(G.D.Goenka World Institute) : (An Group Assignment On The Case Study of Cavin Kare)

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[G.D.GOENKA WORLD INSTITUTE]

[Case Study: Cavin Kare Private Limited : Serving Low Income Consumers]

[MARKETING MANAGEMENT]

MODULE CODE:- GMSI579


Date:- 08/02/2010
Section B
Group 1

SUBMITTED BY: - CHIEF MENTOR: -


ANIRUDHA SHARMA Dr. ROHIT SINGH
GAURAV SINGH
TARUN MITTAL
RITU RUPRAMKA
MUKUL GUPTA

[AN GROUP ASSIGNMENT ON THE CASE STUDY OF CAVIN KARE]


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Ques 1) In the light of the above case identify the reasons and factors in growth of Chik
Shampoo. Is the size of that segment is one of the main reasons for its exponential
growth. Try to identify the details of various other competitors in that segment and
elaborate upon the positioning strategy of the company.

Answer: Size of the segment was considered as one of the main reason for Chik shampoo
exponential growth. Indian FMGC sector is fourth largest sector of Indian economy. The fast
growing Indian population particularly the middle class and the rural sector acted as a driving
force for the Cavin Kare to launch its product in the Indian market. The middle class and the
rural sector form the major chunk of Indian population. Due to low spending power of the
people it offered a huge market. Year 1983 revolutionized the FMGC sector when Cavin
Kare came into existence in market through product innovation, value pricing, product
differentiation and understanding of consumer mindsets. Untapped rural market which was
totally ignored by other competitors gave an advantage to Cavin Kare in launching its product
successfully.

The success and growth of Chik shampoo has been an outcome of various reasons:

 The rural segment in India forms a wide untapped market. It contributed 60% to the
country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So the focus was on rural consumers and
this would turn out to be a big opportunity for Cavin Kare. In a way the company
followed the concept of niche marketing by capturing the rural market, as there were
no companies targeting the rural segment.
 Various national brands such as Sunsilk and Clinic Plus focused on urban consumers
while ignoring the rural markets. It overlooked the opportunity of capturing the rural
segment. This led to an opportunity for Cavin Kare to target the rural consumers
where there were no competitors.
 The company started differentiating its product- Chik Shampoo from other brands on
the basis of quality, superior fragrance and affordable prices. It used a French perfume
to enhance the appeal of the fragrance. This added feature of the product drew rural
market’s attention.
 The company developed a communication plan to create brand awareness among the
consumers by the use of mass media advertising through radio and to educate them

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about the usage of the product by road shows and free screening of movies. It also
went for distributing free samples and large scale door to door sampling and also
developed various schemes to attract sales. It used more of sachets than bottles
considering the cost factor for the low income segment. This led to an inflated growth
in the sales of sachets than in the sales of bottles.
 Selling at the national level became a problem for the company due to the poor
physical infrastructure, due to which it faced difficulty in logistics, product shipment,
delivery of stocks and reaching out to retailers. To overcome this difficulty it started
tapping periodic markets like ‘haats’ and ‘melas’ for distribution. These were usually
held after the harvest season so the people had enough cash in hand.
 The company had a possibility for volume expansion and growth. There were still,
problems faced by the rural low income consumers because of high price. Cavin Kare
developed substitutes at reduced cost through research and development. This
deflated the prices of Chik shampoo with no change in the quality and standard of the
product. The market share of the company increased substantially.
 Cavin Kare reduced the price of shampoo bottles also. This made it affordable for the
rural low income people to buy the product without hesitation.
 Innovation is another essential factor the company considered. The constant
engagement with the customers helped them understand the consumer’s tastes, needs
and preferences before their competitors.
 The opportunity grabbing situation for Cavin Kare’s was when its competitors viewed
rural market as low margin. Earlier its competitors focused more on gross margins
and less on volume. Seeing the opportunity, Cavin Kare thought it was easy to tap the
rural market than the urban market.

The fact is that the size of the rural segment is one of the main reasons for Cavin Kare’s
exponential growth.

The following are the factors responsible for the growth of Chik Shampoo:

 Large Untapped Market: Cavin Kare focused on the rural segment where there was
no or negligible competition because other competitors thought that it was not
profitable doing business in that sector and they focused on the urban population.

