be clean, active and wellnessy.Segmentation and Targeting The particleation strategy of Lifebuoy is directionsed on outlay and wellness aw beness. Since the vision of the snitch is to provide hygienics to all classes of the s ociety acquire situation of the consumer is a major factor. A few pointers towards it plane sectionation strategy * Geographic sphere be of no signifi whoremasterce * demographic characteristics interchange open Age, Family size, Gender and Occupation ar not of any significance. * Lifestyle and persongty argon of no significance Using the supra information, the segmentation and addressing of Lifebuoy is condition as to a lower place Geographic Tier 2 cities, Semi-Urban and clownish aras Demographic Income group Middle class and lower middle class behavioral * Occasion Regular * Benefits 100% germ protection A brief on Psychographic profile of the fag customer is given in the next section. in that locationof, Lifebuoy leveling strategy all the manner falls in between selective peculiar(prenominal)ization and full market coverage. Psvchographic write of Target segment The engineer segment of Lifebuoy is the semi-urban and farming(prenominal) kinsfolks. A bri ef Psychographics profile is done for the consumers, not based on any scientific piece of work solely on intuitive thinking.Purchasing decisions In this segment, the purchasing decision in the household for soap bars, in to the highest degree of the households, is typically taken by the women in the house. accordingly we attempt to profile the psychographics of women. Spending Habits The consumers in the segment are middle-income to lower middle-income group. The disposable of this group is meager . whence disbursal is nearly on barely necessities and on augmented crossroads . Motive Every homophile cosmos, who is part of the society, has an intrinsic desire to be clean due to health and cordial acceptance reasons.The primary motive stinkpot get the merchandise is to fulfil this desire i. e. , be healthy and socially acceptable. Media deform The consumers in semi-urban areas reach fairly ripe(p) access to all sorts of promotional media similar TV, newspaper, rad io and billboards. However a large portion of the home run consumers are from expansefied areas which the reach of conventional media like tv set and newspaper is limited. so a go against stream of media has to be k like a shoting to reach out to the consumers to educate them on the benefits of utilize Lifebuoy. Activities and InterestsThe typical adult female in the target segment would be housewife. Hence the activities that she would be have-to doe with in are very few. Also they would withal countenance very picayune interests outside of their household chores. The selective information below is astir(predicate) how women spend their conviction and what sort of things that they would be interested in. A few pointers suck in been made as to how marketers can use this information for cost- efficacious marketing. Family care The women in this segment are entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of the family members specially children.Hence this emotion of the women has to be secondhand while making advertisements. Work A large number of women in this segment work in the unorganized field as unskilled or semi-skilled dig up to support their family. Since it is unorganized sector there is less(prenominal) emphasis on in-person grooming and more on hygiene (matches with Lifebuoys value offering) Television A large number of the women in this target segment, peculiarly in the semi-urban geographies have access to television set and soap operas are very popular with them. Hence roughly of the companies advertising root needs use time expansion slot during the soap operas.Household chores Most of the women in this segment do the household chores including purchasing by themselves. Hence advertisements should be aimed at housewives directly. Financial planning The spending creator of the commonwealth in this segment is very low and hence cost nest egg are given utmost importance. Hence to entice housewives the product monetary value should be kept very low Opinions here we try to delve into what kind of views the women have well-nigh themselves and skirt and how this views and opinions affect their debaseing pattern. 1.Health of the family is important than personal beauty. Hence women are more likely to buy a disinfectant soap than a beauty soap 2. Price can be low to a train where it meets the timber threshold. Anything below this threshold deemed of low quality. Hence both price and quality are important but price is given high preference. 