INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH

MKT-201
MKT-201, Section:4, Autumn 2016
Date of Submission: 10 November 2016

Submitted To:
Mr. Mohammad Sohel Islam
School of Business Administration

Submitted By:

Md. Sarwar jahan 1410294

Shuvojit Barua 1510762

MD. Abidur Rahman Pranto 1620556

Md. Zahid Hossen 1620237

Anick Nath Pranta 1530154

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 Project report on
Marketing strategy of lux soap

EKTU KHANI LUX

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 Acknowledgement

First and foremost, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our project
guide for giving us the opportunity to do an interesting project like this. We were
privileged to experience a sustained, enthusiastic and involved interest from
their side. This encouraged us to boldly step into what was a totally dark and
unexplored expanse before us. We specially thank Unilever Bangladesh website,
YouTube and other related website for giving us valuable information.

Last but not the least, we would like to thanks to all those who help me in making
the project and wish to thank our parents for their supports and encouragement
throughout the study

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Letter of Transmittal
10th November 2016
To,
Md. Mohammad Sohel Islam
Course Instructor
School of Business
Independent University of Bangladesh
Subject: Submission of assignment on “Marketing plan on Beauty soap
(LUX)”
Dear Sir,
We, the members from group 9 would like to thank you for giving us this
opportunity to work together and analysis a company. This assigned task gave us
the privilege to explore the current market and carry out a research on it. Once
done with our brainstorming and analyzing we have accomplished a business
plan based on what the current market needs. The business will benefit upper-
middle class and lower-middle class families’ mainly two income families and the
young youth generation of our country that heartily welcome.
All our group members gave their best effort for this work and hence any sort of
flaws may arise as we are still a learner in writing this business plan. Almost all
the instructions given in class have been followed by us. Concepts and theories
that we have learnt in our course have also been included applied. We have
discussed about strategies in different level, marketing plans. Provided content in
the report is all done on our own, however, some references have been taken.

We will be glad to clarify those variations that may arise and will be more than
happy to accept suggestion related to this business plan. Once again thanking you
for giving us this opportunity.
Finally, we would love to express our gratefulness for your support and kind
consideration in and outside the classroom. Thank you.
Yours Sincerely
Group 9

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Table of content:

1. Introduction………………………………………………….………………………………(6)

2. Marketing Mix……………………………………………………….…….…….………(7– 8)

3. SOWT analysis…………………………………………………………..…...……......(9-10)

4. BCG Matrix ………………………………………………………………..…..….…(10 – 11)

5. Market Expansion Grid………………………………………...……………..…(11-12)

6. Influence of Consumer Behaviors………………………...….…………… (12-23)

7. Market Segmentation……………………………………..……………...……(24 – 25)

8. Target Market Segmentation………………………………………..….....…(25-26)

9. Market Strategy……………………………………………………………………(26-29)

10. Suggest a value proposition statement…………………...……………...…(30)

11. Reference…………………………………………………………..……………………..(31)

INTRODUCTION
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Lux stands for the promise of beauty and glamour as one of Bangladeshi most
trusted personal care brands. Since its launch in Bangladeshi in the year 1964,
Lux has offered a range of soaps in different colors and world class fragrances.
Lux is a beauty soap of film stars. Lux soap was first launched in 1916 as
laundry soap targeted specifically at 'delicates'.  

Lever Brothers encouraged women to home launder their clothes without fear of
satins and silks being turned yellow by harsh lyres that were often used in
soaps at the time. The flake-type soap allowed the manufacturer some
leeway from lye because it did not need to be shaped into traditional
cake-shaped loaves as other soaps were. The result was a gentler soap
that dissolved more readily and was advertised as suitable for home laundry
use. The name 'Lux' was chosen as a play on the word "luxury." Lux has
been marketed in several forms, including bar and flake and liquid (hand
wash, shower gel and cream bath soap). Lux in step with the changing trends a n d
evolving beauty needs of the consumers, offers an exciting range
o f s o a p s a n d B o d y Washes with unique elements to make bathing time more
pleasurable. One can choose from arrange  o f   s k i n c a r e   b e n e f i t s
like firming, fairness and moisturizing. 

