The promotional strategies of five products of Unilever
Number of the Assignment: 01
Submitted to:
Amena Khatun
Lecturer,
Department of Business Administration
City University
Khagan, Ashulia, Savar, Dhaka.
Course Instructor: MKT- 405 Advertising
Submitted by:
Name: Sarwar Hasan
ID: 162421011
Batch: 42nd
MKT- 405 Advertising
Department of Business Administration
City University
Khagan, Ashulia, Dhaka.
Date of Submission: 10-11-2019
The promotional strategies of five products of Unilever
Company Profile of Unilever:
Unilever is British-Dutch Multinational Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FM CG) company. Their
products include foods, beverage, cleaning agents, and personal care products. It’s the world’s
Third-largest consumer goods company measured by revenues (after Proctor & Gamble and
Nestle) and world’s largest maker of ice cream. As of October 2014, their Revenue is $ 66.1 Billion
and Profit $ 6.4 billion. It is the 6th largest company in FMCG with market value $ 124.5 billion.
Unilever was founded on 1st January 1930 by Antonius Johannes, Samuel van den Bergh and
William Hulme lever, 2nd viscount leverhulme. The amalgamation of the operations of British
soap makers Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie (a 1927 amalgamation
of Anton Jurgens M argarinefabrieken N.V and Samuel van den Bergh) made sound commercial
sense. As palm oil was a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and could be imported
more efficiently in larger quantities. The current Unilever logo was introduced in 2004 and was
designed by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins. It’s composed of 26 icon woven together to create
U shape; with each icon representing one of the company’s sub-brands or its corporate values. The
brand identity was developed around the idea of “Adding vitality of Life”. Unilever owns more
than 400 brands; although its 25 largest brands account for over 70% of total sales. Unilever
focuses resources on 13”Billion-Euro Brands” each of which has annual sales in excess €1 billion.
Unilever Bangladesh Ltd (UBL):
Over the last few decades, Unilever Bangladesh has been constantly bringing new and world class
products for the Bangladeshi people to remove drudgery of life. Over 90% of the country’s
households use one or more of our products.
 Type of Business: FMCG (Fast moving consumer goods) company with local manufacturing
facilities, reporting to regional business groups for innovation and business results.
 Operations: Home and personal care, Beverages, Food products etc in Bangladesh.
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 Constitution: Unilever 60.75% shares, Government of Bangladesh 39.75% share.
 Product Categories: Household care, Fabric cleaning, Skin Cleansing, skin care, Oral care, Hair
care, Personal grooming & Tea based beverages.
 Brand In Bangladesh: Wheel, Lux, Lifebuoy, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Close Up, Sunsilk, Taaza,
Pepsodent, Clear, Vim, Surf Excel, Rexona, Axe, Dove and Vaseline.
 Manufacturing Facilities: It has soap manufacturing facilities and a personal products factory
located in Chittagong. Besides these, there is a te packaging operation in Chittagong and three
manufacturing units in Dhaka which are owned and run by third parties exclusively dedicated to
Unilever Bangladesh.
 Employees: Unilever Operations in Bangladesh provide employment to over 10000 people
directly and through its dedicated suppliers, distributors and service providers. 99.5% of UBL
employees are locals and we have equal members of Bangladeshi working abroad in other Unilever
companies as expatriates.
Mission of Unilever:
Unilever Bangladesh mission is to add Vitality to life. It meet every day needs for nutrition,
hygiene and personal care with brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of
life. In the future, its brands will do even more to add vitality to life. Its vitality mission will focus
its brands on meeting consumer needs arising from the biggest issues around the world today –
ageing populations, urbanizations, changing diets and lifestyles. Unilever Bangladesh see growing
consumer need for:
 A healthy lifestyle.
 More variety, quality, taste and enjoyment.
 Time, as an increasingly precious commodity.
Helping people to feel good, look good and get more out of life will enable us to meet these needs
and expand its business. The long-term success of its business is intimately interconnected with
the vitality of the environment and the communities in which they operate. The environment
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provides us with its raw materials and the ingredients UBL need to make its products. Healthy,
prosperous communities provide us with a healthy, growing consumer base.
Vision of Unilever:
UBL vision set out the long term direction for the company – where it’s want to go and how it is
going to get there:
 It works to create a better future every day.
 It help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that
are good for them and good for others.
 It will inspire people to take small everyday actions that can add up to a big difference for
the world.