3. More for less is everlastingly emend. A bundle claim that offer discounts is give than a angiotensin converting enzyme pack. 4. Big shops and supermarkets var. only expensive products. Hence a typical cleaning lady would visit a shop at the end of her street than visit a supermarket.Hence companies should stock their products at every shop. 5)A dirt that with high recall is of better quality than the one which is not. Hence discolorations should adve rtise to have a higher check recall. Positioning onwards evaluating the positioning strategy of Lifebuoy, it is important to assess the competitors and identify the factors that deviate the purchase decisions of soaps. The main players that have probatory share in the segments Lifebuoy operates in are 1)Santoor Santoor is a sandalwood based beauty soap that is targeted at the woman and is the largest soap instigant in South lndia. )Dettol Dettol is an antiseptic soap from Reckitt Benckiser that has closely followed Lifebuoy in terms of product offering 3)No 1 Godrej No 1 is the most popular soap product from the Godrej house and is currently the third largest selling soap in India and market leader in Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradeshvl 4) HUL Products Lifebuoy alike competes with internally with different HUL products like Breeze and Rexona According to a literature research published in the IUP Journal of Management, the factors and attributes that influence the consumer behaviour of purchase soaps are )Packaging and promotion Schemes 2)Composition Fragrance, Ingredients, Skin symbol 3)Availability and defacement Recognition Additionally price and few functional attributes like hygiene and beauty have been considered. Since there is no data to draw quantitative perceptual/positional maps, we have mensurated the soap distinguishs qualitatively based on the factors given higher up. Marketing Mix In this section, we try to evaluate how the STP strategy influences the marketing change integrity of Lifebuoy and how it provides Lifebuoy reinforcements over its competitors ProductLifebuoy is a bar soap that is aimed as a family soap with health and hygiene as its selling proposition. The soap was originally positioned as a masculine soap with fitness and health as the value offering. In 2002, the product underwent a major change cast off it legacy shape, colour and fragrance to take hold it more appealing to all members of the family. The prod uct, since then, is positioned as family toilet soap with 100% protection from germs as it value proposition. As a product that is more than 100 age old and 75 days of comportment in the Indian market, Lifebuoy is one of the most recognised products.Positioned as a family soap, Lifebuoy holds and improvement over its competitors as it appeal to all members of the family. This is really important as it fits well with the typical middle-class and lower-middle class households utilization of apply the alike(p) soap by all the members of the family. However, Lifebuoy fails to attract beauty aware women in the family. Also, many of Lifebuoys competitors have products that have traditional ingredients (Sandalwood in Santoor and Godrej No. l) which Lifebuoy has not yet forayed into. PlaceLifebuoy is positioned as soap for the semi-urban and folksy population. With over 70% of Indias population falling under this segment, it provides huge market potential for Lifebuoy. However cat ering to this segment learns logistical challenges. Lifebuoy enjoys a distinctive advantage over its competitors in this context as it is promoted by HUL, the largest non-tobacco FMCG Company in the country. referable to HULs wide airing statistical distribution nedeucerk, Lifebuoy is virtually operational at every POS. Hence Lifebuoy is able to capture close to one-fifth of the Indian soap industry.Though Lifebuoy is present purge in the urban markets it is pushed to the backseat as the focus of the company is to sell its other soap products like Lux and Rexona. Price Lifebuoy is priced in the mid-level segment. The current price of Lifebuoy soap is about Rs 14 for 100 grams. Lifebuoy is available in packs of various sizes (50gm, 75gm, 120 Gms, 4* 120gm family pack) and is affordable to people of all economic sectors. The competitors of Lifebuoy are priced slightly higher than Lifebuoy . The segment that Lifebuoy caters to is highly price sensitive and hence being priced lower than its competitors provides a distinctive advantage.Promotion Lifebuoy promotion through advertising is based on its slogan Koi Darr Nahin (no fear). Most of its advertisement focuses on cleanliness and hygiene as the aboriginal theme. The premise of most of its advertisement is about a child playing/ working(a) in dirt with his mom proclaiming Koi darr nahin to personate that there is no fear of trans boot as they use Dettol. Since, the primary target market of Lifebuoy is rural market which is not very educated about the benefits of Lifebuoy or cleanliness in general lifebuoy has taken the initiative of educating the customers.The initiative called Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana is the largest rural health and hygiene education platform ever in India and has already reached 70 million people till date With an effective advertisement and CSR activities, Lifebuoy has been able to build up a formidable brand over its competitors. rivalrous Strategy With about 18% of the hail soap market share, Lifebuoy is definitely the market leader in this industry. The brand has been a pioneer in the mass rural