CHOSEN PRODUCT:

COMPANY BACKGROUND:
The product that I am introducing, which is surf, is nothing
without the recognition of its creator the Unilever. The
company before it became one of the biggest producers of
detergent soaps; it was first introduced as Lever Bros.,
founded by William Hesketh Lever in 1890s. According to their
official website (www.unilever.com), the founder William
Hesketh Lever promotes its corporate mission that it was to make
cleanliness commonplace; to lessen work for women; to foster health and
contribute to personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and
rewarding for the people who use our products. He actually started his ideas
for Sunlight Soap under Lever Bros., a famous soap brand in 1885, for being
a pure soap formularized in a village called Sunlight in Liverpool England and
it is his revolutionary new product that helped popularize cleanliness and
hygiene in Victorian England.
At present, the Unilever expanded its empire globally by servicing almost
100 countries in the world including the Pakistan and they are up to
competition to its No.1 competitor that offers the same products and that is
the Procter & Gamble.
SURFS EVOLUTION:
Surf is the name of a brand of laundry detergents mostly sold in the
countries being served by Unilever. The said product offers a variety of
laundry detergents such as Surf Excel and Surf Excel Matic that consumers
can choose from depending on his or her desired use of the product like hand
washing, soaking and using a washing machine.
In the Pakistan, the advertisement campaign of Surf Excel, Dhaag to acha
hota hain which primarily promotes the concept of stains as being the
least concern, and that they are not bad at all, boosts the sales of Surf
products. The advertisement campaign reflects the idea that dont let
ordinary stains ruin your day. It also tackles the ordinary life of a Pakistani
woman having a simple family who enjoys life without worrying about petty
stains.
Although child development is at the very heart of Surf's message, this
would not be possible without the superior stain removal properties that
come with every bag of Surf Excel. Its ability to remove a wide variety of

stains effectively is what gives Surf Excel users the ability to break free from
the mundane and become liberated.

MARKETING STRATEGIES:
Marketing Mix
The process and the development of relationships by carefully examining the
needs and wants of consumers, developing a product or service that satisfies
these needs, offering it at a certain price, making it available through a
particular place or channel of distribution, and developing a program of
promotion or communication to create awareness and interest.
The four Ps in marketing mix, product, price, place, and promotion, are
present in the marketing strategies of surf products but they focus more in
price and promotion where:
1. Product It is given that you must produce a product before
introducing it to the masses. In the case of Surf detergents, they
introduced one-by-one the varieties of Surf Excel powders. Guided by
discipline of sales promotion and advertising, it reflects that the surf
products have a huge demand in the market.
2. Price Compared to other detergent products especially from Procter
and Gamble, Surf is less expensive and since the Pakistan is a
developing country where most people are suffering from poverty, it
caters to the capacity of Pakistani people to buy the product. It is easy
to sell and use direct marketing if you are offering a product with
quality but more affordable to the consumers.
3. Place (distribution) Surf is owned by a huge company which is
Unilever; its key promotion strategies are the various tie-ups with
merchandisers and distributors to retailers or distributing channels that
distributes the product to the consumers. The constant general
advertisements helped establish brand recall indicating the new
products available in the market and the distributing channels where
people can buy the products.
4. Promotion The offerings of promos beneficial to the distributors and
consumers keep the life of Surf products in the market. The push and
pull promotion strategy was used by the Unilever as producer in such a
way that they pushed the products to the different distribution
channels to the target consumers while the pull effect occur when the
success of their advertisement Dhaag to acha hota hain put a
mark in the mind of the consumers. The consumers demand products
from distribution channel and the channel demands from the producer.

The Unilevers Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) also provide avenue for
the Surf products to penetrate and influence the mind of the consumers from
being an environment friendly company to putting housing projects for the
poor.
As a whole, the aim to expand the distribution capabilities and the
development in distribution system is common in all competitors to make
their products more accessible to all. Hence, it is proposed for Surf to look
into further innovation in its distribution capabilities and system to ensure
their post in the market thus becoming the No.1 detergent company in the
Pakistan or in the world.
Promotional Mix
It is the coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set-up channels of
information and persuasion in order to sell goods and services or promote an
idea.