 It will develop new ways of doing business with the aim of doubling the size of its company
while reducing its environmental impact. UBL has always believed in the power of its
brands to improve the quality of people’s lives and in doing the right thing. As its business
grows, so do its responsibilities.
Promotion:
Promotions are decisions about advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity used
to attract potential customers. Companies use promotion to inform people about their products and
services and also to enhance their public image and reputation.
Promotional Strategy:
Promotion is an attempt by marketers to inform, persuade, or remind consumers and B2B users to
influence their opinion or elicit a response. Most firms use some form of promotion. Because
company goals vary widely, so do promotional strategies. The goal is to stimulate action from the
people or organizations of a target market. In a profit-oriented firm, the desired action is for the
consumer to buy the promoted item. Mrs. Smith’s, for instance, wants people to buy more frozen
pies. Not-for-profit organizations seek a variety of actions with their promotions. They tell us not
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to litter, to buckle up, to join the military, or to attend the ballet. (These are examples of products
that are ideas marketed to specific target markets.)
Promotional goals include creating awareness, getting people to try products, providing
information, retaining loyal customers, increasing the use of products, and identifying potential
customers, as well as teaching potential service clients what is needed to “co-create” the services
provided. Any promotional campaign may seek to achieve one or more of these goals:
1. Creating awareness:
All too often, firms go out of business because people don’t know they exist or what they do. Small
restaurants often have this problem. Simply putting up a sign and opening the door is rarely
enough. Promotion through ads on social media platforms and local radio or television, coupons
in local papers, flyers, and so forth can create awareness of a new business or product.
Large companies often use catchy slogans to build brand awareness. For example, Dodge’s wildly
successful ads where a guy in a truck yells over to another truck at a stoplight, “Hey, that thing got
a Hemi?” has created a huge number of new customers for Dodge trucks. Hemi has become a
brand within a brand. Now, Chrysler is extending the Hemi engine to the Jeep brand, hoping for
the same success.
2. Getting consumers to try products:
Promotion is almost always used to get people to try a new product or to get nonusers to try an
existing product. Sometimes free samples are given away. Lever, for instance, mailed over two
million free samples of its Lever 2000 soap to targeted households. Coupons and trial-size
containers of products are also common tactics used to tempt people to try a product. Celebrities
are also used to get people to try products. Oprah Winfrey, for example, recently partnered
with Kraft Heinz to launch a new line of refrigerated soups and side dishes made with no artificial
flavors or dyes. Kate Murphy, director of strategic partnerships at the social marketing platform
Crowdtap, weighed in on the strategy. “Celebrity endorsements can provide immense value to a
product/brand when done right,” Murphy said. “If a celebrity aligns with a product, they bring a
level of trust and familiarity to the table.”
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3. Providing information:
Informative promotion is more common in the early stages of the product life cycle. An
informative promotion may explain what ingredients (for example, fiber) will do for a consumer’s
health, describe why the product is better (for example, high-definition television versus regular
television), inform the customer of a new low price, or explain where the item may be purchased.
People typically will not buy a product or support a not-for-profit organization until they know
what it will do and how it may benefit them. Thus, an informative ad may stimulate interest in a
product. Consumer watchdogs and social critics applaud the informative function of promotion
because it helps consumers make more intelligent purchase decisions. StarKist, for instance, lets
customers know that its tuna is caught in dolphin-safe nets.
4. Keeping loyal customers:
Promotion is also used to keep people from switching brands. Slogans such as Campbell’s
soups are “M’m! M’m! Good!” and “Intel Inside” remind consumers about the brand. Marketers
also remind users that the brand is better than the competition. For years, Pepsi has claimed it has
the taste that consumers prefer. Southwest Airlines brags that customers’ bags fly free.
Such advertising reminds customers about the quality of the product or service.
Firms can also help keep customers loyal by telling them when a product or service is
improved. Domino’s recently aired candid advertisements about the quality of their product and
completely revamped their delivery operations to improve their service. This included
advertisements highlighting a Domino’s pizza being delivered by reindeer in Japan and by drone
in New Zealand. According to University of Maryland marketing professor Roland Rust,
“delivery” stands out in how Domino’s has broadly improved its quality, and “the customized
delivery vehicles are a competitive advantage.”
5. Increasing the amount and frequency of use:
Promotion is often used to get people to use more of a product and to use it more often. The
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association reminds Americans to “Eat More Beef.” The most popular
promotion to increase the use of a product may be frequent-flyer or -user programs.