marketing model and is to a fault the price leader among its competitors. Let us at the various strategies that Lifebuoy follows to stay the top.Expand the entirety market Most of the customers in the target segment are not snitch users of soaps and use soap only for clean purpose. Lifebuoy has made many steps in educating the customer on the importance of using soap at five strike occasions Before Breakfast Before Lunch Before dinner During mundane bath Immediately later visiting the toilets Lifebuoy has been involved in many sense programs which have been discussed in detail in the report. by such initiatives Lifebuoy has been able to bring in new customers as well as increase the usage among live customers. Defend Market ShareIn the recent years, due to the introduction of many competitors, the market share of Lifebuoy has been on the decline. To hol d back its market share Lifebuoy has slashed its prices supercharge to gain over competitorsvl. The brand was excessively re-launched with an improved formulation that reduces mush and signals better consumer valuelx. Lifebuoy also introduced many variants of its soap with indispensable ingredients to defend its position against natural soaps like Godrej No. l and Santoor. Expanding market size Rural segment, which forms the bulk of Lifebuoys consumer share, is heavily influenced by product availability while making their purchases.The disposable income in this segment is very less and hence consumers buy products as and when they need it and do not stock extra at home. Hence if the product is unavailable on the shelf, they would buy any other product. Lifebuoy (HUL) therefore undertook projects to enhance the rural supply chain by a network of sub-stockists and chuck Shakti in confederacy with the Self-Help Groups of rural women. These Self-Help Groups acted as direct-to-home dealers. In rural India, women are the catalyst of change and that is wherefore Project Shakti kept women in focus.Project Shakti has proved to be a bang-up marketing venture for Lifebuoy since it works in both terms which is promotion as well as a distribution network with social welfare benefits. Through such in advance(p) campaigns, Lifebuoy is able to lose ones temper its share in the years by-line its repositioning. However in the recent years the market share has been declining. Building brand public figure Equity Lifebuoy has been in India for over 75 years. Since then the brand has been able to bond to the consumers at an emotional level and suffer a brand commitment.Today the brand is market leader in the soap market with over 18% market share and has been repeatedly voted among the top ten most trusted brands in the country*. Though the brand had to undergo a re-positioning in 2002 and had to face a superfluity of competitors, both external and internal to HUL, Lifebuoy has not only been able to survive but also emerge as the market leader. A few traits about brands have been given below. dent Promise Lifebuoy promises to give 100% better protection from germs, which is repeatedly mentioned in its ads. The brand aims at providing health and hygiene to all members of the family by defend from germs.The brand promise of Lifebuoy closely follows the mission of providing affordable hygiene to all the people of the world. Lifebuoy is the largest selling health soap in the world and has been proven to be effective against germs. Brand Archetvpe Lifebuoy should be regarded as the health professional as the vision of Lifebuoy closely matches the karyon desire of the Caregiver, to protect and care for others. Lifebuoy has been involved in legal transfer sense among its consumers in the importance of health and hygiene. Many of its social awareness programmes have already been discussed. Brand elementsIn this section we look at the brand eleme nts of Lifebuoy and how each element helps in building the brand equity Brand Name The name Lifebuoy is derived from lifebuoy which means* a life preserver in the form of a ring of buoyant actual. The name is apt for the brand as it clearly conveys the message of health and hygiene and is as such a life saver. However in the Indian context, where most of the consumers in Lifebuoys target segment are not highly educated, the brand name which is in English has very little or no significance. Logo Lifebuoys logotype consists of a Red cross with Lifebuoy build verbally crosswise it.Red Cross is ordinarily associated with ambulance and hospitals and as such indicates pricey health and hygiene. The logo is also very common and hence is easily recognisable and recallable, the two important characteristics that are necessary for any brand. The logo also means the same in all culture/geographies and hence can be use across the globe. Particularly in the Indian context, the colour red signifies simplicity, purity and holiness and withstander from evil spirits which is evident from the fact that red is used in all auspicious ceremonies (bridal dress, thilak, sindhoor etc. . Hence it conveys the brand promise of Lifebuoy. Slogans/Jingle Over the years Lifebuoy has used many slogans/jingles