The Promotional Mix

Advertising

Personal Selling
Interactive/ Internet Marketing Publicity/ Public Relations
Direct Marketing
Sales Promotion

Compared to the four Ps of marketing mix, there are at least six tools in
promotional mix as shown in the picture that can be utilized by Surf to
persuade people in order buy their ideas and products. Since we have
different products available in the market, it doesnt necessarily mean that
you will utilize all the tools of promotional mix. It is also considered
promotional mix even if you only have three of its tools used in your product
because some tools are effective to small scale producers and others to giant
industry producers.
Surf detergents is using in it marketing strategy almost all the tools, but they
rely much on the capacity of advertising, sales promotion, and
publicity/public relations.
1. Advertising it is already described that advertising play a very
important role in the success of Surf products especially in the
Pakistan. The country has at least several television stations and five

leading radio stations, which helped surf products in introducing its

idea to the consumers.
Dhaag to acha hota hain phenomena
Away from the traditional TV advertisement commercial that creates a
need for the consumer, Surf products were introduced by creating an
ideology for the masses. It is an ideology which subconsciously
penetrates the minds of the viewers creating a message that it is more
than just buying a product for needs or satisfaction but implying from
its creatively produced advertisements the right and wise spending of
savings.
The commercial applies the cultivation theory by Gerbner (1973)
augmented in the book of Dennis McQuail (1987) Mass Communication
Theory: An Introduction which states that:

Television, among modern media, has

acquired such a central place in daily life that it
dominates our symbolic environment,
substituting its message about reality for
personal experience and other means of
knowing about the world.
Surfs television commercials/advertisements (TVC) cultivates
the ideology that women or mothers in general as target consumers of
the product has limited roles of a woman especially in our modern
society where she is living. Lumen ang wais na misis (Lumen the
wise housewife) is able to maximise her capabilities as a responsible
mother in which she can provide for the day-to-day needs of her
family with the help of Surf detergent products. It successfully
created an image that represents an ideal Pakistani woman.
2. Sales promotion is a marketing activity that provides extra value or
incentives to the sales force, the distributors, or the ultimate consumer
and can stimulate immediate sales.
Surf capitalized on this tool to hook the attention of the
distribution channels and product consumers. They offer the industry a
great incentive in bulk purchases, incorporating product promos like
30% more or increase in the actual weight of the products, free fabric
conditioner in every detergent powder, raffle promos such as living
room showcase or sari-sari store, house and lot, trips abroad, and cash
up to 3 million pesos.

Consistency of their extra value and incentives in the marketing

and production chain gained an immediate positive feedback to the
products consumption system. And through the years, innovation in
the products using sales promotion has produced new and improved
Surf products.
3. Publicity/public relations Building good relations with the
companys publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a
good corporate image, and handling or heading off unfavourable
rumours, stories, and events.
Amplified by the promotional mix tools advertising and sales
promotions, Surf succeeded in their PR campaigns in promoting an
ecologically friendly image and with the help of their company
Unilever, theyre claiming to be the leading laundry soap in the
country. Surf also uses different strategies to be in limelight by
producing activities sponsored by Surf, sponsoring game shows both in
ABS-CBN and GMA7, and even following the life of January Isaac known
as the Surfs model Lumen ang wais na misis beyond the camera just
to create an issue.
SURF: ITS FUTURE IN MARKETING:
Among the tools in the promotional mix used by Surf, none of the three
elements is inherently superior or inferior because they have their own
capabilities in reaching their target consumers and they are expected to
collaborate and create a web threading the elements present that will
capture more the ideals and taste of the consumers or the masses as a
whole. Each element has its function in an integrated marketing campaign.
With this strategy, the brand SURF will always arise above the others while
giving the consumers the chance to get the message and idea that they
wanted to relay to them.
We are living in a time where the demand for convergence of
technology is on its summit and it also shows that our society seems to
constantly crave the next level of innovation in information and
communication technology. With the use of modern technology, Unilever will
always have the chance to improve their products, including Surf, and create
promotional campaigns that will reach the target market while achieving
their companys main objective to help people feel good, look good and get
more out of life.