Lifebouy in Rural Market

ASSIGNMENT OF RURAL MAKETING

PRODUCT: LIFEBUOY

SUBMITTED TO:

SUBMITTED BY:

MS. POOJA SEHGAL

SALONI GUPTA SECTION: A ROLL NO: 04

HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LIMITED SLOGAN: “FEEL GOOD, LOOK GOOD AND GET MORE OUT OF LIFE…”  The Anglo-Dutch company Unilever owns a 52% majority stake.  HUL was formed in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Limited and came into being in 1956 as Hindustan Lever Limited through a merger of Lever Brothers, Hindustan Vanaspati Mfg. Co. Ltd. and United Traders Ltd.  The company was renamed in June 2007 as “Hindustan Unilever Limited”.  Hindustan Unilever's distribution covers over 1 million retail outlets across India directly.  Its products are available in over 6.3 million outlets in the country nearly 80% of all retail outlets in India.  It estimates that two out of three Indians use its many home and personal care products, food and beverages  The company has a distribution channel of 6.3 million outlets and owns 35 major Indian brands  HUL is one of the country's largest exporters; it has been recognized as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India.  HUL was one of the eight Indian companies to be featured on the Forbes list of World‟s Most Reputed companies in 2007  The Hindustan Unilever Research Centre (HURC) was set up in 1967 in Mumbai, and Unilever Research India in Bangalore in 1997. Staff at these centers developed many innovations in products and manufacturing processes. In 2006, the company's research facilities were brought together at a single site in Bangalore

HISTORY  Export of sunlight soap in India in 1988 followed by Lifebuoy in 1895.  Set up first subsidiary in 1931 by name of Hindustan Vanaspai manufacturing company followed by Lever brothers India ltd. In 1933.  All 3 companies merged in 1956 to form Hindustan lever limited (HLL).  Changed its name to Hindustan Unilever limited (HUL) in 2007

PRODUCT PROFILE – HUL

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Personal wash: Lux, Lifebuoy, Liril, Hamam, Breeze, Dove, Pears, Rexona Laundry: Surf excel, Rin, Wheel Skin care: Fair & Lovely, Ponds, Vaseline, Aviance Oral care: Pepsodent, Close up Deodorants: Axe, Rexona Colour cosmetics: Lakme Ayurvedic personal and health care: Ayush Shampoo: Sunsilk, Clinic Tea: Broke bond, Lipton. Coffee: Bru Foods: Kissan, Annapurna, Knorr Ice cream: Kwality walls

FAMOUS EVENTS DONE IN RURAL INDIA

1) PROJECT SHAKTI  Starting 2001, it began expanding its reach through Project Shakti, where it used women entrepreneurs in distant villages to stock and sell its brands.  It utilized the concept of self help groups  Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the Shakti Vani Programme, it now covers 15 states in India with over 45,000 women entrepreneurs in 135,000 villages  By the end of 2010, Shakti aims to have 100,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering 500,000 villages, touching the lives of over 600 million people

2) OPERATION BHARAT  Under “operation Bharat”, they introduced sachets of clinic plus, ponds,close up and fairness cream to make sachet buying a habit for these consumers.  Seeing that the rural retailers sell the cut lifebuoy cakes to the consumers, it came up with 75 gm soap cake and later launched 18 gm life- buoy soap, priced at Rs. 2.

3) LIFEBUOY SWASTHYA CHETNA  It spread information on how washing hands can keep diseases away, targeted a population of 5 crores in 15000 villages.  It applied 2 approaches : A) HUL employed Health Development Officers and Health Development Assistants who went to all the villages and educated the community through lectures and community meetings. B) They returned to the villages after 2 months, offered toys, badges and medals to children who had made it a habit to wash hands regularly ( read saved “Lifebuoy” soap wrappers ) and a certificate to the children who had won these badges most often.

4) KHUSHIYON KI DOLI  It is the first multi-brand rural engagement module started by HUL  The main objective of the campaign was to reach out to media dark villages with HUL brand messages and to engage with consumers deeply to rapidly change brand adoption metrics.  It involved various personal care and home care brands of HUL including Wheel, Surf Excel, Fair & Lovely, Sunsilk, Vim, Lifebuoy and Close Up.

LIFEBUOY

Lifebuoy's goal is to provide affordable and accessible hygiene and health solutions that enable people to lead a life without fear of hygiene anxieties and health consequences. LIFEBOUY IN INDIA  Among oldest brand of HUL placed as “Health and Hygiene” soap.  Launched in 1895.  Crossed 100,000 tones consumption in single year.  Relaunched in the year 2000  Sold 20 lakhs daily & has 600 million users anually.  70% sales are from rural markets.  40% of HUL turnover.

