Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Umbrella branding 10
Branding procedure 14
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The Hindustan Unilever Limited
INTRODUCTION:
Hindustan Unilever Limited has traditionally been a company, which
incorporates latest technology in all its operations. The Hindustan Unilever
Research Centre (HURC) was set up in 1958, and now has facilities in
Mumbai and Bangalore. HURC and the Global Technology Centers in India
have over 200 highly qualified scientists and technologists, many with post-
doctoral experience acquired in the US and Europe.
Hindustan Unilever Limited is India’s largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20
distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods &
Beverages. Hindustan Unilever Limited is also one of the country’s largest
exporters; it has been recognized as a Golden Super Star Trading House by
the Government of India. The mission that inspires Hindustan Unilever
Limited’s over 15,000 employees, including over 1,300 managers, is to “add
vitality to life.” HUL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and
personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get
more out of life. The products of Hindustan Unilever Limited are
manufactured over 40 factories across India. The operations involve over
2,000 suppliers and associates. Hindustan Unilever Limited’s distribution
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network, comprising about 4,000 redistribution stockiest, covering 6.3
million retail outlets reaching the entire urban population, and about 250
million rural consumers. Some of the products manufactured by Hindustan
Unilever Limited are: Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair &
Lovely, Pond’s, Sunsilk, Clinic Plus, Pepsodent, Close-up, Lakme, Brooke
Bond, Kissan, Knorr-Annapurna, Kwality Wall’s. These products are
popular in Indian as well as foreign markets.For achieving all the goals set,
the company needs its employees and to get their support the company needs
to motivate them. BRANDING STRATEGY Their main challenge was to
reverse the down trading in the categories and re-establish the relevance of
their brands in the mind of the consumer. In 2000, they had 110 brands,
many undifferentiated and lacking scale. They chose to focus on 35 power
brands covering all consumer appeal and price segments. They are already
seeing the benefits. Six brands — Brooke Bond, Lifebuoy, Lux, Fair &
Lovely, Rin and Wheel — have emerged as mega brands in the last five
years, each with sales of more than Rs.500 crores.
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The leading business magazine, Forbes Global, has rated Hindustan Lever
as the best consumer household products company. Far Eastern Economic
Review has rated HLL as India’s most respected company.
The vision that inspires HLL's 32,400 employees (40,000 including Group
Companies), including about 1,425 managers, is to “meet everyday needs of
people everywhere - to anticipate the aspirations of our consumers and
customers and to respond creatively and competitively with branded
products and services which raise the quality of life.” This objective is
achieved through the brands that the company markets.
It is an ethos HLL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds
51.55% of the equity. A Fortune 500 transnational, Unilever sells Foods and
Home and Personal Care brands through 300 subsidiary companies in about
100 countries worldwide with products on sale in a further 50.
Business nature
HLL is India's largest marketer of Soaps, Detergents and Home Care
products. It has the country’s largest Personal Products business, leading in
Shampoos, Skin Care Products, Colour Cosmetics, and Deodorants. HLL is
also the market leader in Tea, Processed Coffee, branded Wheat Flour,
Tomato Products, Ice cream, Soups, Jams and Squashes.
HLL is also one of the country's biggest exporters and has been recognised
as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India; it is a
net foreign exchange earner. HLL is India's largest exporter of branded fast
moving consumer goods.
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Products, Basmati Rice, Castor Oil and its Derivatives. It is India's largest
exporter of MarineProducts, and one of the largest global players in castor.
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Talc brands are Pond's, Liril, Fair & Lovely, Vaseline and Lifebuoy. Axe
and Denim are HLL’s franchises for Men’s toiletries. HLL has recently
launched Lever Ayush Ayurvedic Health & Personal Care Products.
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strategy. Straddling almost every price segment with its SKUs, HLL has also
been trying to upgrade its consumers, even at the cost of cannibalizing its
own brands. Besides, freebies and promotions have finally been replaced by
direct price reductions to lure consumers. Observes Sujoy Mishra, an analyst
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HLL has mounted an initiative, Project Streamline, to further increase its
rural reach with the help of rural sub-stockists. It has already appointed 6000
such sub-stockists. As a result, the distribution network directly covers about
50,000 villages, reaching about 250 million consumers corporate
relationships which in turn prove beneficial for the functioning of the
company.