F r o m   t h e   1 9 3 0 s   r i g h t through to the 1970s, Lux soap colors and

packaging were altered several times to reflect fashion trends. In 1958
five colors made up the range: pink, white, blue, green and yellow.
People enjoyed matching their soap with their bathroom colors.

Marketing Mix

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Product: LUX is an internationally renowned beauty soap brand of Unilever.
Though manufactured in Bangladesh for the local market by Unilever Bangladesh
Ltd, as an international brand, it maintains an international quality for the
product. Formula given by Research and Development departments in foreign
countries, LUX is produced in Bangladesh from imported raw materials like
sodium soap, glycerol and different extracts according to flavors, coming from
Unilever plants situated abroad.

Taking into account the convenience of its customers, the company manufactures
all flavors of LUX in three different sizes 45gm, 75gm, 100gm and 150gm.
 
A Product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a need or want
products that are marketed include physical goods, services, experiences, events,
person, place, properties, organization, information and ideas.
 Brand name
 Product innovation
 Quality and Quantities
 Packaging and labeling
 Style, shape and design

Product variations are:
 Lux Lotus & Cream Purple Soap
 Lux Fresh Splash Soap
 Lux Sandal & Cream Soap
 Lux Strawberry & Cream Soap

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Price: Though Unilever Bangladesh gives its LUX customers a lot in terms of the
product itself, it cannot provide a better pricing. This is due to some constraints
in the beauty soap industry. Beauty soap is a product with a vulnerable demand
in Bangladesh. A change in price has a high risk of creating price war among the
rivals which will eventually cause a loss of profit. Its prices are almost equal to its
competitor.

Compares Lux‘s price with its major competitor

Company carries out research on competitors ‘price and brand loyalty when it
feels extreme necessity of changing price. The brand loyalty test is an exploratory
research which is known as Brand Health Check-Up (BHCU).

Recent price of lux soap (75gm) TK.22, (100gm) TK.28, (150gm) TK.42

Place: The Company does not use its own fleet of transport for distributing
its product. However, it has outsourced its distribution process to various third
party distributors, exclusively dedicated to Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. These
distributors then supply the product all over Bangladesh to a huge number of
retailers. Even though LUX targets the urban and sub urban middle and
upper middle class people they are distributing their products all over India
because of a recent increase in demand of its product to all segments of the
population.

Promotion: It‘s certain annual promotional campaigns like LUX Channel

Superstar and LUX Channel Annual Cinema Awards has made the product
A part of the glamour world. Since the 1930s, over 400 of the world‘s most
stunning and sensuous women have been proudly associated with Lux
advertisements. They do not only promote LUX in India for the beauty conscious
females, it also promotes the brand for males and the company proved that, by
including world famous female celebrity Shahrukh Khan for their advertising
campaign.

“The Lux Gold Star Offer” – This was one of the popular promotions which
offered gold coins in few selected soaps.

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“Soap Case free” – This offer gave an attractive soap case to every customer who
buys lux 100gm.

“Sob Star Lucky Star”- This came at the time when Shahrukh Khan was aired in
Lux advertisements when the brand had finished 75 years of stardom. In this
offer, selected lux soap packets had stars printed with number 75 inside the
wrapper. The lucky winners got the opportunity to avail free supply of Lux soaps
for a year.

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 SWOT Analysis
Strength
 Strong market research
 Many variants
 Strong sales and distribution network
 Strong brand image
 Strong brand promotion but relatively lower prices
 Mass appeal/Market presence across all segments (15% of soap market).
 Worldwide fame of Unilever.

