1

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................3
I. Company description .................................................................................................3
II. Product introduction:.....................................................................................................3

MARKETING ENVIRONMENT ................................................................4

I. Micro-environments factors ...........................................................................................4
1. Supplier. ......................................................................................................................4
2. Marketing Intermediaries ...........................................................................................4
3. Public ...........................................................................................................................5
4. Competitors.................................................................................................................5
II. Macro-environment factors ...........................................................................................7
1. Demographic environment: .......................................................................................7
2. Natural environment:..................................................................................................7
3. Economic environment:.............................................................................................8
4. Cultural factor: ............................................................................................................8

SWOT ANALYSIS ...................................................................................9

CUSTOMER-DRIVEN MARKETING STRATEGY.................................11
I. Segmentation: ...........................................................................................................11
II. Targeting .......................................................................................................................12
III. Differentiation ..............................................................................................................12
1.Image: Dove tries to create a brand image that focuses on health, happiness,
and beauty of women. ..................................................................................................12
2. Products: ...................................................................................................................13
3. Online Platform:........................................................................................................14
4. Positioning: ...............................................................................................................14

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................16
REFERENCES.......................................................................................17

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 INTRODUCTION

I. Company description
In 1930, Unilever was created from the merger of a British soapmaker named Lever Brother
(1884) and a Dutch margarine business - Margarine Unie (1927) (BBC News 2000).
Through almost three centuries of history, the business has improved economically and
technologically (Companies History n.d). Thus, in that long time of understanding and
researching , it invented many more products to make people’s living standard better in terms
of both saving time and healthy lifestyle (Companieshistory n.d). In fact, Unilever’s spirit is still
following its main global mission statement: “To add vitality to life. We meet everyday needs
for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look
good and get more out of life” until now (Young 2017).

Nowadays, Unilever has become a British multinational corporation with 149,000

employees in 190 markets around the world. The total number of the company's brands
reaches 400 with 81% of the brands ranked at second place in their market (Unilever n.d).
After entering the Vietnamese market for 25 years since 1995, Unilever has occupied 35.2%
of the haircare market ranking at the first place (Euromonitor 2021).

From 2017, Unilever Vietnam President has been Mrs. Nguyen Thi Bich Van. With many
years of experience, she manages the company effectively, and receives honorable rewards
such as the Leadership Commitment Award by UN Women (Vietnam News 2020). Unilever
has spent more than $300 million in the Vietnam market to archive its mission statement for
Vietnamese people “Make lives in Vietnam better” (Vietnam News 2020). Nowadays, it has
become the most successful foreign investors in Vietnam as it dominates the hair care
market with famous brands like Dove, Tresemmé, Vaseline (Unilever 2018).

II. Product introduction:

One of Unilever’s successful brands in Vietnam is Dove. In the market, Dove has two major
hair care products: shampoo and conditioner which are popular with the message: “All
women are beautiful”. In 2020, Dove achieved 28.1% penetration rate in the rural market
and ranked at the third place with 7.2% brand shares behind Clear (11.8%) and Sunsilk
(9.4%) (Kantar Worldpanel 2020, Euromonitor 2021).
There are 6 types of Dove’s conditioners and shampoos which hold several special functions
such as repairing damaged hair and keeping hair soft (Dove n.d). As Dove uses market
offerings strategy, the combination of Dove’s shampoos and conditioners has become the
top choice of Vietnamese consumers. This has been proved by the data from Shopee which
has 29400 sales of Dove's combo shampoo and conditioner, 2000+ sales on Tiki, and Sendo
with 1000+ sales.
All Dove’s products are targeted to be fully made from natural ingredients such as: lavender,
lotus flower and chrysanthemum (Kenneth 2021).
Although Dove’s advertisements try to make Vietnamese women feel more confident about
themselves, its label design tends to avoid confusions by not putting on the women's
images (Darwin 2017). Instead, the bottle’s label focused on text with unique typographies
in order to send their message effectively to the customers (Darwin 2017). By that way, it is
faster for the consumers to pick and judge product’s functions at the store as well as
recognize the brand with simple colors like blue and white.