“The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your successes - any
fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your mistakes.”
The term brand means different things to the different roles of buyer and
seller, with buyers generally associating brand with a product or service, and
merchants associating brand with identity. Brand can also identify the
company behind the specific product -- that's not just a detergent, that's
“Surf Excel detergent”. This use of brand puts a "face" behind the name, so
to speak, even if the "face" is the result of advertising copy and television
commercials. This use of brand also says nothing of quality, just the buyer's
exposure to the brand's PR and media hype. For the typical merchant,
branding is a way of taking everything that is good about the company --
positive shopping experience, professionalism, superior service, product
knowledge, whatever the company decides is important for a customer to
believe about the company -- and wrapping these characteristics into a
package that can be evoked by the brand as signifier.
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Introduction to Branding
Branding has been around for centuries as a means to distinguish the goods
of one producer to those of another. The earliest signs of branding can be
traced to Europe where the medieval guilds required that craftsmen put
trademarks on their product to protect themselves and producer against
inferior quality substitutes. Also in fine arts branding began with artists
signing their works. Brands today play a number of important roles that
improve the consumer’s lives and enhance the financial value of firms.
Brands identify the source or maker of the product and allow consumers-
either individual or organizations- to assign responsibility to a particular
manufacturer or distributor. Consumers may evaluate the identical product
differently depending how it is branded. Consumers lean about the brand
with its past experience and the marketing program. As consumers lives
becomes more complicated, time starved the ability of brand to simplify
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decision making is invaluable. Brands also perform valuable functions for
the firm. First they simplify the product handling and tracing. Brands help to
organize inventory and accounting records. The brand name can be protected
registered trademarks. The intellectual property rights ensure that the firm
can safely invest in the brand and can reap the benefits over a long period of
time.
Brands can signal a certain level of quality so that satisfied buyers can easily
choose the product again. Brand loyalty provides predictability and security
of demand for the firm and creates barriers to entry that makes it difficult for
other firms to enter the market. This brand loyalty can translate into
willingness to pay higher price. In this sense branding can be seen as
powerful means to secure a competitive advantage. Brands represent
enormously valuable pieces of legal property that can influence consumer’s
behavior. Strong brand results in better earnings and profit performance for
firms, which in turn, creates greater value for shareholders.
Hence many reputed company like P & G, Crompton Greaves, etc have
adopted branding strategy as a tool for their sale of product. Also, HUL is no
exception.
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HLL has a large brand portfolio consisting of nearly 110 bands. In every
product line, it has built a number of brands over a period of time. Quite a
few brands have come to its fold from the parent company. It has also
acquired several ongoing brands from the market. HLL also vigorously
pursues brand extension strategy. And concurrently, HLL undertakes line
pruning and brand restructuring and consolidation, based on marketing
compulsions. HLL is also playing the rejuvenation and re-launch game.
With great benefit the corporate-level endeavors at business expansion and
diversification are also throwing new challenges on the brand strategy front.
HLL lends itself for a proper understanding of the complexity of the brand
management task. We shall examine how HLL handles the complex
demands in brand management.
Such an array of brands is the outcome of a conscious corporate strategy by
HLL. As a corporate, HLL wants to be a leader in every one of its businesses
and the strategy is to fight on the strength of the competitive advantage
arising from the possession of strong brands. It is this strategy that is getting
reflected in the development of a multitude of strong brands. If we take the
business of bathing soaps, as an example, HLL has the objective of being a
national player (not a niche or a regional marketer) and the leader therein.
HLL also wants about 30 per cent of the corporate income to come from this
line.
So, HLL opted for the strategy of developing quite a few strong brands in
this line, and among them they cover different market segments and price
points. Dove, Lux, Liril, Rexona, Pears and Lifebuoy are the outcome of
such a well planned brand strategy implemented over time. Lifebuoy is 100
years old and Liril 15 years old. In fact, HLL has about 10 brands of toilet
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soaps each having good volume of sale to its credit. The point is that
decisions on brand portfolio are a fundamental expression of the company’s
objectives and strategy governing a given business.