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 Brand Awareness: Cavin Kare has created a brand for itself. It has launched
aggressive marketing strategies so as to distinguish itself from other brands and create
an image which is liked and appreciated by everyone and the people want to link to it
directly or indirectly to it.
 Employee Motivation: company had a policy of appreciating the ideas given by the
employees. It also funded the ideas which were more significant. This helps the
company in applying new strategies for the growth of Chik shampoo.
 Low Unit Packs (LUP) Form: The Company served the target segments in the form
of LUPs. They provided the shampoo in small sachets which were easily affordable
by the rural people. This approach helps in the capturing more market share.
 Effective Market Study: The R&D department conducted an effective market study
and found out that rural consumer were not willing to spend much in hair and so as to
combat this they came out with a new strategy and launched the same product but in
small sachet and price is low so that everyone is willing to buy it.
 Well Managed Outsourcing Operation: Outsourcing was done so as to reduce
overhead cost. Company realized that shampoo manufacturing did not have
technological entry barriers. This helped Cavin Kare to become a nimble and agile
organization. Exclusive outsourcing helped Cavin Kare to focus entirely on marketing
and distribution of its product.
 Cheap & Ease at Use: The product was available at a affordable rate @ 50p for the
rural consumers. Due to its effective publicity as to live demonstration of shampoo
usage and door to door advertising it was made easy to use.
 Initially the company targeted the bottom of the pyramid market, which was the rural
market being the majority of the total of the Indian market. The focus was only on the
rural segment.
 From the year 1998-2003, the company had a turnover of Rs.850 million-Rs.2640
million. It shows that focusing alone on the rural segment turned out favourably high
in terms of profit margins and sales of the product. While focusing on both the rural
as well as the urban markets, the company could yield high rate of returns and sales.
 Seeing the rural market share of shampoo brands, in the year 2002, the market share
(in volumes) of Chik Shampoo, against its competitor’s Clinic Plus and Lux, was
39.02 against 27.89 and 9.56. This shows that Cavin Kare is playing a dominant role
in the market as it captures most of the market share.
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 The market share (in percent) of Chik Shampoo has been dominant as it has risen
substantially from the year 1997-2001. In the following states- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Chik shampoo places itself at 1st position and in
Madhya Pradesh and Orissa; Chik shampoo places itself at 2 nd position. By acquiring
the majority of the market share, this shows that Chik shampoo was a market leader
 The retail prices of sachets and bottles of Chik shampoo are much lower as compared
to the competitors like- Clinic All Clear, Clinic Plus, Head and Shoulders, Pantene
and Sunsilk which increases the demand for Chik shampoo more than any other
products.
 The size of the rural market in the country is wide. Most of the rural income comes
from the agricultural sector which is the dominant sector in our country. The
agricultural sector accounts for 60 percent in our country. The rural market holding
dominance in the market segment in our country can be profitable for Chik shampoo
alone as it is, a more rural market concentrated company which focuses more on the
needs, tastes and preferences of the rural low income consumers. The following
reasons show that it is a consumer centric company which leads to more high turnover
and productivity in terms of profitability and high performance of the company.
 Proper R&D also helped them in gaining market share. They studied the consumer
tastes and preferences and developed their product accordingly. They found out that a
rural consumer was not willing to spend much on hair wash so they came out with a
small sachet costing 50p which helped them in gaining market share and their market
share increased tremendously after that. Along with size of the segment they also
developed good distribution network with systematic approach and managed
resources along with advertising campaign, which accounts for their exponential
growth.
All the above mentioned reasons and factors helped in the growth of Chik Shampoo.

Positioning Strategy of the Company: Before the launching of Chik shampoo, there were
already some big players performing well in FMGC sector. Shampoo namely Clinic Plus,
Sunsilk, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Vatika herbal were already under the big names,
namely Hindustan level limited (HLL), Procter & Gamble (P&G), Dabur, Godrej, Johnson &
Johnson and many more. Chik shampoo has to come up against all of them which it did
successfully and place itself as a brand. The main reason for its success was that it focused on
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the rural sector which was ignored by its competitors. Competitors of Chik shampoo focused
on urban population which they thought was more profitable. Most of the shampoo brands
were positioned around the health platform, highlighting benefits like lesser or no hair loss,
lesser or no dandruff, no split hair, curing and avoiding damage to hair, etc.
Positioning is the perception or the image that customers have of the company and its
products. Once the company formulates the segmentation and targeting strategies, the
company then focuses on its positioning strategy. Company has positioned its product on the
following basis:
 Quality – It provides superior quality than its competitors and at cheap price.
 Fragrance – It used French perfume in its product which no other company used.
 Distribution network – It has a wide distribution network, which makes is product
available at almost all places. It has retail outlets at all places.
 Brand – It positioned its product as a separate identity.
The Positioning strategy explains about, how to introduce the product in the market and to
place the product in the minds of the consumers. Educating the masses about their product
through the use of media such as advertising, sales promotion and personal selling plays an
important role in the positioning strategy of the company.