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 MARKETING ENVIRONMENT

I. Micro-environments factors

1. Supplier.

Since 2007, Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem) has established a strategic
bond with Unilever as a main material provider for many Unilever brands including Dove. In
the future, Vinachem aims to provide Unilever with many other key materials and chemicals
such as Sodium Sulphate, LAB, LAS, … which still cost over 100 million USD per year to
import (Vinachem 2010). By working with Vinachem and affiliated companies to find solutions,
Unilever plans to construct more chemical factories in order to create a local supply
chain; therefore, reducing the manufacturing cost as well as the cost of importing raw
materials. There will also be an opportunity for Vinchem to become the main material
supplier for the whole ASEAN region. Moreover, Unilever Vietnam has more than 54
packaging suppliers, with 60% of the material and 100% of product packaging being
manufactured locally in Vietnam (Vinachem 2007).
On the global scale, Unilever is aiming to create a sustainable material supply chain by
using local agriculture as a source of raw material. In order to ensure sustainability, Unilever
has implemented a Sustainable Agriculture Code (SAC) as well as Regenerative Agriculture
Principles (RAPs) as a measure and a guidance for farmers to nourish the soil after each
harvest, ensuring sustainability in the process of farming (Unilever n.d.). Specifically, it is
establishing a long-lasting and stable yet eco-friendly source of palm oil, which is a crucial
ingredient in the beauty and personal care industry (Unilever n.d.). On the other hand, Unilever
formed a partnership with the University of Liverpool to develop a project with the aim of
creating sustainable and chemical-free material to be used in consumer products (Unilever
2021).

2. Marketing Intermediaries

a. Media agencies.
As a brand with an associated image of youth, beauty and confidence, Dove did not
hesitate to launch various campaigns with meaningful insight and delicate delivery on multiple
platforms. In order to achieve this, Dove worked with many media agencies including
Mindshare Vietnam, OgilvyOne Worldwide Vietnam and Adtima Vietnam, as well as other
social network influencers who can represent Dove’s core values of youthful, independent
and confident. Remarkably, Dove also organizes many mini events as a kind of promotion.
In 2013, seeing the loss in market share, Dove decided to release a new line of “care
and damage repair”, but struggled in communication with their core customers. Knowing
technological facts about product will not be able to attract customers, Dove worked with
Mindshare to launch a digital campaign with the insight of “My hair, my choice” since
surveys pointed out that although 95% of Vietnamese woman want to try new style, 92% of
them ended up wearing the same hairstyle due to hair damage causing by chemicals.
Understanding this concern, combined with the fact that 70% of Dove’s consumers are actively
looking for products online and the selfie trend, Mindshare created an online event in which
Dove encouraged consumers to share their selfie online in exchange for vouchers that they
can use to purchase Dove products. This campaign generated 200% Digital Return on
Investment, a reach of well over 7 million unique users on Facebook as well as helped Dove
reclaim the title of Number 1 brand in damage repair hair care products (‘Unilever/Dove:
Helping girls love their hair deep down to the "Cell-Fie"’, 2014).

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 Another example of association with Vietnamese artists can also be seen in the 2019
campaign conducted by Mindshare and Ogilvy - “Be Free, Always”, in which Dove collaborated
with Trang, a Vietnamese song writer to produce a MV with an insight of embracing
Vietnamese women's beauty and freedom. The MV quickly went viral with a total of 16 million
views, and the inspiring stories shared by customers achieved the number of 11.6 million
reach on social networks. Combined with Facebook’s Collaborative Performance Ads Solution
(CPAS) and Google’s MarCo technology, Dove succeeded in creating a sale productive yet
meaningful campaign (Jamie & Ha, M & Ha, T 2019).

b. Resellers
The main target customer of Dove is urban women with an active and youthful lifestyle,
who are always active about their product choices, therefore Dove can easily be found in
almost every major supermarket and convenience stores. Up to 2020, Unilever has more than
300.000 physical retailing stores and 150 distribution firms, selling about 35 million products
per day, including Dove (Vietnamnet 2020). Aside from supermarket systems and stores in
urban areas, Unilever also supports the development of 6.000 retailing stores in rural and
suburban areas (Ministry of Home Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Besides
physical stores, digital stores on major e-commerce sites such as Lazada, Shopee, Tiki have
also received great care and positive response from consumers, as Unilever’s official store on
Shopee has 628.000 followers with 367 products on shelf, according to the Unilever official
store on Shopee.