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Towards the close of the 1990s, HLL found that the germicide segment of
the soap market was growing fast, with RCI’s Dettol antiseptic soap leading
it. HLL did not have suitable offer in its stable to capture a share of this
segment. Lifebuoy was not strictly meeting the particular benefit.
HLL knew that launching and developing a new brand would take a lot of
time and resources, and the company would miss the market if it chose this
route. HLL did not have the product formula either to enter this segment. It
was in this background that HLL decided to hire the Savlon brand from J&J.
Savlon was a successful antiseptic lotion, a competitor to Dettol lotion. Just
as the Dettol soap owed its origin to the success of the Dettol lotion, HLL
assessed that a Savlon antiseptic soap could be successfully extended from
the Savlon lotion.
It entered into an agreement with J&J for the use of Savlon brand name and
the product formula, and launched the Savlon antiseptic soap. HLL very
deftly managed successfully new brand launch and merged as a challenger to
Dettol soap. J&J secures a good royalty from HLL for lending the brand. It
is a potentially win-win arrangement for both companies.
HUL Products
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You may have seen a variety of water purifier advertisements and so may
be confused on which one to buy. This one is about Hindustan Unilever
PureIt and is not a recommendation to buy but just a review on how it
works and performs over others.
The main advantage of PureIT water purifier is that you don’t have to worry
about either continuous water supply or electricity supply. Having said that,
it may also be a disadvantage that you need to manually put in water every
time the water level depletes to near zero. The bottom transparent bottom
chamber can store up to a maximum of 9 litres of water and the top chamber
another 9 litres. Hence if your family is a big one say consisting of at least 8-
9 members, then you may have to fill the water chamber multiple times a
day.
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through a Compact carbon Trap that further removes any dirt, if present
besides removing any parasites or pesticides.
The water will then be purified using the proprietary Germ kill battery that
kills harmful bacteria and Viruses.
Then the water reaches the lower part of the Unit where it goes through a
polisher that adds taste to the water and makes it completely odorless. Then
the water rises above the chamber and falls into the visible lower chamber
from which a tap arises.
The battery has a life indicator and normally lasts for nearly a year (for
single family consisting of 4 members). The life is indicated by a bar, which
when turns red should be immediately be replaced. The battery costs only
Rs.350 and the entire unit cost just Rs.2000.
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The kiosks would be run on a franchise model. “We would have
a business partner on board and the kiosks will be run on 10 by 10 sq ft
area,” added the official. Having done a pilot test in Delhi recently, HUL is
now poised to roll out these kiosks nationally along the lines of its existing
ice-cream parlour brand - Swirl’s which is also run through franchisees. In
fact, ice-creams have become a profitable business for HUL within its foods
portfolio which includes beverages and processed foods.
Meanwhile within the foods business, HUL intends staying away from the
ready-to-eat (RTE) business. “We have recently introduced the ready-to-
cook range under Knorr but we certainly would not be entering the RTE
category in foods. In future, there would be more products under the Knorr
franchise but these would be adapted from our international portfolio,”
HUL officials stated.
HUL's brands - like Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely,
Pond's, Sunsilk, Clinic, Pepsodent, Close-up, Lakme, Brooke Bond, Kissan,
Knorr-Annapurna, Kwality Wall's – are household names across the country
and span many categories - soaps, detergents, personal products, tea, coffee,
branded staples, ice cream and culinary products. They are manufactured
over 40 factories across India. The operations involve over 2,000 suppliers
and associates. HUL's distribution
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The 1980s witnessed a revolution in the understanding of the working of the
brands. Marketers depict brands as a reflection of customers’ own
personalities, so that they can relate to their products well. In fact the
distinguishing aspect of the modern marketing has been its focus upon the
creation of differentiated brands and using them as weapons for launching
multi-level attacks on competition. Market research has been used to help
identify and develop bases of brand differentiation. A brand identifies a
product and its sources, but it does even more. Along came brand extension.