The Marriott Rewards program awards points for each dollar spent at a Marriott property. At the
Platinum level, members receive a guaranteed room, an upgrade to the property’s finest available
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accommodations, access to the concierge lounge, a free breakfast, free local phone calls, and a
variety of other goodies.
6. Identifying target customers:
Promotion helps find customers. One way to do this is to list a website as part of the promotion.
For instance, promotions in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek regularly
include web addresses for more information on computer systems, corporate jets, color copiers,
and other types of business equipment to help target those who are truly interested. Fidelity
Investments ads trumpet, “Solid investment opportunities are out there,” and then direct consumers
to go to http://www.fidelity.com. A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal for Sprint unlimited
wireless service invites potential customers to visit http://www.sprint.com. These websites
typically will ask for your e-mail address when you seek additional information.
7. Teaching the customer:
For service products, it is often imperative to actually teach the potential client the reasons for
certain parts of a service. In services, the service providers work with customers to perform the
service. This is called “co-creation.” For example, an engineer will need to spend extensive time
with team members from a client company and actually teach the team members what the design
process will be, how the interaction of getting information for the design will work, and at what
points each part of the service will be delivered so that ongoing changes can be made to the design.
For services products, this is more involved than just providing information it is actually teaching
the client.
Methods of Promotion:
1. Product promotion:
Promotion method businesses use to convince consumers to select its products or services.
2. Institutional promotion:
Promotion method used to create a favorable image for a business, help it advocate for
change, or take a stand on trade or community issues.
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Promotion Mix Concept:
To reach its promotional goals, an organization develops an effective promotional mix which is a
combination of strategies and a cost-effective allocation of resources.
Unilever’s Promotional Tool
Unilever needs to promote its products, considering the high level of competitive rivalry in the
global consumer goods market. This section of the marketing mix outlines the strategies and tactics
in the company’s approach to promote its products to target consumers. Unilever uses the
following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
1.
Advertising (primary):
2.
Sales Promotion
3.
Public Relations
4.
Personal Selling
5.
Direct Marketing
Advertising serves as the primary means of promoting Unilever’s products. Many of the
company’s brands have advertisements on television and online media. The firm also occasionally
uses sales promotion, such as discounts and product bundles. For example, Dove soap bars are
sometimes offered in bundles of three at a discounted price. In terms of public relations, the
Unilever Foundation’s activities enhance corporate image and brand strength (Read: Unilever’s
Corporate Social Responsibility & Stakeholders). The company sometimes implements personal
selling in collaboration with retailers to operate kiosks for certain occasions or promotional events.
Direct marketing is the least significant promotional tactic in Unilever’s marketing mix. This tactic
involves directly engaging client organizations to promote suitable products. Based on this section
of the marketing mix, Unilever heavily relies on advertising as the main factor that influences
consumer perception about the company’s consumer goods.
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Unilever’s Prices and Pricing Strategies
Unilever maintains a wide variety of price points, considering the level of diversification of its
products. Prices and corresponding pricing strategies are determined in this section of the
marketing mix. In general, the most significant pricing strategies in Unilever’s consumer goods
business are as follows:
1.
Market-Oriented Pricing Strategy
2.
Premium Pricing Strategy
3.
Product Bundle Pricing Strategy
The market-oriented pricing strategy entails setting price points based on consumer goods market
factors. For example, Unilever uses competitors’ pricing to determine the most appropriate prices.
On the other hand, the premium pricing strategy involves prices that are higher than competitors’.
For instance, for products like Dove, Unilever applies moderately high prices that correspond to
the premium quality of the brand. Also, the company occasionally offers products in bundles set
at discounted prices. This section of Unilever’s marketing mix shows a mixture of strategies that
suit the variations in the company’s consumer goods and target markets.
The promotional strategies of five products of Unilever
Rexona:
Rexona is a deodorant and antiperspirant brand created in Australia and manufactured by
Unilever. While marketed under the Rexona name in most countries, it is known as Sure in the
United Kingdom and Ireland, Degree in the United States and Canada, Rexena in Japan and
South Korea and Shield in South Africa.
Rexona uses the following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
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a) Advertising: The first promotional strategy of Rexona is advertising. Rexona promote
their product with the advertising of newspaper, television, Magazine, Radio, Internet.
b) Sales Promotion: The sales promotions are based on things that women are very interested
like beauty. For example one famous promotion was: With the purchase of one of the
Rexona´s women products, the first 5000 shares won: 400 sessions of Makeup, 800 Duyos
Tops , 800 Duyos Sweatshirts, 2000 Duyos Bags.
c) Direct Marketing: Company’s strategy, Rexona uses blogs and facebook groups where
possibilities a close relationship with the costumer, besides it is a way of being in direct
contact with them.