3. Public

Dove focused mostly on citizen-action publics (environmental groups) and general

publics.
Recently, Dove has launched a campaign as a tribute to all the volunteers and doctors
who rescue Vietnamese Covid 19 patients (Advertisingvietnam 2021). The campaign brings a
meaningful message: “The skin marks from masks and protective clothing can be faded
but marks on our heart will always be there” (Advertisingvietnam 2021). With the hope of
curing those impressions faster, Dove donates 9400 shower gel bottles to doctors in Ho Chi
Minh (Advertisingvietnam 2021). On social media, Dove also encourages people to help its
tribute post go viral with the hashtag of “impressions from skin to heart”
(Advertisingvietnam 2021). Moreover, in March 2020, Unilever donated 50 billions VND with
550 tons of products in order to support 1.6 million people at 3000 hospitals
(Advertisingvietnam 2021). Thousands of hand washing stations are also installed around the
city to raise people's awareness during the pandemic (Advertisingvietnam 2021).

In terms of the environment, Unilever is working with Duy Tan and Vietcycle to carry out “The
Plastic Reborn” project with two main purposes: protecting the environment using a circular
economy and improving Vietnamese living standards through sustainability development
(Unilever 2021). Besides, Unilever has signed a commitment form of not producing CO2 100%
in all of the companies’ activities until 2030 (Unilever 2021).

4. Competitors

The Vietnamese hair care market comprises many firms such as Clear, Sunsilk, Dove,
Patene,...Dove’s market share is 7.1% standing at the third place in the Vietnamese market
behind Clear (11.8%) and Sunsilk (9.4%) (Euromonitor 2021). Recently, because of Covid 19
pandemic impacts, the demand for the top three hair care brands’ seem to decrease. There
are several reasons for this. Firstly, the Vietnamese economy has negatively influenced
households' income decreases dramatically (Vietnam net global). Secondly, due to

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Vietnamese traditional and environmental problems, consumers give more attention to
natural and herbal products (Euromonitor 2021). Other brands like Sao Thai Duong seem
more organic than Dove in the Vietnamese market (Euromonitor 2021).

One of Dove’s main competitive advantages is that in the same product segment as
shampoo, Dove charges lower prices than most of shampoo brands in Vietnam such as
Pantene, Rejoice,...Its price is higher than only two brands in Vietnam which are Clear and
Sunsilk (about 15% - 20%) in the market.

However, there are several reasons why Dove stands behind Clear in terms of market share.
First of all, Vietnam’s climate has a high level of humidity and temperature, especially in the
Middle and the South of Vietnam (Britannica, n.d). According to Dove and Clear's main
website, Dove’s main focus is to provide moisturizing and hair treatment products while Clear
develops cooling and anti-dandruff products. As a result, looking at the regions, Clear
dominates the Vietnamese south and middle market. Moreover, unlike Dove with the main
target only on women, Clear’s target customer is everyone from all genders and ages.
Therefore, for gender, Clear takes over both the women (22%) and men (31%) market.

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II. Macro-environment factors

1. Demographic environment:
According to the Worldometer elaboration of UN data, the population of Vietnam as recorded
in November 2021 was around 98.5 million with a growth rate of 0.91%. This huge population
provides strong purchasing power. Moreover, Dove’s product can serve people with a
wide range of age from 18 to 50 who occupy more than 60% of Vietnamese population
(Statista 2021). Therefore, Vietnam is a suitable investment destination for businesses
aiming to generate profits.

Furthermore, in 2019, approximately 73% of Vietnamese women participate in the labor

force, which is higher compared to 71% in 2010 (International Labour Organization 2021). As
more women enter the labor force, they will gain a more stable income, so they will be more
focused and take better care of themselves than in the past. This directly opens more
opportunities for Dove because Dove’s main target customers are women, and they have
the potential to widen the market share by providing more types of hair care products that
are suitable for Vietnamese women.