Today brand extension strategies are widely employed because of beliefs
that they build and communicate strong brand positioning, enhance
awareness and increase profitability.
Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new
product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension
depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the
extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella
branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products
which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is
identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual
branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and
brand name.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s (HUL) beverage brands have been amalgamated
under two umbrella brands – Brooke Bond and Lipton and in the fabric wash
category, the company has retained only Rin, Surf and Wheel, HUL has
withdrawn brands such as Sunlight, 501, Dalda and Nihar; it plans to
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withdraw some more brands and group them under a few umbrella brands.
HUL is currently focusing on 35 power brands.
Consumer goods major Hindustan Lever (HLL) has decided to develop
Dalda as the umbrella brand for its cooking products. Consequently, it is
planning to de-emphasise the Flora brand of sunflower edible oil.
Dalda has a market share of about 29 per cent in the consumer packs
vanaspati market, while Flora’s share has dropped to 3 per cent, analysts
said.
The slippages in the branded oils market is owing to two factors—the sharp
increase in selling prices, which has made consumers look for cheaper
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alternatives in regional and local offerings, and a change in the price
equation of soya bean oil vis-a-vis sunflower oil, industry sources said.
Remember the ‘Is it love? No it’s Dove’ ads? In the 1990s, when everything
had to be low priced, consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever launched a
brand of soap that was considered expensive, frightfully expensive , for the
times we lived in. For about Rs 30 for a bar, it was nearly twice as expensive
as any toilet soap brand that was then sold in India. This was a time when
hanging out for coffee was at the neighborhood Udupi restaurant that
charged Rs 6 for a serving and not the Barista where a mug of coffee cost Rs
50. To get consumers living with that mindset to graduate to a brand like
Dove was a big leap.
Certainly the well-traveled Indian consumer who had seen and touched the
brand abroad were the first set that moved towards the brand for its superior
and “gentle on skin” properties. Others who sampled the brand had mixed
opinions. Occasionally you heard the sob story from a neighbour , on how a
Dove bar got over in just four days, when the Rs 10 soap lasted for a month,
giving rise to rather unkind remarks that Dove was ¼ moisturiser and ¾
love. This set of consumers used the bar for washing the face while a less
costly soap would be used for the rest of the body, a value-for-money
approach.
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From those use-for-special occasion days, Dove has come a long way. Last
year, HUL executives claim that Dove has grown by 100% in shampoos and
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cinematographer and film director, Rajiv Menon, who was involved in
making the earliest ads for Dove.
Branding procedures:
How do you “BRAND” a product?
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Brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that
consumer has associated with HUL and its product. When you think of
Lifebouy, you think of hygiene. When you think of Lux, you think of
Aishwarya Rai . When you think of IBM, you think of ‘Big Blue’. The fact
that you remember the brand name and have positive associations with that
brand makes your product selection easier and enhances the value and
satisfaction you get from product.
While Brand X or even Cornetto ice -creams may win blind taste tests over
choclate fudge, the fact is that more people buy cornetto than any other ice
cream. The fond memories of childhood and refreshment that people have
when they eat Cornetto is often more important than a little bit better ice-
cream taste. It I this emotional relationship with brands that make them so
powerful.
Purpose of Branding
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Branding is the voice and image that represents your business plan to the
outside world. What your company, products and services stand for should
The brand image that carries this emotional connection consists of the many
manageable elements of branding system, including both visual image assets
and language assets. The process of managing the brand to the business plan
is important not only in “big change situation” where the brand redefinition
is required, but also in the management of routine marketing variables and
tactics. This does not have to be a “ground-up” situation where there are
wholesale changes to the business. Rather it is more common that specific
changes to the changes to the business plan are incremental and the work of
the brand strategist and designer is to interpret these changes and revise the
branding strategy and resulting brand assets and define their use in the full
range of marketing variables.
