Executive Summary

ITC has entered a rapid growth phase with foray into the non-cigarette FMCG business
segment where it has set a target of achieving Rs 1 lakh crore turnover by 2030. In this
direction, Savlon is a huge opportunity for success due to the large scope in the
handwash market where penetration levels are still a fair way behind penetration of soap
in the Indian market. In this direction, competitors such as RBs Dettol and HULs
Lifebuoy have made a lot of investment in building brand campaigns to build the
consumers preference towards handwash products.
Savlon as a handwash product has not been established in the market with its share of
the pie less than 2%. To increase the sales of the Savlon handwash products, we have
taken two approaches: Brand building which will increase the entire market or capturing
the existing users from the competitors.
We suggest a two-pronged approach with different approaches earmarked for rural and
urban markets. Brand building should start with ad campaigns through Television and
Digital media in the urban market which showcases the point of difference of Savlon
handwash .This should be complemented with offline and digital media campaigns at
school, mass festivals like Kumbh mela, Rathyatra, Kumbakonam etc in the rural market.
To work on the second approach of capturing market space, Savlon should look to
capture shelf space. It should go for bundling the handwash with Savlon Soap or
Antiseptic, introducing variants across different fragrance or by changing the packaging.
All of these could be achieved by leveraging the extensive distribution network of ITC
which serves to 4.3 million outlets of 8 million retail outlets in India. These steps would
help Savlon build brand equity and increase sales by building both the brand and its
market share. Handwash market being a largely commoditized market, consumers take
the quality, fragrance and brand perception as a major factor driving the buying behavior
of the customers not the price as a factor of differentiation among the various other
handwash brands.

Savlon
handwas
h brand
building

Revampi
ng the
marketin
g mix

Regular campaigns in television and digital

media complemented with offline campaigns
at schools,colleges,hospitals and kumbh
melas

5X
growt
h

Leveraging the brand equity of Savlon

Anti-septic liquid for further brand
extension

Altering the product attributes such as

packaging,fragrance and variant customized
for needs of the target segment

Handwash Industry Analysis

The total market of hand washes and hand sanitisers segment is about Rs 500 crore and
is growing at around 15 per cent each year. The hand wash market alone accounts for
about Rs 450 crore. Health and wellness is becoming an ongoing need of the country and
it is getting stronger with ongoing campaigns such as Swachh Bharat.
Dettol dominates the Indian hand hygiene market along with being a leader in liquid
hand wash(acquiring 80-85% of market share) and hand sanitizer categories, followed by
Lifebuoy, which are the most used product in India. Overall ITC personal care business is
900 crore with Savlons share at 65 crore (in revenue) brand when ITC acquired it.
Major growth drivers for handwash business:
Increasing awareness about personal hygiene and sanitation.
Government efforts in bringing sanitation issues to various schools in India ( along
with private partners)
Strong promotional drive such as :
1. Organizing workshop in schools
2. Unique product innovation
3. Promotional ideas such as kumbh mela campaign
Competi
tor

Product

Positioning

Price

Place

Dettol

8 Variants
Refill
packs
(185 ml to
900 ml), No
Touch Variant

100% germ fighter

with germ fighting
and protection as
the core value

78/pump,
140
for pH balanced,
38 for refill (185
ml)

Traditional
Distribution
Channel (wide and deep
reach), Direct marketing
(online)

Lifebuoy

6 variants
Refill
packs
(185 ml to
900 ml)

Germ protection in
just 10 seconds
(ease with 99.9%
germ free hands)

Wide Distribution Channel

(Unilever
has
reached
around 6.3 million retail
outlets), Direct marketing
(online)

3 variants

Leveraging
the
brand equity of
Savlon
ASL
(Trusted by 90%
doctors, 8 times
better protection),
protection against
1 million germs

64/pump, 75 for
color changing
variant,
37-65
for 185 ml pack
(depending on
the variant)
74/pump, 42 for
185 ml pack

Savlon

Wide Distribution Channel

(ITC has reached around
4.5 million retail outlets)
Direct marketing (online)

Marketing Campaigns by the competitors: Lifebuoy Help a child reach 5, 21 day

school program aiming at instilling proper hygiene practices amongst children, Kumbh
Mela (Lifebuoy se haath dhoya kya?), Lifebuoy Tree of Life, Lifebuoy Gondappa
Dettol- Banega Swachh India (Young Mothers program, School Programme, Disaster
Relief), Swachhta ki Pathshala