Rin:
Rin is a detergent brand that offers a range of products which include washing powder, detergent
bars and a clothes whitening liquid.
Rin uses the following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
1. Advertising: Rin confident and bold advertisements are shown via television and radio in
electronic
media,
newspapers,
magazines
and
billboards
in
print
media, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in social media. Rin is a premium detergent
available at a lesser price. Kver the years the & due to it4s development in 3 uality and
heavy advertising the product has established it 4s brand name.
Pepsodent:
Pepsodent is one of the most known faces of Unilever. It is an oral-care product which has not
only helped clean people’s teeth but also helped educate the general people about oral care.
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Pepsodent’s direct competitor is Close Up.
Pepsodent uses the following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
1. Advertising (primary): The first promotional strategy of Pepsodent is advertising.
Pepsodent promote their product with the advertising of newspaper, television, Magazine,
Radio, and Internet.
2. Public Relations: Companies call press conferences when they have significant news to
announce, such as the introduction of a new product or advertising campaign. Moreover
newspapers publish special features on different CSR activities of toothpaste brands. Such
as Pepsudent of Unilever got huge attention of several leading newspapers of Bangladesh.
3. Personal Selling: Among all the toothpaste brands mostly Pepsodent of Unilever use
personal selling as an IMC tool to promote the brand. The company use opinion Leadersthe dentists to influence the final consumers. Pepsodent sends their sales representatives
to Dentists’ Chamber. The sales force tries to convince the Dentists through providing
brochures and free samples of toothpastes.
Vaseline:
Vaseline is a brand which makes skin-care products that have legendary status in the market.
Vaseline started producing petroleum skin products in the late 1870‟s. Now it has products in
almost every country in the world.
Unilever uses the following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
1. Advertising
2. Sales Promotion
3. Public Relations
Vaseline has employed all the traditional and conventional marketing strategies to promote
the product. There is no marketing avenue that has been left untouched. The company uses trade
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promotion, consumer promotion, public relations through press releases, Event organization such
as conferences, direct marketing, online marketing and adverts through the print media such as the
magazine & newspaper ads as well as through electronic and broadcast media.
Fair & Lovely:
Fair & Lovely is also a brand with a special reputation in the Indian sub-continent. Mainly making
beauty-enhancement products Fair & Lovely is still the market leader in its specific category
Unilever uses the following promotional tactics, arranged according to significance:
1. Advertising: The advertising method used for Fair and Lovely brand is unique in its
concept. The most common ad shows the whitening effect on women gradually in six
stages. The glow and the happiness depicted in this advertisement is a hope that every girl
dreams. In our society, every girl wants to be fair and so the fairness cream has become a
necessity instead of a luxury item. Marketing campaigns include ads on billboards,
magazines, banners, newspapers. The visual medium of television has been exploited to
the maximum limit.
2. Sales Promotion: Many online shopping centers are giving ample discounts and offers on
the market price to attract the customers.
3. Public Relations: Fair & Lovely was forced to respond to the negative reactions to their
advertisements by generating ample and positive publicity. The creation of a charitable
foundation was a smart and beneficial move by the company after their reputation in the
public was tarnished. Regardless of whether you generate PR out of defense or in support
of your business operations, it is imperative to reach the right audience. It may be even
more difficult to attract attention when you operate internationally, but doing so effectively
may the key promotional element that allows your organization to grow. Following the
intense PR efforts to reverse the damage done by HLL, it should be noted that sales of Fair
& Lovely have continued to grow at a rate 15 to 20% annually and the market for skin care
ihas grown over 40% since the advertisements first aired.
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Unilever has created ambitious goals to become 100% renewable by 2020 to not only improve the
future of the environment, but also because the cost-effectiveness of the market is beneficial to the
growth of their company.
“Our primary focus is to reduce overall energy use by improving the eco-efficiency of everything
we do in our factories, offices and other operations,” John Maguire, Unilever’s Group
Manufacturing Sustainability Director said. “Eco-efficiency isn’t about reducing the
environmental footprint, it also makes good business sense.”
“Since 2008, our eco-efficiency programs have avoided more than €300 million of costs; almost
€100 million in energy; €186 million in materials; €17 million in water; and €10 million in waste
disposal,” Maguire added. “The benefits are very clear in a world where energy prices are
increasing.”
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