Weakness
 Mainly positioned as beauty soap targeted towards women.
 Some variation like the sunscreen, international variant did not do well in
the market.
 Not much popular in rural areas .

Opportunity
 Soap industry is growing by 10% in Bangladesh
 Beauty segments compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) is very high
 Liquid body wash is currently in growth stage – Lux should come out with
more variants in this segment
 Large market share – Strong hold over the market

Threats
 High internal competition (Dove – Beauty segment)
 New entrants (Dettol)
 Maturity stage – threat of slipping down to decline stage – if constant
reinvention is not carried out.

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 BCG Matrix

BCG matrix method is a portfolio management tool developed by Boston

Consulting Group .It is a method based on the product life cycle theory that can
be used to know what priorities should be given in the product portfolio of a
business unit. To ensure value creation, a company should have a portfolio of
products that contains both high growth products in need of cash inputs and low
growth products that generate a lot of cash. There are 2 dimensions: market
share and market growth.

Placing products in the BCG matrix results in four categories in a portfolio of a

company:

STARS QUESTION
(LUX) MARKS

CASH COWS DOGS

Relative Market Share

Star: High market growth and high market share

Cash cows: Low market growth and high market share
Question marks: High market growth and low market share
Dogs: Low market growth and low market share

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Innovation seems to be the main theme of the Bangladeshi soap industry in 2008.
With the entry of ITC, the stage is all set for a major tussle between the new
entrant and existing players in the Taka 7,600-crore branded toilet soaps sector
in Bangladesh. The soap industry is seen to have a market growth rate of about
10%. This shows that industry has a high growth rate. Unilever Bangladesh is a
market leader in the industry and its soap Lux enjoys a market share of 17 % in
Bangladesh. So according to the concept of BCG matrix any product which has
high market growth and market share is classified as STARS. The major objective
of products coming in Stars is to maintain their high market share. Unilever
Bangladesh comes up with various variants in LUX quite frequently in order to
maintain their position.

The Product/Market Expansion Grid

Product/Market Expansion Grid is a tool that helps businesses to decide

their strategies for growth and downsizing the product and market .
Product/Market Expansion Grid suggests that a business attempts to grow
depend on whether it markets new or existing products in new or existing
markets.

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 Existing Products New Products
Market Penetration Strategy : Product Development Strategy :
Attract users – Product Reformulation:
Existing Gold coin offer Introduced variants with
Markets Gold’s coins hidden in soaps different ingredients - Honey,
selectively chocolate, strawberry etc.
100 gm. contained 3-gm gold Product feature addition: New
coin Lux Floral Sensations.
150 gm. contained 5-gm gold Product line extension:
coin addition of small size (Taka
10/-45 gm.)
Market development Strategy : Diversification Strategy :
New A new variant called Lux Related Diversification –
Markets Sandal Soap was introduced Introduction of body wash.
in Cox’s Bazar.

Lux has been in this industry for more than 50 years. It has constantly applied
various strategies to survive and succeed in the industry. Some of the recent ones
are mentioned in the above model.

Factors influencing consumer purchase of the

company products

Consumer behavior refers to the selection, purchase and consumption of goods

and services for the satisfaction of their wants. There are different processes
involved in the consumer behavior. Initially the consumer tries to find what
commodities he would like to consume, then he selects only those
commodities that promise greater utility. After selecting the commodities, the
consumer makes an estimate of the available money which he can spend.
Lastly, the consumer analyzes the prevailing prices of commodities and takes
the decision about the commodities he should consume. Meanwhile, there are
various other factors influencing the purchases of consumer such as social,

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cultural, personal and psychological. The explanation of these factors is given
below.

3. Personal Factors
Personal factors can also affect the consumer behavior. Some of the important
personal factors that influence the buying behavior are: lifestyle, economic
situation, occupation, age, personality and self-concept.