The factors such as brand, quality, product differentiation, affordability, fragrance,


consumer association and the distribution network strongly affected the positioning
strategy of the company. The following above factors made it easy for the rural low income
consumers to buy the product without any hesitation.

Advantages of Positioning:

 The affordability and superior quality of the product compelled the consumers to
demand more for the product than its competitor’s product.

 The fragrance of the product made it more appealing in the minds of the consumers

 The company’s distribution network was so vast and widespread, by which the
products were made available everywhere

 It maintained a brand equity through which it could position its product as a unique
selling product.
 Consumers strongly associated themselves with the brand Chik shampoo.
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Ques 2) “Indian FMCG market is said to be very complex and dominated by the big
players with a sizeable market share”. Do you think it was a well thought out marketing
mix strategy for rural segment adopted by Chik Shampoo as a main cause of success?

Answer: The Indian FMCG market is said to be very complex and dominated by the big
players with a sizeable market share but these companies were mainly targeting the urban
market which merely constitutes about 24% of the overall market. They have a very intense
distribution network in urban areas but they lack in their holding in rural areas. What these
companies were not able to identify is the opportunity lying in the rural market, which Cavin
Kare did really well. Cavin Kare was able to explore this rural market which was still
untapped by the footsteps of these big players. The sizeable portion of India’s populations
resides in the rural area. The success of Chik Shampoo lies on the business model they have
incorporated to serve these areas. Since the people living in such areas have very less
disposable income and there was a drought of quality shampoos available in the market with
lower cost targeting these peoples. The rural peoples used to prefer soap to wash their hairs
instead of the shampoos since they cannot afford to buy the shampoo bottle worth Rs 60
because of their less per captia income. As stated by C.K.Prahalad "The future lies with
those companies who see the poor as their customers" and this was the mantra for the
success of the Chik Shampoo. They were able to get hold the nerve of the people living in
rural areas or what we call as Bottom of Pyramid approach. They successfully redefined the
concept of FMCG in India. They successfully changed the dynamics of consumer product
marketing forever because of which Chik Shampoo was successful in not only surviving the
cut throat competition but also in becoming one of the leader in shampoo market. Cavin
Kare’s strategy of outsourcing manufacturing activities was a major reason for its success. It
helped the company to keep the costs low and allowed it to focus on marketing and
distribution. The marketing mix strategy that was followed by Chik Shampoo for rural
segment is the reason behind its success. The strategies that have been followed by them are:

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Urban
Together they form
the major portion of Area
consumable market.

Cavin Kare
Semi Urban
successfully Chik Shampoo
predicted the growth Targeted Area
in this untapped
market. Rural Market (BOP)

 4 A’s approach of Indian Rural Marketing adopted by Chik Shampoo as a part of


marketing mix strategy:
 Availability: Rural Markets are characterized by poor physical infra-structure and is
spread over 600,000 villages making it a challenge for Marketing. Chick shampoo
was made available through tapping the villagers in haats and melas, which attracted
targeted consumers within a radius of 12-15km. Another reason for making the
product available in haats and melas was that the melas were organised during the
harvesting season when the farmers have money to spend and as per rural marketing
study, 58% of the villager gave preference to purchase from haats over village retail
outlet. In other words chick shampoo was taken to the people when they had money
and to the environment when they enjoyed purchasing. Another significant strategy to
make chick shampoo in reach of the villager was the launch of the product in the
sachets giving the liberty to the consumers to buy the product as and when needed.
The availability of low unit packs marked a significant increase in sales.

 Affordability: Low-margin and high-volumes is the most successful business model


for India and has been successfully demonstrated by Cavin Kare. Realizing the gap in
the shampoo market at non affordable price of Rs 60 by middle class was the key
drivers in the success. Making the chick shampoo available first for Rs 2 and then for
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50 paisa in September 1999 made all the difference. Chick shampoo sachet for 50
paisa revolutionised the market.

 Acceptability: Shampoo was viewed more as a glamour product and therefore was
used only in occasions such as weddings, festivals, parties and hence the target of the
company was to make it a necessity product and make it acceptable in competition to
products like soap and traditional alternatives “heena”. So in order to increase the
acceptability the strategy was to link the product with popular movie starts of the
south like Amla, Khusboo and Manormaa, along with educating and communicating
with the consumer.