Marketing Mix Analysis of Savlon Hand wash:

Product 3 variants Double strength,moisture shield and herbal sensitive
Savlon Double Strength Handwash: Its unique formula with medicated fragrance,
offers effective and powerful cleansing for hands with extra dirt & grime.
Savlon Moisture Shield Handwash: Its unique formula with floral fragrance, offers
moisturized cleansing to make hands soft & supple.
Savlon Herbal Sensitive Handwash: Its unique formula with herbal fragrance, has
been designed for Sensitive skin.
Promotion by Savlon:
Above the Line
Below the Line
No advertisements exclusive for the hand wash Trying to push the product with offers like refill free
category, trying to build upon the ASL brand equity with the hand was pump pack, information insufficient
but the visibility of the product (hand wash) gets for other promotion activities like sales force or
unnoticed.
personal selling approaches
We want a catchy campaign to increase the recall value Maggi, Fogg.Capitalise on the
events like Olympics, other sports event primarily cricket (largest fan following in India)
Place: Currently the savlon retail presence is not so strong even if it is available in store
its shelf space presence is very less.

Survey: Primary Research

Two surveys on Brand perception and brand preference was conducted by convenience
sampling with people across different cities. Most of the people interviewed are highly
educated with a high income in one survey and in another survey had a mix of people
across different educational and income levels. Among the users of handwash, around
85% of the respondents recall Dettol brand in the Handwash category while 35%
recall Lifebouy with nil or insignificant recall for Savlon.
The most important decision making factors for the customers to buy a Handwash is the
Quality (3.58/5) or the perception of quality followed by Fragrance (3.4/5) and Brand
(3.39/5). Price (3.07/5) comes fourth while packaging (2.96/5) and variants (2.41/5)
doesnt affect the consumer decisions much. One observation was celebrity endorsements
had a very low score of 1.93/5. The most important influence for the consumer to buy
Handwash is Self-perception (60%) followed by Advertisements (22%) and suggestions by

SelfAd
WoM

Around 30% of them have used savlon at-least once and most of them have heard about
it. Only 20% have not heard about it before. People who have used Savlon liked its Germ
protection characteristics more than any other property. People who have used savlon
found it to be moderately to readily available in the retail stores.From the non-users of

handwash, it has been found that they use soap as an alternative mainly because of the
availability, lack of awareness and price effectiveness.
Interpretation and key consumer insights: After conducting a survey we came to
some meaningful consumer insights that can provide platform for its marketing, R&D and
product development teams to develop superior, differentiated products that meet the
consumer's stated and innate needs.
From the survey we could understand that Savlon
as a handwash has not been established in the
minds of the consumers. As it is a handwash people
want a high quality product and so it is highly
imperative for us to position our product having
high quality and germ protection
characteristics. Also as people would like to base
their purchase decisions based on the fragrance
and brand name. We should try to provide
different fragrance and build our brand equity by
creating awareness about the brand.
As most of the purchases of Handwash is driven by
self-decision we need to make the consumer realize
the importance of using a handwash to drive
category growth. Even a well-educated urban
consumer base have not heard about the brand so
we have to do a series of marketing campaigns to
build brand awareness.
Among the non-users we observed that the main
reason behind which they were not handwash was
Consumers felt that the fragrance of
savlon handwash was too strong so
they cant use it before eating food
Awareness among the customer about
the Savlon Liquid handwash is very
less
Savlon handwash is perceived among
the users as a handwash used when
someone is prone to water borne
diseases such as diarrhea.
Availability of handwash is good in
urban areas but the shelf space for
handwash is very less.

Packaging of handwash was not luring

them to buy the brand

The non users of handwash had a

proposition that soap was rather easy
to use and provided value for money

Marketing Strategies: Basically we feel and recommend that Savlon should revamp its
entire marketing mix so that it stands out in handwash market with respect to its
competitors.

