Professional Documents
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Faculty Contributor : Avinash G. Mulky, Professor Student Contributors : Ajay Jain, Debasish Das, Karthik Rangarajan, Praveen Singh, Sulakshana S
It is common perception that many Indian women are partial towards fairer skin. Recently, noted dermatologists commented that people are now openly asking for a solution to something that has been an obsession through the ages. Equating fairness with beauty has turned out to be a key consumer insight in the case of the fairness creams industry with Hindustan Unilever capturing nearly 53% of the market share with Fair & Lovely. The company has drawn particular scrutiny for its promotions and advertisements featuring darker skinned women turning fairer on using the cream. This article attempts to chart the typical user of a fairness cream by segmenting the market, develops a positioning statement for Fair & Lovely and makes suggestions to increase the brand potential.
segment, with people accusing them of being regressive for promoting that fairness is beauty. These market forces have elicited certain reactions from Fair & Lovely and made the brand what it is today. Fair & Lovely - a INR 1,000 crores brand - is the market leader in this segment having captured at least 53% of the total fairness creams market.i The competition can be best understood, if it is divided into three separate categories - Mass premium, Equivalent pricing and the Men's segment, as shown in Exhibit 1.
In general, consumers had good and bad things to say about fairness creams. They believed that fairness can be associated with confidence. But the survey results also revealed that such creams do not fulfill their claims and that fairness is not the only functional benefit that consumers are looking for in a face cream. There are many perceptions about Fair & Lovely as a brand, some of which were positive. For example, since it is the oldest fairness cream, it has become a household name particularly in the southern part of the country. But Fair & Lovely is believed to be a product for the middle class by and large and its promotion strategies are dismissed as regressive in nature. The positioning strategy of the brand becomes apparent from this exercise and it clearly equates fairness with beauty and success. For the urban women from 17-25 years of age, Fair & Lovely offers the best path to beauty, self confidence and success among all fairness creams because it provides fairer, clearer, healthier and glowing skin in just 7 weeks.
Brand Equity
David Aaker defines brand equity as a set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service of a firm and/or to that firm's customers.3 Mapping the brand equity of Fair & Lovely using the Consumer based brand equity pyramid (CBBE)4 reveals that it has strong brand equity. Brand salience, as evaluated by the degree of "top of the mind recall" and "brand awareness" is good. Performance is based on the reliability built by the brand and the image which is defined by its heritage and its user profile, both of which are extremely high in this brand. The brand has built up credibility and a perception of quality leading to good judgments and feelings. Finally the loyal consumers of Fair & Lovely have an attitudinal attachment towards the brand, leading to high brand resonance.
termed as Vanity buyers. Similarly, the Price sensitive buyer is likely to rate affordability higher than other parameters while the Inquiring buyer is likely to be the early adopter of product innovations, such as the Ayurvedic or multi-vitamin skin creams.
Recommendations
In order to ensure the longevity of Fair & Lovely, changes in three of the 4Ps of marketing have to be initiated. The product, its price and promotion have to undergo a makeover. Such changes will inevitably necessitate a revamp of the basic model of Fair & Lovely as well as the introduction of new sub-brands to capture currently unattended segments. This can be initiated only by redefining the segments and identifying new target groups, for positioning the new sub-brands.
women between 30 and 50 of age to stay "wrinkle-free and young". An anti-ageing cream with wrinkle lift properties would satiate the needs of these women. Similarly, the usage of the product in the teens market was surprisingly low. Specific problems like pimples could be cured, by providing a skin cream with anti-bacterial and antiinflammatory protection.
Conclusions
Today Fair & Lovely is the market leader with 53% market share but in the era of increasing competition, erosion of market share is more a reality than mere speculation. With products like Emami's Fair and Handsome hitting out unexpectedly, Fair & Lovely should be proactive and increase the points of difference with its competitors. Moving beyond the message of fairness as beauty must be the center of its marketing communication. The recommendations provided would do just that, extending the core message of the brand through to the product and communicating it by various promotional strategies. In fact, this is where the next INR 1,000 Crores are most likely to come from. Authors
Prof. Avinash G. Mulky is the Chairperson of the Marketing area at the Indian Institute
of Management, Bangalore. He holds a Ph.D. from IIT, Bombay and a Post Graduate Diploma from IIM, Ahmedabad. He can be reached atavinashgm@iimb.ernet.in.
Ajay Jain (PGP 2008-10) holds a Bachelor's degree in Electronics & Communications
Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. He can be reached at ajay.jain08@iimb.ernet.in.
Debasish Das (PGP 2008-10) holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science &
Engineering from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Bhubaneswar. He can be reached at debasish.das08@iimb.ernet.in.
Instrumentation from the Biral Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani. He can be reached at karthik.rangarajan08@iimb.ernet.in.
Praveen Singh (PGP 2008-10) holds a Master's and Bachelor's degree in Mechanical
Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He can be reached at praveens08@iimb.ernet.in.
Sulakshana S (PGP 2008-10) holds a Bachelors degree in Fashion Technology (Textile
design) from National institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Hyderabad. She can be reached at sulakshanas08@iimb.erent.in. Keywords Hindustan Unilever, Fair & Lovely, brand equity, segmentation, targeting, positioning, promotion References 1. Challapalli, Sravanthi, "All's fair in this market", The Hindu Business Line,http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2002/09/05/stories/20020905 00040300.htm, September 2002, last accessed on: 6th October, 2009 2. "Fair & Lovely", http://www.fairandlovely.in, last accessed on: 6th October, 2002 3. Aaker, David, 1991, "Managing Brand Equity", Simon & Schuster, pp: 15 4. Keller, Kevin Lane and Moorthi, YLR, 2002, "Karma cola- Coke in India", Working paper no. 186, IIM Bangalore