PRODUCT DEPTH OF LIFEBOUY  LIFEBOUY TOTAL: follow old „red soap‟ image.  LIFEBOUY DEOFRESD : symbolize freshness  LIFEBOUY NATURAL: green soap resembling natural care.  LIFEBOUY SKIN CARE: for sensitive skin.

LIFEBOUY AT Rs. 2  Sold At Lowest Ever Price.  Targeted Mainly At Expansion Of Rural Market.  Translate Increase In Income Into Spending Over FMCG Goods.  Sold In New Format Like Shampoo Sachets.

INNOVATION Since 2000, major changes have been made to the classic Lifebuoy soap bar to ensure that it provides improved hygiene protection and a more enjoyable healthy washing experience for its billions of consumers.    

Lifebuoy's classic hard red brick shape has been replaced with a new signature Lifebuoy shape. The new shape makes the bar easier to grip and use The Lifebuoy team have developed a new formulation providing even better germ protection which creates a rich lather on the skin Lifebuoy's characteristic medicated, carbolic smell has been replaced with a more enjoyable and contemporary 'health' fragrance Lifebuoy has become more than just a red bar of soap – today the brand provides hygiene and health solutions for families, including a range of bar soaps, hand wash liquids and liquid shower gels. The most recent Lifebuoy innovation addresses the number one skin hygiene and health concern for teens and tweens: oily and acne prone skin. Lifebuoy Clear Skin is a bar soap formulated using radical new technology that is clinically proven to reduce even severe acne, by 70% in 6 weeks. Regular use, twice a day is proven to prevent and reduce the recurrence of acne

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE INTRODUCTION o o o o

Launched In 1895 And Positioned As Health And Value Platform. Targeted Initially At Male With Unique Jingle. Promoted By Football Players And Athletes. The Soap Was „Brick Red‟ And Carbolic Ingredient.

GROWTH o Grown At Very Fast Rate. o Sold Almost In Every Part Of India. o Promotion And Distribution Channel Strengthen To Maintain Supply. MATURITY o Over Period Of 100 Years, Reached Its Maturity Level. o Market Share Becomes Almost Stagnant. o Some Customers Became Loyal While Some Went For New Products. o Same Brand Image Limited Consumer Base. DECLINE STAGE o Soap Market Fairly Sluggish In 2001. o Lifebuoy Share Declined More Than Market Decline. o 15- 20% Decline in Volume of Sale.

4 P’S OF MARKETING MIX  A set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in target market.  4 P‟s – Product, Place, Price & Promotion.

 PRODUCT : o Launched As Carbolic „Red Soap‟ o Symbolize Health And Hygiene. o Very Strong Brand Image. o Recahnilised its product cycle by introducing new variants.  PRICE: o Sold to lower and middle income group people. o Priced at comparatively low price. o Most variants Sold At MRP Rs 11/Piece.  PLACE: o Strong Distribution Channel. o App. 2000 Suppliers o Product Produced At 80 Different Factories. o 45 C & F Agents, 4000 Stockiest. o 1 Mn Direct Outlet and 6.3 Mn Total Outlets.  PROMOTION: o Positioned As „Health And Hygiene‟ Soap. o Initially Promoted By Sportsman Life Football Players. o Now Promoted As Family Soap For Both Male And Female

LIFEBUOY- SUCCESS AND CHALLENGE Prevention Is Better Than Cure At first thought, influencing more people to wash their hands and brush their teeth may not seem like much, but in fact the potential for improving health and actually saving lives is tremendous. Simple changes to everyday habits, like washing hands with soap and water before touching food and after going to the toilet, can halve the risk of contracting diarrheal diseases that claim the lives of over 3.5 million children each year, globally.

Through the Lifebuoy health and hygiene awareness programs that we have been conducting in schools since 2002, we have been able to spread our message of cleanliness to more than 1 million students across 750 schools.

The first series of programmes, known as SUWA SIRITH MEHEYA was designed to educate children about basic health and hygiene habits, create awareness of how simple habits like washing hands with soap can help in preventing the spread of diseases, and help parents to encourage hygienic habits in their children.

In 2006, we launched a new program we called Ignite the Hero Within, which attempts to create awareness in a fun, appealing way, with „Germ Fighter Clubs‟ set up in schools, so that the children themselves get involved in promoting good hygiene.