(i) Lifestyle
Lifestyle of customers is another import factor affecting the consumer buying
behavior. Lifestyle refers to the way a person lives in a society and is expressed
by the things in his/her surroundings. It is determined by customer interests,
opinions, activities etc. and shapes his whole pattern of acting and interacting
in the world. Marketer search for relationships between their products and
lifestyle groups. For example, Lux is working for the women consumers
lifestyle.

(ii) Personality and Self-concept:

Each person’s distinct personality influences his or her buying behavior.
Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics that lead to
relatively consistent and lasting response to one’s own environment.
Personality is usually described in terms of self-confidence, dominance,
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sociability, defensiveness and adaptability. There exist a strong correlation
between certain personality types and product or brand choice.
For example, women who view herself as beautiful will exhibit patterns of
buying Lux soap and body wash than a woman who see herself uninteresting.

4. Psychological Factors
A person’s buying behavior is also influenced by the various psychological
factors. These are: motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

(i) Beliefs and Attitudes

Through doing and learning, people acquire beliefs and attitudes. These in
turn, influence their buying behavior. A belief is a descriptive thought that
person hold about something. Beliefs may be based on knowledge, opinion or
faith. These beliefs make-up product and brand images, and people act on their
images. An attitude is a person’s enduring favorable or unfavorable evaluation
toward some object or idea. Attitudes put individuals into a frame of mind of
liking or disliking a product, motivating toward or away from it. All of the
factors are described above are crucially important for a marketer to
understand. Because he must satisfy the customers according their needs and
wants. Also he sometimes need to create demand in customers mind. For this
reason this is very much important for an efficient marketer to handle all of his
customers more effectively and enthusiastically.

(ii) Motivation
Motivation is a theoretical construct used to explain behavior. It gives the
reasons for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation can also be defined
as one's direction to behavior or what causes a person to want to repeat a
behavior and vice versa. A motive is what prompts the person to act in a
certain way, or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior. According
to Maher and Meyer, "Motivation is a word that is part of the popular culture
as few other psychological concepts are”

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 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Esteem
All humans have a need to feel respected; this includes the need to have self-
esteem and self-respect. Esteem presents the typical human desire to be accepted
and valued by others. People often engage in a profession or hobby to gain
recognition. These activities give the person a sense of contribution or value. Low
self-esteem or an inferiority complex may result from imbalances during this
level in the hierarchy. People with low self-esteem often need respect from
others; they may feel the need to seek fame or glory. However, fame or glory will
not help the person to build their self-esteem until they accept who they are
internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can hinder the person
from obtaining a higher level of self-esteem or self-respect. For example, Lux
believes that beauty doesn’t have to be about hard work, but rather, about
pleasure. To bathe in luxurious Lux daily is to come out feeling transformed,
feeling on top of the world – inspiring every woman to feel irresistible and
confident in her own skin every day.

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 Buying Decision Behaviour

Complex Buying Behavior: Complex Buying Behavior defines buying scenarios

that are characterized by high levels of consumer "involvement" in a purchase
decision; with significant amounts of perceived differences between brands in
the product category. Involvement refers to actions the consumer must take to
understand the product or service they are motivated to buy. When high
involvement is necessary, the consumer does whatever they can to learn:
research, read reviews, talk to others and "test drive" different models at retail
locations.

Variety Seeking Buying: It is a type of buying in which customers are not very
loyal to one brand or product and prefers buying different type of products. Here
the customers are very frequent brand switcher but this doesn’t necessary means
customer are dissatisfied with product. The cost of switching between two
brands is not high and also it helps buyers to avoid boredom of using same

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variety. Companies tackle this behavior by introducing different versions of same
brand and thus creating more options for the consumers. Also frequent reminder
advertisements and promotions help to garner more customers buying.