Brand Identity
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and why it is better than the completion? Brand personality adds emotion,
culture and myth to brand identity by the use of a famous personality
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Owned Word
A strong brand name should trigger another word, a favorable one. Here is
the list of brands that own a word:
Slogan
HUL has successfully added a slogan or tagline to its brand name which is
repeated in every ad they use. Here are some well-known brands slogans,
which people on the street may easily recall or recognize:
Colors
It helps HUL to brand, by use of a consistent set of color to a product as it
helps in brand recognition. Ponds paint all its cosmetics pink. Yellowish
green is the color of Liril.
Company Word
Liril “Hygiene”
Rexona “Freshness”
Knorr “Food”
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Symbols and Logos
Companies would be wise to adapt a symbol or logo to use in their
communications. HUL hired a well-known personality, hoping that her
quality transfer to the brand. HUL uses Aishwarya Rai who has worldwide
recognition and likableness, to advertise its soap. HUL has sign contracts
with top personalities to serve as their symbols, even naming the product
after them.
Objects
Pillsbury Doughboy
7 Up Fido Dido
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Still another approach is to choose an object to represent a company or
brand. Dabur has joined hands with Walt Disney to put Mickey Mouse on
200ml Real-Mickey juice packs. Companies have developed many logos or
abstracts, which are easily remembered by people. Even the way the brand
name is written makes a brand recognizable and memorable.
Brand Effectiveness
With an increase in global competition, branding has become a source of
competitive advantage. In rapidly evolving market for consumer, and
industrial products and services, the source of next generation competency
will be branding. In this briefing we demonstrate how to calculate the brand
strength, the price premium associated with the products categories, and type
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target audiences will be exposed. The more unique and distinct your
communications, the wider the filed of effective competitive strength it will
have. There are simple means to apply to test the distinctiveness of your
brand.
Differentiation: the brand strategy and brand assets must set you’re offering
apart and clearly articulate the specific positioning intent of your offering.
Defendable: you will be investing in creating your brand assets and in all
cases your brand must have proprietary strength to keep others from using
close approximations. This applies to your trade names and other proprietary
words as well as to your logos, symbols and other visual assets.
Much of the brand manager’s work is to build a brand image. But its job
doesn’t stop there. The brand manager needs to make sure that brand
experience matches the brand image. Much can go wrong. A fine brand of
canned soup described in a full page color ad may be found in dented and
dusty condition in the bottom shelf of a supermarket. The ad describing a
gracious hotel chain is belied by the behavior of a surly concierge.
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Building brand therefore calls for more than brand image building. It calls
for managing every brand contact that customer might have with brand.
Since all the employees, distributors and dealers can affect brand experience.
The Brand
To any individual a brand (in his mind) is a complex combination of
experiences, beliefs, perceptions and associations that have grown up over
time. For example Coca-Cola is a company brand, a product brand, a service
brand and a brand with a long history. It is a brand which may represent (to
any one individual) diversity, internationality, technical excellence, financial
strength etc. etc. It may also mean insensitivity, environmental pollution,
abuse of power and other negative perceptions.
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• He buys Kwality wall’s branded product or service.
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• Web based advertising
• Billboards on highways
• Radio
• Press releases
• Press conferences
• Reporting of "events"
• Investigative journalism
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Professional/business interest: For some individuals to interface
professionally, or from a specific business need, with famous companies (or
to observe them) is part of their job. They will usually procure their
information from a variety of sources and via a variety of channels of
communication. These individuals have a special interest in the companies
and they include: -
The art of marketing is largely art of brand building. When something is not
a brand, it will probably be viewed as a commodity. Then price is the thing
that counts. When price is the only thing that counts then the low cost
producer wins. But just having a brand is not enough. What does the brand
name mean? What associations, performances and expectations does it
evoke? What degree of preferences does it create?
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A brand name first must be chosen then its various meanings and promises
must be built up through brand identity work. In choosing a brand name, it
must be consistent with the value positioning of the brand. In naming a
product or service the company may face many possibilities: it could choose
name of the person , location, quality, or an artificial name.
Benefits: A strong brand should suggest benefits, not just features. Thus
Mercedes triggers the idea of well performing car that is enjoyable to drive
and prestigious to own.