LIFEBUOY’S MARKET SEGMENTATION AND TARGETING: T h e t a r g e t i n g m a r k e t f o r l i f e b u o y i s a l l h o u s e h o l d s w h o c a n a f f o r d buying soap and who want to fulfill everyday need that provides them a n d t h e i r f a m i l y w i t h a 1 0 0 a n t i b a c t e r i a l s o l u t i o n a n d c o m p l e t e protecti on from all germs bacteria and cleanliness from dirt. Lifebuoy belief that children are the potential agent for change and impartin g education on the importance of hand washing with soap will enable them to adopt early habit in life

MARKET STRATEGIES Here in marketing strategies we will discuss the existing strategy of Lifebuoy alongw i t h s o m e a d j u s t m e n t s i n t h e s t r a t e g i e s t o i m p r o v e o u r s e l e c t e d p r o d u c t . T h e discussion of these market strategies are hereunder.

MARKET SCOPE STRATEGY: Although Unilever itself is a part of a Multi market, but since we are talking about the product Lifebuoy we can say that it is using a multi market strategy as well because it has both soap and shampoo, not these two only but they have others anti bacterial liquid baths as well opening a way for Lifebuoy to be a multiple product.

MARKET GEOGRAPHIC STRATEGY: Geography has long been used as a strategic variable in shaping market strategy. History provides many examples of how businesses started locally and gradually expanded nationally and internationally. Unilever is having an international market strategy for Lifebuoy being available in almost every continent of the world. It is a worldwide brand of Unilever available in India, China, Indonesia, Cyprus, UK, and USA along with Pakistan.

MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY: Lifebuoy is one of the old products of Unilever which h a s m o r e t h a n 1 0 0 ye a r s o f s u c c e s s f u l j o u r n e y, w e can simply say that Lifebuoy is the early entrants internationally and in India it is the first-in in its kind of soaps.

MARKET COMMITMENT STRATEGY: Being the first-in in the market Unilever has shown strong commitment with its brand of life time i.e. Lifebuoy and that commitment to its brand has really foster the growth of Unilever as well as its brand of Lifebuoy. But from the recent decade Unilever is no more showing the strong commitment to Lifebuoy because over the period of time many of the competitors came in the market with new innovative product, better market strategies and stronger commitment. In the present scenario, Unilever is just showing an average commitment to its brand of Lifebuoy which has really put its brand on the back foot

LIFEBUOY’S REPOSITIONING STRATEGY: Lifebuoy soap is a very old brand of bath soap in India, Life Buoy is an anti bacterial soap and in the beginning it positioned itself on its antibacterial qualities, lifebuoy gained a number of customers with this positioning, but then there comes the competition with the DETTOL soap. All this put Lifebuoy out of lime light and to survive in market, Lifebuoy positioned itself on price it became low price antibacterial soap. This strategy may have boosted short term sales of Lifebuoy but it lost its brand value and credibili ty in the minds of customers. Lifebuoy needed to reposition itself on quality rather than price.

REPOSITIONING CAMPAIGN: The repositioning campaign of Lifebuoy was started at 2008, but it became more prominent and became effective in 2009, Lifebuoy along with the advertisement h a s i m p r o v e d its quality and fragrance, most of the people had shifted from lifebuoy b e c a u s e i t w a s l o w q u a l i t y a n d i t s m e l l e d t e r r i b l y, a s L i f e b u o y h a s improved its quality all it needed to run an effective advertisement campaign to get the customers attention. The advertisement team of Lifebuoy came up with excellent theme “HEALTHY HOGA HINDUSTAN” and it is targeting parents which is t h e i r t a r g e t market, Lifebuoy made very effective ad and it also used fear strategy ( w h i c h i s e f f e c t i v e i n c a s e o f a n t i b a c t e r i a l s o a p ) . T h i s h a s e n a b l e d Lifebuoy to get more and more customers. Now a days, Lifebuoy is every wherein Television, Radio, Newspapers and Billboards, Lifebuoy is running a huge campaign to promote itself which is very necessary in case of repositioning the brand.

With the help of marketing department and advertisement, Lifebuoy has successfully repositioned itself as a quality antibacterial soap with better fragrance and more durability. Many companies try to reposition themselves when they see market trend shifting but most fail to do so. In case of Lifebuoy it has been successful. The interesting thing about this campaign is that Lifebuoy is running the same c a m p a i g n i n P a k i s t a n a n d i n I n d i a a s i s d o n e b y U n i l e v e r , t h i s s u g g e s t t h a t l i f e b u o y c a m p a i g n India and Pakistan as the similar market segment.