Compared to urban areas, Dove has a greater impact on people living in rural areas. In
2020, with 28.1% of the Vietnamese rural market share, Dove stood at 5th place after Clear
and Sunsilk in most chosen fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) (Statista 2021). This data
shows that Dove has a strong position in the market as well as the potential to increase its
growth economically in rural areas. While the urbanization rate of Vietnam is approximately
40%, which tends to surpass the rural population in 2050, Dove’s performance on urban
people is still mediocre as it does not appear in the top 5 most chosen FMCG brands in
urban areas (Statista 2021). This is a negative sign, but also an opportunity for Unilever to
expand Dove’s market and reach more consumers in urban areas.

2. Natural environment:

Plastic waste is one of the major problems not only in Vietnam but also in the whole society.
According to Rare’s Center for Behaviour & Environment, Vietnam has become the 3rd largest
trash manufacturer in the Pacific nations. It is also predicted that by the end of 2050, there will
be more waste than fish in the ocean (UN Environment Programme n.d). Aware of the
situation, with the brand’s mission: “Caring for the planet”, Unilever has paved the way for
the beauty industry to tackle this pollution issue. In 2018, Unilever, in cooperation with Coca
Cola Vietnam Co., Ltd, Dow chemical Vietnam Co., Ltd, and other partners, launched the
"Zero Waste to Nature" campaign in Ho Chi Minh City with the goal of raising people’s
awareness about plastic waste and promoting sustainable business models as well as
developing the circular economy (Việt Nam news 2021). Moreover, in 2021, Unilever will
cooperate with Vietcycle and Duy Tan to release "The Plastic Reborn" project in order to
promote environmental protection, collect and recycle plastic (Vietnam Investment Review,
2021).

With the mission “Caring for the planet”, Chief R&D, Officer Richard Slater said that Unilever’s
purpose is to change the way businesses use, reuse and recycle plastic to improve business’s
responsibility toward the environment while also retaining its place economically. Taking these
steps, Dove also focuses on its own products by providing eco-friendly packaging with the
framework "No plastic. Better plastic. Less plastic". Specifically, by 2025, all brands’
ranges, from Dove Men to Baby Dove, especially hair care products, will be packaged in 100%
recycled plastic bottles (Unilever 2021).

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3. Economic environment:

In terms of corporate income tax (CIT), the Vietnam national standard tax is 20% which is
lower than other Dove’s main markets: US (21%), Argentina (25%), Australia (30%) (PwC
2021). Therefore, compared to other markets, Dove Vietnam has the potential to be successful
with its innovative marketing strategy as it can reduce the production costs and enlarge
financial capacity (Euromonitor 2021).

Due to the pandemic, the unemployment rate in Vietnam was 2.42%, higher than the pre-
Covid stage in 2019 0.38% (Vietnam social security 2021). This leads to the falling in the
GDP per capita from 6.001% (2019) to 1.979% in 2020 (Statista n.d.). Moreover, there was
a significant decrease in GDP growth, which dropped two times compared to the data of
2019 (The world bank n.d.). This is because public protection has been prioritized, and
resources are not fully utilized, such as human capital, facilities,...(Euromonitor 2021). Thus,
the hair care sector witnessed a fall in demand due to the decreasing purchasing power
and fewer occasions, limited social interaction, and public activities in Covid 19 (Euromonitor
2021).

As a result of COVID, customers prefer e-commerce channels to supermarkets, or

convenience stores (Euromonitor 2021) leading to the fact that online shopping platforms’
value rose 3% in 2020 and reached 16.1 trillion VND (Statista n.d.). Particularly, in Vietnam
during 2019, shampoo and conditioner are ranked top second, and seventh-most bought
online personal care with the respective percentage of 10.4% and 6% (Passport 2021).
Compared to other companies, Unilever Vietnam International Co Ltd. possesses the highest
company value share (35.2%). Moreover, they have received more attention from
Vietnamese customers by taking action before the trend towards a sustainable lifestyle and
natural material occurs (Euromonitor 2021).

4. Cultural factor:

In Vietnam, the majority of people are born with black hair, and a large number of Vietnamese
women believe that hair is the most vital physical characteristic (SIT Graduate Institute 2010,
p.17). Furthermore, hair has become a way to define beauty in Vietnam as the identity can
be shown (SIT Graduate Institute 2010, p.18). Having grasped the situation, Unilever had a
campaign called “The Dove Real Beauty Pledge,” which honored the true nature of women
and boosted their confidence and self-esteem (Unilever 2017). Additionally, Dove hair care
products are preferred by women living in rural areas, since it is ranked the fifth most
chosen FMCG brand by penetration rate (28.1%), while the data of urban women's choices
towards health and beauty category does not include Dove in the top list.