Dissonance-Reducing Buying: The dictionary meaning of dissonance is ‘a

conflict of people's opinions, actions or characters’. On the same lines,
Dissonance-Reducing Buying can be seen when there is an anxiety after purchase.
This usually happens in the case of high involvement purchases where there are
few differences between brands. In this case the consumer does not have enough
information based on which to make a decision. Therefore the consumer will try
to reduce his/her anxiety by not believing on any negative information about the
brand purchased. One of the major disadvantages of this type of behavior is
customer will show post purchase dissonance which is very difficult to control.

Habitual Buying Behavior: This is a type of consumer buyer behavior that is

less significant than complex buying behavior. In this type of buying behavior the
consumer has access to a wide choice of products that satisfy the same need and
don’t have much significant differences. When the buyer goes to the point of
purchase he very well knows the type of product brand he needs and he would
therefore make a choice without much thought and considerations. In layman’s
language a habit is something that is continuously repeated over a certain period
of time and this is exactly what is being witnessed when it comes to habitual
buying behavior. Since the products in question have no major differences the
buyer will stick to the one he/she has been using for some time. He goes for the
product that is known to him and that is very clear for him its positive part as
well as its shortcomings.

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 Personality Trait

TYPE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS

Sincerity –

 It’s quite simple really: it’s all about pleasure. Lux is committed to creating
indulgent skin treats women crave to provide an exceptional experience in
and out of the shower. We aim to bring the best of beauty to every woman
in the world.
 We infuse our products with fine fragrances crafted by the world’s best
perfume experts.
 We craft amazing, state of the art textures, rich in indulgent ingredients, all
designed to exceed consumer expectations.
 Lux is not just a soap that smells good; it’s a fine fragrance you can bathe in.

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 Market Segmentation

Lux is geographically expanding itsself-day by day lux being a brand ofunilever is targeting Bangladesh. As
mentioned above, market segmentation is done so as to satisfy the customer’s
more efficiently. For a brand like Lux, which has a broad customer base, this
factor becomes absolutely critical. The segmentations are done basically on the
basis of factors like: Lux soap concentrates in the beauty soap category. A brief
description of the various factors Lux considers is:

Gender:
Lux has been, since its introduction seen as a soap for women. Lux as a
brand symbolizes beauty. The Lux ads has hosted a bevy of film stars such as
from Champa, Shakila Zafar, moushumi, Mehazabin chowdhuri to Kareena
all endorsing the goodness of Lux over generations. This was done in
order to attract women who wanted to look and feel like the stars they idolized.

Age:
Lux is seen to mainly attract customers that fall within the age group of 16 to 35.
In order to cater them, Lux comes up with new and interesting variants. One of
the latest entrants, Lux Crystal Shine is mainly targeted at the youth. So is the
Black Provocateur which symbolizes boldness. Another example is the
chocolate variant lux which was a novel idea. All these are introduced to
catch the attention of the youth.

Income:
One of the essential characteristic of an FMCG product is an affordable
price which is very important for its fast sales. It’s the meeting point of
demand for a product and its price that decide whether the product will sell
or not. And the demand for a product is highly dependent on the income of the
customer. Lux is not very costly beauty soap. Its price varies from Tk.15to
Tk.20.Therefore its target market starts from the middle income group.

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 Target Marketing Strategies

Undifferentiated (Mass Marketing)

Differentiated (Segmented Marketing)

Concentrated (Niche Marketing)

Micro Marketing

Lux target undifferentiated marketing which ignore market segment differences

and go to mass market which focus on what is common in the needs of
consumers and attract large numbers of consumers.

Differentiation Strategies the company uses to position

itself

Using differentiated marketing strategy, a firm decides to target several market

segments and design separate market offers for each. Lux brand image is much
better comparatively because it is a well-known company. Therefore, they can
easily grab more customer attention. Whereas, others soap is new and local
product. So, it is not well known to everyone. Therefore, less used.