Product:
1. Innovation and product variant: ITC should launch bodywash, shaving creams,
medicated plasters and kitchen gels, besides antiseptic liquid and soap, under the
Savlon brand.Handwash being a commodity product it becomes essential for
Savlon to come up with various variants so as to increase its shelf presence.
2. Packaging: From the consumer interview, we realized that the packaging doesnt
appeal to the customers and Savlons current idea of the ergonomics brand
recall from ASL is not working. We can use transparent packaging and
orange color liquid to use the color recall of the brand. This would cater also
consumers need of knowing how much liquid is left. Savlon should also leverage
the same labelling used for ASL in Handwash category like Lifebouy/Dettol to
improve brand recall and brand equity.
3. Fragrances: We have also found that fragrance increases stickiness to the
product and an important parameter in selection of a Handwash. Moreover the
current feedback of savlons fragrance is that it is very strong and related to poor
health. We could change the fragrance to include fruity smells, rose petals, Deo
smells, etc.
4. Variant: We could also introduce a variant as Anti-Bacterial handwash due to level
of Tryclosan as consumers are concerned with germ protection characteristics.
5. SKUs: Coming up with smaller SKUs and bundling it with existing savlon products
would help in building brand presence step by step
Promotion:
ATL: For the semi-urban and urban SEC-A consumers, we believe that Diarrhea, common
cold and food poisoning is a major threat to the childrens health. Savlon can target the
mothers with the following campaign
Advertisement story/plot: Affective component of persuasion
1. Your child is not going to school properly
2. Your child is weak in studies
3. Your child gets constant cold
Cognitive component of persuasion: Once the scenario is build-up through the
advertisement, a doctor reasons out that this could be because you dont use a Handwash and the ad ends with Savlon - Ab mere haatho mein mere bacho ki suraksha. The
advertisement ends with remark that savlon will remove 100% germs.This Ad could be
promoted through both TV and Digital channels like YouTube and Facebook to reach the
target audience.
Consumer Offers: We propose ITC to come up with either of the following customer
offerings in order to create handwash brand awareness

Bundle the ASL or the Savlon Soap with handwash

Providing free refill pack with the handwash pack

Activation Programs and social media marketing:

Activation programs such as hand hygiene programs especially to mass gatherings could
enhance the brand awareness and customers learning about the Savlon Handwash.

With urban and SEC-A being the target segment we could leverage the internet presence
to increase consumer engagement through social media platforms such as
facebook,twitter,etc

Place:
Retail stores- Gondola Marketing:
ITC can leverage its extensive distribution
network of 4.3 million retail outlets with gondola
marketing strategy wherein the entire shelf or
gondola of the retail store would be occupied by
ITC personal care products.This approach would
try to mitigate the problem of shelf space as it
would make the savlon handwash presence to

Urban and Rural market - Out of the

total 600,000 villages in India, around
10,000 villages contribute more than 50% of the total revenues. These 2% of the
premium villages are essentially located in 10 states: Maharahstra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, West Bengal and Gujarat.
Currently, brand awareness of handwash products is building up in these markets due to
aggressive campaigns by other competing brands. We suggest ITC to leverage its
extensive distribution network and tie-up with all the government hospitals and
dispensaries. There are a total of 8384 rural hospitals and 2119 urban hospitals in these
states (as per 2013 data provided by Indian government). Savlon, as an antiseptic
liquid is highly favored by most of the doctors due to its unique
characteristics. ITC should build on this to influence the doctors and medical
authorities to adopt Savlon handwash products in their hospitals. For this, a
promotional campaign can be conducted where free promotional products are given to
all the rural hospitals. All the patients who come to the hospitals and use the hand wash
products will retain an image of the Savlon handwash in their minds which will create a
brand recall and they will have a strong belief in the quality of the product. According to
fair estimate, we formulated that about 1680787 units of savlon handwash could be sold
through promotional campaign. For our target segment, SEC A and living in a town with more
than 40 lakh people who have a children of the age 7-14, we have a potential of around 35004000 thousand households yet to adopt the Handwash. So, over the next few years by both our
and competitor's ad campaigns and category building activities we expect a conversion of at

least 500-600 thousand households to adopt Handwash and at 2-5% market share
Savlon can achieve more than 5X sales growth.
Conclusion: Finally we can conclude that savlon handwash has to reposition itself entirely from
ground, leveraging the brand equity of ASL. Savlon should focus on existing users through
innovative packaging and product formulations, different SKUs and variants while for non-users
it should come with promotional offers, campaigns and exclusive retail outlet formats such as
gondola marketing.

Guesstimate_sales

ITC potential
Urban.xlsx