There is a variety of Dove products that meet the needs of certain groups of people. For
example, with the youth who love colorful hair like K-pop culture, Dove is able to address the
issues of damaged hair by Dove Intensive Repair Hair Shampoo and Conditioner (Dove n.d.).
On the other hand, a common problem of the Vietnamese is the need for motorcycles that
require users to wear helmets; this highly likely causes hair loss since its roots are tugged
repeatedly (Chakravorty 2021). A frequency report on driving motorbikes within Vietnam in
2019 shows that 87% of the people surveyed drive every day or almost every day; hence, their
hair is harmed more frequently (Statista n.d.). In this situation, Dove releases Dove Fall
Rescue Shampoo, which nourishes from the root to the tip of hair deeply (Dove n.d.).

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 SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths (Micro-environments)
- As Unilever dominates the
Vietnamese market with 38%, it has
competitive advantages in terms of
financial capacity, popularity for
advertisement, experiences,
human resources,...(Statista 2021).
Specifically, Dove has unique and
successful campaigns which can go
viral on social media because of the
clear understanding in customers’
psychology of beauty.
- Unilever Vietnam has an experienced
CEO who can lead 1500 employees
the right way and carry out effective
strategies in both online shopping and
in-store shopping.
- Unilever expanded its supply chain
in Vietnam after cooperating with big
companies like Vinachem to reduce
production cost.
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Weaknesses (Micro-
environments)
- Dove is a brand that focuses mainly
on women, as the majority of Dove’s
products aim to nurture, repair and
moisturize long hair with the core value
of helping women to be always beautiful
and confident. Nowadays, many male
customers also started to care more
about the products they are using on
their hair. They want something
specifically made for men, since men’s
hair has different properties and
problems. Understanding this concern,
many hair care brands have released a
product line that is made just for men,
addressing their problem precisely.
Therefore, by focusing only on female
customers and products, Dove has
imperceptibly created its own weakness
compared to other competitors.
- Another weakness of Dove came from
the fact that Vietnam is a tropical
country with a hot all year around
climate and high humidity. Moreover, as
the main form of transportation in
Vietnam is personal motorbike, people
usually have to wear a helmet everyday
for quite a long time. As a result,
Vietnamese custom wants a product
with cooling and refreshing as well
as an anti-dandruff effect to cope
with the hot climate. However Dove is
a brand focused on moisturizing, which
can be considered a weakness of the
brand.
 Opportunities (Macro-
environment)
- Dove benefits from its online
shopping channel as the E-
procurement market value in Vietnam
rose from 8 billion U.S. dollars (2018)
to 11.8 billion U.S. dollars within 2020
(Statista n.d.). Specifically, shampoo
and conditioner are the top second
and seventh most bought personal
care products (Euromonitor 2021).
Additionally, the economy in
Vietnam is forecasted to recover,
especially in the field of hair care
(Euromonitor 2021). It is a mature
industry that benefits from the better
economic performance and higher
living standards.
Besides, Dove’s variety of products
meet different demands of
customers, either women preferring
natural hair or colorful hair.
10
Threats (Macro-environment)
- Dove does not rank among the top
five most preferred FMCG brands in
urban areas; Dove appears mediocre
to residents (Statista 2021). With an
urbanization rate of 40% in 2021 and
expected to surpass the rural
population in 2050, it is a challenge for
Dove to expand its market and
approach more urban citizens.
- The limitation on social interaction and
activities due to the COVID-19
pandemic by governments has led to a
great number of negative impacts. The
unemployment rate increased rapidly,
which led to a decline in GDP per capita
and a drop in GDP growth. Specifically,
the demand in the hair care sector
experienced a downward trend since
there was a sink in buying power.
- Vietnamese women nowadays tend to
pay more attention to organic and
herbal products, especially for hair care,
which creates a more competitive
environment for businesses
manufacturing natural products. With
more and more competitors in the
same market, Dove appears to be
facing a challenge with the decrease in
market share.
CUSTOMER-DRIVEN MARKETING STRATEGY

I. Segmentation:

Segment Demographic Psychographic Behavioral Geographic

Seg 1 : Adults Age : 18 – 34 Personality: positive Occasion: Daily Location:

characteristics of Urban, sub-
being friendly and User status: urban, rural
outgoing. Regular user areas
Gender: Mostly
women User rate: Medium
spenders
Lifestyle: those who
want to take extra Benefit- sought:
Income: middle care of their bodies healthy and gentle
– high income for the skin, helps
moisturize and
clean, healthy on
Social class: All kinds the outside, but also
on the inside.