that have helped it build its brand equity. The most popular of Lifebuoys jingle was the one launched in the 1992 football advertisement Thandurusti ki raksha karta hai lifebuoy, lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan convey Lifebuoy protects tidy health, good health is where Lifebuoys is. The jingle is particularly renowned because it was rhythmic and catchy. It is easily one of the most recallable jingles of all times.It also clearly conveyed the brand promise and hence was able to bypass brand awareness among the consumers. In 2002, after the brand underwent a change, the jingle was changed to Koi Darr Nahin meaning No Fear. The new jingle portrayed that by using Lifebuo y, there was no fear of infections. Hence, Lifebuoy has, over the years, used slogans that are attention getting and communicating the prime benefit to the consumer. Packaging- precedent to 2002, Lifebuoy was sold in ordinary advancement and was red in color with a very strong smell due to the presence of carbolic acid.However, in 2002 the packaging was changed to wanton away the brand more appealing. The logo was renew to match the contemporary standards. The shape of the bar was also changed from brick to a more contemporary one to match the standards set by its competitors. The brand also focused on the rural consumers and introduced small sized packets at lesser prices to make it affordable. The following elements are not strictly part of typical brand elements. However, in Lifebuoys context they are significant in differentiating the brand from its competitors.They also fit in the three criteria of brand building as they are memorable, meaning(prenominal) and likable. Char acters- Traditionally, Lifebuoy has never used any celebrities or any characters in its advertisements. This was because the brand never wanted to position itself as aid brand and hence the use of renown did not fit in well with its image. Since its repositioning in 2002, Lifebuoy ads have always been revolved nigh middle-aged woman (mother) and kids. Effective Marketing- Rural Marketing-Since its repositioning, Lifebuoys has focussed on the rural markets and reinforced a strategy to spread brand awareness through TV and soft touch media. It also launched Lifebuoy Swashthya Chetana, the first single largest rural health and hygiene educational program through which it has been able to reach 70 million people already. The campaign aimed at educating the community especially the children about the essential of basic hygiene in maintaining good health. Since most of the people in the target segment did not have access to print or TV media, Lifebuoy designed mod methods to reach to them.It used innovative communication tools at melas, festivals etc. to spread awareness about hygiene and health by product demonstrations. These techniques were used in order to change the hand-washing and bathing habits in rural India. For example, people in mela were asked to put their manpower below a special camera where they could see the germs on their hands and were asked to wash their hands with Lifebuoy and see the difference. Hand-carts were also displayed at the companys stall for attracting more people. Lifebuoy tested to market the product not retributive at the point of sale but also at the point of consumption.Ideas like putting advertisement stickers on hand pumps, walls of the wells, putting tin plates on trees surrounding the pond were some of the innovative media utilised by Lifebuoy. Other media techniques used were shop-fronts and celluloid van operations having films and audio cassettes with songs and trip the light fantastic toe sequences f)om popular f ilms that comprised ads of HUL products during breaks. Through such innovative campaigns, Lifebuoy was able to reach out to customers who could not be reached through conventional media and was able to create a brand loyalty among the rural people. CSR workSince the launch, Lifebuoy has been involved in many health awareness programs. The brand pursues a social mission of bringing health to all the people around the world. Lifebuoy has launched Save the Children campaign to spread awareness about prevention of diarrhoea. The programs aims at promoting handwashing with soap as the most economical way of fighting diarrhoea It also conducts orbicular Hand washing Day, an event which aims at educating children about the importance of washing with soap and water. The event has been very popular and now holds the Guinness record of largest community hand wash event. Through Gurudwara, a promotional programme done with collaboration with Gurudwaras (Sikh temples) Lifebuoy has been able to create awareness among the rural population of Punjab. Lifebuoy also launched The Lifebuoy way of life in Mumbai, a study aimed at understanding whether a bar soap when used as recommended for hand and body washing reduces diarrhoea and/or acute respiratory infections in the target population. Lifebuoy also launched Lifebuoy active involvement in health awareness programmes has helped it develop a brand loyalty and value above its competitors.