 Awareness: The Company realised the fact the villagers had no idea about how to use
shampoo and the market penetration in respect to shampoo was only 14% and 86% of
the villagers used soap. Therefore the communication mix strategy included officials
to go in vans and live demonstrate the benefits of using shampoo and comb there by
educating customers and awareness. Free screening of movies and distributed free
sample of shampoo also helped in creating awareness about the brand. Door to door
sampling also contributed to increase the awareness. They also started aggressive road
shows to educate villagers how to lather, wash and comb hair.

 Pricing Strategy: One of the hurdles that was faced by the major competitors like sunsilk
and clinic plus was that of the disposable income in the rural market. Since the prices for
these products were pretty high as compared to the disposable income these people have.
Cavin Kare was able to identify this problem which was prevailing at that time which acted
as a barrier to entry to these brands that why they decided to keep the price of their shampoo
as low as they could and keeping the quality up to their meets. Also the rural market is
typically a seasonal market. People usually have disposable income during the monsoon also
the consumption level goes high during that period which Chik Shampoo took care of in
strategically pricing it’s sachet as per the demand and requirement of the rural peoples.

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 4 P’s approach of Indian Rural Marketing adopted by Chik Shampoo as a part of


marketing mix strategy:

Promotion Place

 Advertisement Strategy-
Powerful appeal of Cinema  Targeting
 Communication Strategy : consumers through Haats and
Popular cinema dialog as Radio Melas
Jingles  Taking product
 On wheel Promotion physically to Consumers
 Trial – Free samples  Educating in schools
 Empty sachet scheme

4 P’s

Price Product

 Market Penetration by  Sachet Revolution


Sachet of Rs 2 Low Unit Packaging
 Further Market Penetration by  French Fragrance
Sachet of 50 paisa  Competition to soap
 Biggest competitor Rs 8 per and home products like
month price range of soaps Heena
 Earning through small  For Daily Users than
distributors Occasional users
 Low Margins High Volume

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Diagonal Interaction Relationship between “Price and Promotion” in Chik Shampoo


Marketing Strategy

In the success of Chik shampoo price and product both have marked a vital role. The Market
penetration is achieved through low unit packing which gave birth to Rs 2 price sachet and
hence become in reach of the consumers who had a freedom to buy the product when they
wanted to use. In order to further penetrate the market the Chik shampoo sachet price was re-
launched in September 1999. This change in the price further gave a chance to Chik shampoo
to compete with Rs 8 soap bar and the other home products like henna. The Advertisement
strategy included giving a personality to the brand, to do so the presence of famous celebrities
like Amla, Khusboo was used in the video advertisement and for radio jingles famous movie
dialogs of Rajnikant movies was intensively used. Free samples were distributed after
screening of movies and empty sachet scheme of getting 1 sachet free in return of 4 empty
sachets encouraged the users to buy product more frequently. In order to educate the
customers on wheel promotion was used; the officers would go in van and make the villagers
aware about benefits of shampoo and also educated school boys. The distribution pattern was
also very interesting, the distributors were encouraged to become entrepreneurs and even
small contribution by them in terms of collection was encouraged.
Diagonal Interaction Relationship between “Product and Place” in the Chik Shampoo
Marketing Strategy
The product was made available in sachet which brought a revolution in the marketing. Low
unit packaging gave the face lift to the sales of the chik shampoo. To make the product more
acceptable the french fragrance was used in the product giving it a different appeal form the
other close competitors. The product was launched keeping two things in mind, firstly that
the users have to be converted form occasional users to regular users and secondly that it has
to compete with soap and home products like heena. In order to make this possible, along
with low pricing and promotion, the sale of product in haats and melas marked a huge
difference as the villagers preferred purchasing the product more from these melas and haats
rather then there village retail outlets. The product was taken to the people by distribution of
free samples and awareness campaign of on wheel promotion. The product was also taken to
schools by the medium of educating the school boys.
Hence after analysing the 4P structure of the Chik shampoo, it can easily be inferred that the
a strong marketing mix strategy through proper planning and research along with innovation