Seg 2: Age- 18-50 Social class: Middle & Occasion: Daily Location:
Environmental- high Urban, sub-
conscious User status: urban, rural
consumers Regular user areas
Gender: Both
Lifestyle:eco-friendly, User rate: Heavy
usually use product spenders
that can be recycled
Income: middle- Benefit-sought:
high income Positive impact on
climate change,
reduce industrial
waste

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II. Targeting
Dove is applying a differentiated market targeting strategy. The company has chosen to
utilize various tactics to maximize the number of clients and enhance profits by catering to a
wide range of customers.

To begin with, Dove's products are designed exclusively for ladies of all ages to treat different
kinds of hair damage (Dove n.d.). The company has developed more than 12 hair-care
products that may address practically any type of hair condition, including hair loss, infections,
irritation, etc. (Dove n.d.). Another piece of evidence that could be pointed out is that Dove's
marketing campaigns are not aimed at a single age group, social class, or nationality, but
rather at a different type of customer for each campaign (Dove n.d.). For example, the
"#ShowUS'' campaign encourages people with different skin colors, body shapes,
lifestyles, or personalities to express themselves in any way they wish (Dove n.d) while
“Being you” campaign helps women overcome social prejudice to be more confident with their
outside appearance; especially women with tomboy looks (Luong 2020). Those campaigns
have been successfully spread on social media due to Dove’s hypertargeting method since
Facebook, Tiki, or Webpage have the ability to detect interested groups by using their
information.

Customers who are worried about the environment are another segment that Dove
targets. According to Vietnam News, Vietnamese people are paying considerably more
attention to environmental issues such as air pollution and water pollution. More than 12% of
citizens cited the environment as their most important concern. With that being said, producing
a product with natural extracts and making it more eco-friendly would attract a large number
of new customers.

III. Differentiation

1.Image: Dove tries to create a brand image that focuses on health,

happiness, and beauty of women.

Dove has been successful in using social marketing as most of its campaigns go viral on the
internet and social media. Through Dove’s campaigns such as “The Dove Real Beauty
Pledge” , “The Ads makeover Campaign”, and “Show Us”, Dove’s purpose is to encourage
women to be more confident about themselves (Dove n.d). Especially, in the Vietnamese
market and the global market where women’s values are not usually noticed, Dove has made
people become more aware about values of women, which helps the brand create a good
image among its targeting customers (Dove n.d). In order to make the campaigns work, Dove
uses actresses who have close appearances as Vietnamese people, which make Vietnamese
women sympathize and be proud of themselves. Dove actually cares about women because
they brought out a research and found out that there are only 4% of women having confidence
in their beauty throughout the world (Dove n.d).
Unilever has invested in producing environmentally friendly packaging from 2019, which
is a campaign showing that the company cares for the environment (Unilever 2019).
Therefore, it is concentrating on its corporate social responsibility (CSR), and it is very
successful as only 25% of plastic is discharged into the environment (Unilever 2019). The
brand commits that “its packaging is safe for customer’s health and not harmful to the
environment” (Unilever 2019). Through these activities, customers could realize that Dove and
Unilever take responsibility for their products to benefit the society, which means that the brand
stands out from its competitors in terms of reputation (Unilever 2019).

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2. Products:
Dove has been successful in preventing market myopia as it develops products based on
customer’s experiences. Knowing the number of customers wanting to use organic products
is increasing, Dove’s ingredients include palm oil (Dove n.d). Besides, Dove produces natural
products from aloe vera, shea butter, coconut oil, glycerin (Kenneth 2021). Products from
Dove have strong competitiveness as Vietnamese people like using products with safe
ingredients and from clear sources (Ngoc Han 2020).
Dove also receives positive feedback from customers at many different online selling platforms
(Lazada, Tiki, Shopee) as most of the products are rated as 4 to 5 stars. This means that the
products’ quality is high as Vietnamese consumers focus on the quality and safety of a product
the most.