Positioning

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 Lux—derived
from the word luxury— was launched in 1899 as laundry soap in the UK. In1925,
the brand was extended to the toilet soap category. It was positioned as
a beauty soap in India and Bangladesh has since used successful film
actors of the time—such as Champa, Shakila Zafar, Moushumi, Mehazabin
chowdhuri to Kareena —to endorse the product. Lux’s secret of longevity has
been its consistent evolution—be it the soap color, packaging o r n e w
variants, the brand has banked on innovation to keep its youthful
i m a g e i n t a c t . Extending the soap cake to a range of shower gels, liquid
soaps and moisturizing bars has helped the brand keep consumers excited
and the competition at bay. What has not changed is the consistency in its
communication and its positioning.

Lux Marketing Strategy

Unilever product has focused on wide promotions most of which has been short
lived. Apart from tagging itself as a beauty brand made for the stars, it has even
designed short term promotions for sales. One of the famous ones being:

Recent Advertisements

Katrina Kaif has been roped in to become the brand ambassador of Lux lately. In
the most recent advertisement of July, 2012 which stars both Katrina Kaif and
Shahrukh Khan in the campaign. They endorsed two variants of the Lux soap –

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Lux Peach and Cream and Lux Strawberry and Cream. The fragrance of the new
Lux soap stands for love and sensuality and the ad uses the slogan – “Bekaboo”.

Celebrity beauty
Lux is a super brand that celebrated beauty across the world since 1925. The
soap which was endorsed by the beautiful film stars came to India in 1929. Lux
has been the largest selling personal wash brand in the country.

Of Film stars has been consistent in terms of communication and positioning. The
brand is also the classic example of successful celebrity endorsement. The first
celebrity to endorse the brand was Champa, Shakila Zafar, Moushumi,
Mehazabin chowdhuri to Kareena Lux has been endorsed by more than 50

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film stars (a sort of record isn't it). But in all these communications, the celebrity
never shadowed the brand.

Lux beauty soap is available in four variants: Exotic Flower Petals, Fruit Extracts,
Almond and Sandal. Lux has a common ingredient of Milk cream in all the
variants.

Although the brand enjoyed success and has sustained its leadership position, of
late this brand has been facing issues of stagnation. The stagnation is caused by
the plethora of brands competing for the market share and the scope for
differentiation has reduced to almost nil. Together with the rush for celebrities to
endorse anything from salt to cars, Lux is finding it difficult to sustain growth in
this cluttered market.

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 Suggest a value proposition statement

Lux is the best-selling soap bar in the world. Lux is different from other brand it
requires dual function. Lux is the brand which appreciates Beauty and glamour. A
delight to send .Consumers is benefited in different way.

Lux soap products are gentle and do not irritate normal skin. According to the
Unilever Corp., it applies high standards checked by in-house safety specialists
before bringing a product to market. Unilever has an established Safety and
Environmental Assurance Center that ensures safety of the environment, people
and production. Lux soap is formulated for use with

Lux soap comes in a variety of forms, flakes, bars and liquids. Originally, Lux
made Laundry Flakes -- a thin sheet of soap film was cut into small flakes. They
called these Sunlight Flakes, but changed the name in the 1900s to Lux, which
means light. Lux flakes were made to wash clothes, but were so gentle women
soon began using them as dish soap, hair soap and other soap uses. Lever
Brothers developed a bar soap form of the Lux Flakes called “Lux Toilet Form.”
This became well-known hand soap because of its gentleness.

Age 3, the elderly and other vulnerable members of the population. All soap
formulations are designed and tested for human and environmental use,
according to Unilever Corp.

Lux, when it was introduced in the United States in 1925, gave people an
affordable option to expensive French milled soaps. Lux is also sold in China at an
affordable price for consumers, according to China Radio International.

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 Reference

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux_(soap)

 https://www.scribd.com/doc/55202113/Lux-Project-
Report

 http://www.slideshare.net/HarshPatel14/lux-report

 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLuu5vlpUwIdBFSvaxvqfnzmSCf6nl-8vD

 https://sites.google.com/site/downloadfinalproject/
marketing-project-report-on-lux

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