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gave the product a new brand image and a feel good factor in terms of price and quality to the
consumers.
 Consumer Behaviour: The most important reason for the success of Chik Shampoo was
because they were able to study the consumer behaviour effectively. It is really very
important for any FMCG company to understand the consumer psychology, to study how
they feel, reason and select between different products/alternatives available in the market
which is something Cavin Kare was able to do really well. Due to the low per capita income
of rural people compare to those of urban areas and low level of literacy they had designed
their marketing campaigns accordingly to the market segment they were focusing upon. Since
there were only few households in rural areas with TV sets so they come up with this new
concept of organising fairs and THAAT Bazaars along with the on-air publicity of their
shampoo. They also followed the door-to-door sampling along with sending their teams to
such places to create awareness among them and to make them familiar with the product they
were offering to them. It helped the consumers too that time to differentiate among the
alternatives available along with creating an image of Consumer Awareness Company.
Understanding consumer behaviour helped them to shape their marketing strategies according
to the issues prevailing in the market scenario at that period of time. But not just the study of
consumer behaviour helped the company much; the complete study of what their competitors
were doing was also taken in care by them. There were brands like sunsilk and clinic plus
were also there but they were targeted only at the urban areas. But studying consumer
behaviour helped the Cavin Kare in analysing the market situation that time. Due to which it
was able to establish its name as Consumer Product Company.

 Segmentation: Market segmentation forms an important phase in developing marketing


strategies. These are the strategies that were undertaken by CavinKare to carve out and
emerge at the top.
 Consumers were segmented on the basis of their Income Levels and focus was on low
income consumers.
 Rural-urban segmentation and emphasis was laid on rural population.
Advantages of segmentation:

a) Improving Market Position: Market segmentation improves your market position by


helping you to determine how well your products and services meet target market
member’s needs compared to how well your competitors’ products and services meet
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those needs. Using market segmentation to access the power of market characteristics
enables you to meet target market members’ needs, speak their language and relate to
them through events and activities.
The more effective you are at improving your marketing strategies and tactics with
characteristics derived from market segmentation, the more likely you will convert target
market members into customers.
b) More Competitive: Segmenting relates to dividing a big group into small. This helps in
understanding your target market members better and helps you in positioning your
product and sell more. You can also improve your competitive advantage by learning
more about competitor intelligence statistics.

 Targeting: Targeting strategy starts with the completion of segmentation strategy.


Segmentation is a means to target marketing. In targeting one need to decide about which
segment need to be focused.
 It was targeted at the lower middle class and semi-rural population with monthly income
of Rs 1500-3000 where no other MNC thought would be beneficial, due to which it could
capture large market share and increase profit with increase volume even by maintaining
low margin.
 It targeted periodic markets like haats and melas. It acted as a useful means of reaching out
to rural consumers. These attracted people from near around villages within a radius of 12-
15 km.
Advantages of Targeting:
a) You can easily drill down to the features and benefits of your services and products that
are most important to your target market.
b) Once you know your target, it's a lot easier to communicate with them using the features
and benefits that are most important. Whether communicating verbally or in writing, you
can address the issues most important to your target market.
c) Once you identify your target market, it is simpler to determine where and how you can
most effectively market your services. You can form partnerships with other businesses
that offer complimentary services.

 Brand Building: Since Indian Market is already flooded with many FMCG sector companies
and is being dominated by big players. For a new company to come and fix their footsteps in
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the already dominated market which has a presence of companies like HLL, P&G etc. these
companies has ample out of money to spend on R&D and for investments. But the magnitude
of the opportunity in this segment is much greater than what it is expected, but the
opportunity lies in the untapped segment of the rural market which Cavin Kare successfully
identified since these rural peoples are becoming the part of the Indian Market Economy at
large. It is expected that the rate of growth of the rural market will soon surpass the urban
market. The companies who are able to en cash this opportunity can expect to get reward in
the long run and the perfect example for this is the Chik shampoo. One of the well planned
marketing mix strategies, which Chik Shampoo adopted was to focus on the rural segment is
Positioning Strategies. As stated by Ries and Trout, “positioning is what you do to the mind
of the prospect”. It is about how we position a product in the eyes of the customer. It
differentiated the Chik Shampoo from what other companies were selling that time.
Positioning helped the Cavin Kare in positioning themselves advantageously within the
segment. The sachet revolution started by Cavin Kare helped the company to position
themselves as a value proposition company among the eyes of the customers. The customers
were happy to get the quality shampoo at the cheapest price, which helped the company to
position their image as Value Proposition Company. Positioning also helped the company
to establish the right brand identity and the brand image. The USP (Unique Selling
Proposition) which helped in increasing the sales of the Chik shampoo was its packaging.
The sachet was very new to the Indian Customers which enabled them to buy the shampoo as
per their earnings and also placed their product distinctive and superior to its competitors in
the mind of the customers.