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Company Values: A strong brand should connote values that the company
holds. Thus Mercedes is proud of its engineers and engineering innovations
and is very organized and efficient in its operations. The fact that it is a
German company adds more pictures in the mind of the buyers about the
character and the culture of the brand.
Users: A strong brand should suggest the type of people who buy the brand.
Thus we would expect Mercedes to draw buyers who are older, affluent and
professional.
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Brand element can be chosen to build as much as brand equity as possible.
The test of the brand building ability of these elements is what consumers
think or feel about the product if they only knew about the brand element. A
brand element provides positive contribution to brand equity.
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Transferable: Can a brand element be used to introduce new products in the
same or different categories? To what extent does the brand element add to
brand equity across geographic boundaries and market segments?
Cartoon help:
“Toon illustrations create excitement, and also serve as a memory hook to
pick a particular brand from clutter”.
Kellogg’s animated kid and bear are intertwined in people’s minds. Nike
also used “swoosh” logo sign to bring immediate recall value, while the
Claymation characters Of Amaron, an O&M creative, pick on sleeping
politicians to get their value across. O&M’s Piyush Pandey says his firm
encourages the idea of breaking form. “Creative people have to look at
different ways to get message across, and if that means exploring other
forms of art, then why not?”
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HLL’s Annapoorna uses Flintstone like characters to drive its USP. Industry
officials say animation could be used as creative idea to express a particular
value, or it could be a sacrosanct image, almost becoming part of the logo of
the brand – like A-I am Maharaja or Amul Girl.
First it was retro advertising, and then there was the trend of using real kids.
The ad world’s latest obsession is with animation. Be it Bollywood actress,
an animated poodle talking to Rani Mukherjee and her gang of friends in the
Fanta commercial- they’ve all got the cool punch with animation.
“Animation is no kid stuff anymore. One sees a fair number of youth and
adult targeted content happening in the form of animation in films and TV
shows these days,” says Rahul Welde, general manager, media. Hindustan
Unilever Limited.
Mr.Welde claims to have used animation where it could add to the creative
quotient of the commercial which give something unexpected to the
audience.
“Gross thinks at time look cute in animation rather than the real thing, say in
case of a fat man. With Claymation (clay + animation), it broke the clutter
and became likeable in a very non-financial advertising style,”
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The contribution to the sales of pension schemes of the group rose 30% after
the campaign. The popularity of cartoons among youngsters- a gradual
transformation over the past few years.
Besides the advantage of visual appeal, many complex issues, such as stunts,
can be done away with, with the use of animation- for instance the stunt in
However, what creative director’s hate about animation is the fact that it
takes a lot more time “For Amul girl itself, we need to work for three weeks
to get it absolutely right,”says Chauhan JWT.
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message carrier in rural areas. Infect the opinion leaders are the most
influencing part of promotion strategy of rural promotion efforts. The
experience of agricultural input industry can act as a guideline for the
marketing efforts of consumer durable and non-durable companies.
Relevance of Mass Media is also a very important factor.
The Indian established Industries have the advantages, which MNC don't
enjoy in this regard. The strong Indian brands have strong brand equity,
consumer demand-pull and efficient and dedicated dealer network which
have been created over a period of time. The rural market has a grip of
strong country shops, which affect the sale of various products in rural
market. The companies are trying to trigger growth in rural areas. They are
identifying the fact that rural people are now in the better position with
disposable income. The low rate finance availability has also increased the
affordability of purchasing the costly products by the rural people. Marketer
should understand the price sensitivity of a consumer in a rural area. This
paper is therefore an attempt to promote the brand image in the rural
market.
Introduction
Indian Marketers on rural marketing have two understanding (I) The urban
metro products and marketing products can be implemented in rural markets
with some or no change. (ii) The rural marketing required the separate skills
and techniques from its urban counter part. The Marketers have following
facilities to make them believe in accepting the truth that rural markets are
different in so many terms.
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(i) The rural market has the opportunity for.
(ii) Low priced products can be more successful in rural markets because
the low purchasing, purchasing powers in rural markets.
(iv) The rural markets can be worked with the different media environment
as opposed to press, film, radio and other urban centric media exposure.