Picture 1: Rating of the products on Tiki, Lazada and Shopee

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3. Online Platform:

Dove takes care of its websites a lot, as the websites are up to date with recent events. Dove
uses social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to reach more
customers. Moreover, it sells its products through Lazada, Tiki, and Shopee, which makes the
products easier to be bought and found online as well as offline. Therefore, it has more
chances to have consumers’ attention than its competitors.

4. Positioning:

Number of products and prices of products will be shown in the following map.

4.1 Positioning map:

Figure 1: Positioning map in term of Number of products and Price

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Dove seems to adjust its price to be lower than most of its competitors in the product of
conditioner. This is an advantage for the brand as Vietnamese consumers tend to choose
products that are cheap. In addition, it is reasonable because the Vietnamese would be able
to afford the product as the brand targets the average income class.
Dove is one of the brands that has the highest conditioner variety among the five brands,
which makes it competitive because Dove would be able to solve more different hair problems
than other brands and be able to reach a larger area of customers.
With a low price and variety of products, Dove could be able to compete with Pantene, which
has the same number of product types. Furthermore, Dove could also compete with Sunsilk
who sets a lower price for their products but has fewer various types of products.

Brand Price for 1L of conditioner (VND)

Loreal 458,800
Rejoice 209,100
Pantene 158,500
Dove 143,500
Sunsilk 136,600
Table 1: Price comparison between brands in 2021 (Websosanh 2021)

Brand Number of conditioner types in Vietnam (unit)

Dove 6
Pantene 6
Rejoice 5
Sunsilk 4
Loreal 3

Table 2: Number of types of conditioners from each brands

● Data from table 2 is collected from official sites of each brand..

4.2 Value proposition strategy:

Overall, Dove chooses the “more for less” strategy because the brand provides more
products for customers than other brands (6 types compared to 4 from Sunsilk). The brand
also commits to customers that it would make the word “beauty” become a pride of women
instead of a worry as it used to be. In addition, Dove sets its price lower than most of its
competitors (lower than Pantene 10%) making it one of the most popular hair care brands in
Vietnam. (Euromonitor 2021).

15
 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we analyzed several factors of Dove’s environment as well as its difficulties

and opportunities. Moreover, customer-driven marketing strategies are also addressed
to show the company’s interaction with the Vietnamese market. Although in Vietnam, Dove
has not disclosed many internal reports in detail about finance and social responsibility , its
data on some analyses and newspapers about market shares, CSR activities, and campaigns
are clearly introduced to the public, which can help us to analyze the business better.
Dove has performed well in three main areas. First of all, Dove has launched a variety of
unique campaigns to gain customer loyalty and recognition. For example, “Real Beauty”
has been successful in boosting Vietnamese women’s confidence and self-esteem while “Zero
Waste To Nature” promotes the company’s responsibility toward society which also raises
people's awareness about the environment. Furthermore, Dove has developed its brand
awareness constructively when it chooses women with all types of body figures who we can
meet in daily life to appear in its advertisement instead of celebrities. This helps Dove reveal
closely and impressively in front of its target customers - women.
However, during the pandemic, the demand for hair care products decreased dramatically in
Vietnam as people’s income has a positive correlation with purchasing power. Moreover,
Dove’s marketing strategy on urban people and men in Vietnam has not been developed
effectively as it does not exist in the top ranking of those segmentations. Therefore, Dove
should pay more attention in targeting new segmentation as well as developing products that
are more suitable in Vietnam’s weather.

16
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21
 TASK ALLOCATION

Nguyen
Nguyen
Sections of the Hoang Ho Hoang Ho Gia Nguyen Nguyen
Chanh
assignment Duc Minh Bao Tram Linh Sy Quang Hong Anh
Trung
(leader)
Company Description

Product Description

Suppliers
Marketing
Intermediaries
Competitors

General Public
Demographic
environment
Natural environment

Economic environment

Cultural factor

Strengths (SWOT)

Weaknesses (SWOT)

Threats (SWOT)

Opportunities (SWOT)

Segmentation

Targeting

Differentiation

Positioning

Conclusion

Design

References order

22