 Retail Chain: Distribution costs and non-availability of retail outlets were the major
problems faced by the marketers that time. The success of the Chik Shampoo was because of
their fast sales and repeated order. This had happened because of the carefully thought out
retailing chain Cavin Kare has followed. To attract more buyers they came out with many
offers for the retailers too. They had the most extensive retail outlet chain for the rural
market. They reached the targeted customers in an innovative manner by tapping periodic
markets like Haats and Melas which also served as potential low cost distribution channel
because of which Chik shampoo was successful in increasing its penetration of rural markets.
The distribution of free sample sachets of Chik Shampoo was an example of company’s
attempt to build direct contact with the consumers which thereby promoted their sales too.

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 Buying Decisions: As a rural consumer has less disposable income to spend they were
always termed as very cautious customers in terms of their buying power. It is hard to
convince them to go for a particular product because they like to give a trial whenever there
is a new product in the market, for that Cavin Kare distributed free samples in such areas to
create awareness among the consumers for their brand and make their brand a known name in
the market. They also influenced their buying decision by offering them free sachet of Chik
Shampoo for every 4 empty sachets a consumer submitted to the retailer. This has helped a
lot in increasing the sales of the Chik Shampoo.

The buying decision process follows a logical sequence of five steps –

Evaluation Purchase
Need Information of Decision Post
Recognitio Search alternative Decision Purchase
n s Behaviour

Cavin Kare followed the basic steps to influence the buying decision of the rural consumers.
First they were able to understand the (1) Need of the consumers since that time there were
around 100 brands of shampoos available in the market but with very low awareness among
consumers. The success of Cavin Kare revolved around this factor only because it was able to
meet the need of the consumers for a superior quality shampoo with appealing perfume at the
cheapest cost that was in the market. They gathered (2) Information regarding the buying
pattern of the consumers. They founded that the rural consumers are not very brand cautious
like our urban consumers, they don’t stick to one brand, and they look for the cheapest
alternative available to them. They don’t prefer to buy anything in the bulk and to stock up
the products. The evolution of sachets for Chik Shampoo was accepted handily by the rural
consumers since they prefer to buy products as and when they require. (3) Evaluation of
Alternatives for the shampoos in that price range also affected their buying decision since
other competitors like HLL was selling its product Sunsilk and clinic plus at much higher
rate. Also Cavin Kare was able to cut its cost structure which enabled them to sell their
quality product (Chik Shampoo) at the lower cost. Because they were the pioneer of business
process outsourcing which proved its advantage over other competitors. There managed to
influence their (4) Purchase Decision. They were able to spread awareness among the

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consumers to replace the soap with their product, since most of the households that time were
using soaps for hair washing. But Cavin Kare managed to aware them that their product is
more cost effective and using soaps could even damage their hairs. The (5) Post Purchase
responses from the consumers acted in the favour of the Chik Shampoo. Even the consumers
felt satisfied when they used their products. The introduction of floral fragrances for the first
time in the shampoo also caught the attention of the rural consumers and the effective costing
of its sachets helped a lot in achieving the after sales satisfaction.

 Competitive Advantage: The Chik Shampoo enjoyed the competitive advantage over its
rival shampoos. Cavin Kare was successful in benefiting from this fact at a sufficiently lower
cost because any competitive advantage over others is seen as a customer advantage. Despite
the availability of some low cost shampoos the potential user rural population was finding
them unaffordable to buy and this situation was perfectly utilised by the Cavin Kare. Their
research division developed a new formulation at a reduced cost without compromising with
the quality and the efficacy. It enabled them to launch a 4 ml sachet of Chik Shampoo priced
at just 50 paisa. They also enjoyed the competitive advantage over the shampoo bottles too
which make bulk buying affordable to the consumers. So Chik Shampoo benefited a lot by
the competitive advantage it enjoys over its competitors.
From all these factors it is clearly seen that Cavin Kare is among those few
companies which were able to predict the economic potential of the buying power of the
bottom of the pyramid people. It has successfully created a place in the heart of every Indian
as trustable Indian Consumer Aware Company. All these factors helped Chik Shampoo and
Cavin Kare as whole to be a dominant and respected player in the Indian FMCG market.

[AN GROUP ASSIGNMENT ON THE CASE STUDY OF CAVIN KARE]

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