How reality does affects the planning of marketers? Do villagers have same
attitude like urban consumers? The question arises for the management of
rural marketing effects in a significant manner so than companies can enter
in the rural market with the definite goals and targets but not for a short term
period but for longer duration. The Research paper will discuss the role of
regard. The strategy, which will be presented in the paper, can be either
specific or universally applicable.
Project Shakti
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This has been made possible due to the initiatives taken up by Hindustan
Lever Ltd (HLL) for an exclusive project called Shakti through which
women in a remote village can access happenings around the world.
As part of this commitment, HLL is leveraging on Self-Help Groups (SHGs)
as they become direct-to-home (DTH) dealers in line with other micro credit
models
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From the time HLL's new distribution model, named Project Shakti, was
piloted in Nalgonda district in 2001, it has been scaled up and extended to
over 5,000 villages in 52 districts in AP, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya
Pradesh with around 1,000 women entrepreneurs in its fold. The vision is
ambitious: to create by 2010 about 11,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering one
lakh villages and touching the lives of 100 million rural consumers.
2000, with agriculture being the main business. This simply shows the great
potentiality rural India has to bring the much - needed volume- driven
growth. This brings a boon in disguise for the FMCG Company who has
already reached the plateau of their business urban India.
As per the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER)
study, there are as many 'middle income and above' households in the rural
areas as there are in the urban areas. There are almost twice as many' lower
middle income' households in rural areas as in the urban areas. At the
highest income level there are 2.3 million urban households as against 1.6
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expected to grow from 46 million to 59 million. Thus, the absolute size India
is expected to be doubles that of urban India.
HLL chairman MS Banga Says, "This exercise may not pay in the
immediate future, but will definitely give long-term dividends. Incidentally,
over 50 percent of the sales of HLL's fabric wash, personal wash and
beverages are in rural areas. And we see a future in going rural in a major
way".
The improved agricultural growth is expected to boost rural demand,
through not at too sizzling a rate. Moreover, the price drop in personal
products, after the recent excise duty reductions, in also expected to drive
Consumption. "Better agricultural yields will give farmers more spending
power, making the rural markets bullish," says an analyst.
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The companies are trying to trigger growth in rural areas. They are
identifying the fact that rural people are now in the better position with
disposable income. The low rate finance availability has also increased the
affordability of purchasing the costly products by the rural people. Marketer
should understand the price sensitivity of a consumer in a rural area. The
small sachet packs are the examples of price sensitivity. Colgate has done
this experiment with launching of sachet packs for rural markets.
Lifebuoy
When we talk about HLL the first name that comes to our mind is Lifebuoy.
It is the world’s largest selling soap and offers a stronger health benefit to
the entire family Launched in the year 1895, Lifebuoy, for over a 100 years,
has been synonymous with health and value. The brick red soap, with its
perfume and popular Lifebuoy jingle have carried the Lifebuoy message of
health across the length and breadth of the country, making it the largest
selling soap brand in the world.
In 2002 Lifebuoy was relaunced, marking a new turning point in its history.
The new mix includes a new formulation and a repositioning of the brand to
make it more relevant to both new and existing consumers.
PROMOTION
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consumers were moving away from the carbolic based soaps to beauty
soaps - perceived to be superior; with better fragrance and lather;
aspirational image.
in rural areas were covered. The brand registered a 30 per cent increase
in volumes and the share of contribution to HLL's detergent division
turnover increased to 55 per cent.
HLL was also offering cross company product mixes - a 200 gm Bru packet
comes with one Cadbury's Dairy Milk; Red Label tea packet comes with
Cadbury's Five Star depending on the size; 100 gm Lifebuoy comes with a
small Amrutanjan.
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`Lifebuoy for health' message of the brand". Innovative communication
tools were used at the mela to communicate the importance of health and
hygiene. “The company 14 stalls at various points in the mela grounds.
Some hand-carts have also been deployed for increasing access. The
numbers of both was increased based on response. ``The activity aims to
build awareness in the target audience about hygiene and health through
product demonstrations".
People in Mela were asked to put there hands below some special camera
where the7y could see the germs on their hands and were asked to wash their
hands with lifebuoy and then see the difference. These type of promotional
activities worked in these melas.
Operation Harvest
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Operation Harvest endeavored to supplement the role of conventional
media in rural India and, in the process, forge relationships and loyalty
with rural consumers. Operation Harvest also involved conducting of
product awareness programmers on vans.
Research Objectives
The research paper consists of following objectives:
(i) To analyze the present promotion strategy of few brands in rural markets.
(iii) To study the determinants of specification factors which can decide the
success the rural promotion strategy?
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(iv) To evaluate the effects of adopting the specific brand ambassadors in the
rural marketing context.
Review of Literature
The Marketing Mastermind (2003), Hindustan Lever rural marketing
Initiatives by "A Mukund" Marketing Mastermind has given the
perspectives in which HLL has approached towards rural markets.
The Economic Times (2003), "The rural market likes it strong" the strength
of rural markets for Indian companies. Financial express, June 19, 2000 has
published the strategy about FMCG majors, HLL, Marico Industries,
Colgate Palmolive have formula had for rural markets.
Conceptual Framework
Given the Literacy scenario in to consideration the promotion of Brands in
rural markets requires the special measures. Due to the social and backward
condition the personal selling efforts have a challenging role to play in this
regard. The word of mouth is an important message carrier in rural areas.
Infect the opinion leaders are the most influencing part of promotion strategy
of rural promotion efforts. The experience of agricultural input industry can
act as a guideline for the marketing efforts of consumer durable and non-
durable companies. Relevance of Mass Media is also a very important
factor. Door Darshan had already acquired high penetration in rural
households.
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Now the cable and other Channels have also penetrated in rural households.
The newspapers and other printed Media are also gaining strategy but their
role is still secondary in this regard.
The Ad plays an important role for giving boost to rural consumers feeling.
The feeling plays very important role. The Language and content (72%) and
expression style of Rani Mukerji (85%) play significant role.
BPL advertisement
Contents Favor Non-Favor No Comment
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Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as a 75% 20% 5%
brand Ambassador of LUX
Modes Favor Non-Favor No Comment
The Action style of 65%
Hats Aishwarya 65% 30% 30% 5%
5%
Wall
Rai Paintings
Bachchan 40% 53% 7%
Melas
The language of Ad. 65% 62% 20% 20% 15%
18%
Hats and Melas play a very important role in this regard. The 65% response
in favor of this is an indicator of this.
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Suggestions
2) Rural mindset accepts the brands easily, which are close to their culture.
This point must be reflected in ad for rural markets.
Conclusions
1) The Language and content must be according to the suitability of rural
environment.
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2) Background figures are also a deterministic factor.
History: Owned by global consumer products giant Unilever Plc., the parent
company of Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL)
Status: Enjoys more than 17% market share in the premium soaps market
valued at Rs 6,000 crore
Brand story: What is the common seductive link between Hollywood actor
Paul Newman,Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai
Bachchan and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J.
Jayalalithaa? They have all tried selling a soap at some point or the other.
And the soap is Lux, the premium beauty soap from consumer products
company HUL. “Lux has been the epitome of beauty for the Indian woman
and inspires all women in India to enjoy the process of beautifying without
any constraints,” says Srikanth Srinivasamadhavan, category head, personal
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wash, HUL.
What has not changed is the consistency in its communication and its
positioning.
Its tag lines—If it’s good enough for a film star, then it’s good for you too to
Play with beauty—have conveyed the same message over the years. “Lux is
a brand like Mills & Boon. While the packaging and content could change,
the romance angle doesn’t. It taps into an emotion very close to humanity’s
basic need—social interaction.
The brand has always hired celebrities when they have reached a certain
height rather than using them at the start of their careers. This avoids the
issue of celebrities overshadowing the brand,” says Agnello Dias, national
creative director, JWT, which handles the account.
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CONCLUSION:
Therefore the motto of Hindustan Unilever Ltd is to encourage their
employees irrespective of success and failure. They combine the efforts on
building strong
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