Strategic Marketing

(case analysis on Unilever India rural market

initiative)

Presented By
Aparna Raghav
Anuj Kaushik
Divyanshu Sinha
Neeraj Kr. Bhatt
Nitin Gupta
Sakshi Dang
Unilever Brands
 Hindustan Lever Limited
About HLL:-
– Having 400 brands spanning 14 categories of home,
personal care and foods products etc.
– Having a Turnover of Rs. 15000 Crore.
Vision:-
To anticipate the aspirations of consumers and to respond
creatively & competitively with branded products &
services which raise the quality of life.
History:-
– Founded in 1885 by “William Hesketh Lever” in
England.
– Entered India in 1888, by exporting “Sunlight”, its
Laundry Product.
 Unilever – THE JOURNEY
People-163 000 (Employees at the end of 2009)

Nationalities:-20 (Nationalities among our top tier managers)

Contributions:- €89m (invested in community programmes

worldwide in 2009.)

Countries:- 170 (in which our products are sold)

R&D:- €891m (spent on R&D worldwide in 2009)

Environment:-12 years (As sector leader of the Dow Jones

Sustainability Indexes.)
 Unilever – THE JOURNEY
1885-william hesketh lever England
1888-exported sunlight laundary soap in India
1895-lifebuoy launched
1902-pears launched
1905-lux launched
1913-vim launched
1930-merged with margerine unie to form unilever
1931-first indian subsidiary for vanaspati
 Unilever – THE JOURNEY
1933-lever brothers india ltd. Found
1935-united traders for distributions
1960-dairy products
1969-rin and bru launched
1971-clinic shampoo
1974-liril bathing soap
1975-close-up
1976-detergent business
1987-breeze soap
1992-pepsodent and mentadent G
90’s The Decade of mergers
1993 : TOMCO merged with HLL
1994: formed joint venture with kimberley –clark
1995:entered into joint venture with Lakme
1996 : Brooke Bond Lipton & HLL merge
1998 : Ponds merges with HLL/aquired Lakme
1999 : Modern Foods acquired
2006 : Move to one Unilever structure
2007 : Name changed to Hindustan Unilever Ltd
 Corporate Profile
 Meet every day to people everywhere.
 Anticipate the aspiration of our consumer & Respond
creatively with branded products & service which raise
their quality of lives.
 Bring our wealth of knowledge and international
expertise to the service of local consumer.-A truly
multi-local multi-national.
 Willingness to embrace new idea’s & learn
continuously.
 Total commitment to exceptional standards of
performance and quality.
 Highest standards of corporate behavior towards
employee, consumers and the society in which we live.
 SMOOTH SAILING HITS
ROUGH PATCHES
• Flat topline
• Nirma’s sharp penetration pricing strategy
• Cavin care
• Market share loss across categories
• Price war
 SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS-
– Strong brand portfolio, price quantity & variety
– Innovative aspects.
– Solid base of the company.
– Corporate social responsibility

WEAKNESSES-
– Strong competitors.
– Low export level.
– High price of some products.
– High advertising costs.
 SWOT CONTD.
OPPORTUNITIES-
– Large domestic market.
– Untapped rural market.
– Changing lifestyle & rising income level, i.e.
increasing per capita income of consumers

THREATS-
– unclear brand image
– Slowdown in economy can have an impact on
FMCG industry
– Regional competitor
 Realty Check

• Bottom of the Pyramid has a Huge Potential

• Has Immense challenges also…
• Only Motorable villages can be catered to using the
traditional Distribution channels
• Expenditure Pattern Shift
• Low Consumption of personal care products among
villages
• Literacy Level
• Demystify the Rural Myths
• Weak Banking SyStem
 Analyzing the Rural
Environment
• Demographic Environment
• Economic Environment
• Socio-Cultural Environment
• Natural Environment (kuccha To pukka)

Population Density No. of Villages Proportion of total Villages (%)

Less than 500 people 236,004 37.00

between 500-999 158,124 25.00

between 1000-4999 221,040 35.00

between 5000-9999 15,058 2.00

More than 10,000 3,976 1.00

Total 634,202 100.00

 Where we want to go…..
• Increase rural distribution from 50k to 1 L Retail
Outlets
• Cover 50% rural population by 2003
• 1cr. Rural consumer by 2005
• 25000 shakti entrepreneurs covering 1 L villages by
2005
• Overcome Prevalent Attitude and habits of the Rural
Market
 Product Formulation Strategy

• Affordability (LUP)
• Availablity
• Awareness
• Acceptablity
• Price Sensitive
• Unpredictable Demand
• Robust Packaging
• Low Cost, High Quality
• Rexona deo stick at Rs. 5.50
• Huge investment in R&D related to Lower income groups
Breeze Two In One, LIfebuoy
. Shakti
Programme, India
Project Shakti is unleashing
the potential of rural India
and thus changing lives. It is
ushering in prosperity and,
more importantly, self-
respect

16
 Project Shakti
Why Shakti ?
– Habit formation for savings
– Target audiences are ladies:- reason being habit of people
spending in wrong ways
– New ways of increasing income with self helping groups
(SHG)
– Moving towards modernity
I-Shakti:- Piloted in 2003
– IT based Rural Information Service
– Service available in Nalgonda, Vishakhapatnam and west
and east Godavri Distt.
– Provided solutions in areas of Education, Vocational
Training Agriculture, Health and Hygiene
 Shakti – The boon

 Shakti already has 25000 Women Entrepreneurs' in its

fold.
 A typically Shakti Entrepreneurs’ earns sustainable
income of about Rs 700 -1000 per month, which is
double their average house hold income
 Creating opportunities for rural women to improve over
all living standard of their family
Breaking the vicious circle
of poverty
Profile of Indian rural economy
Sector Percentage

Agriculture 78

Manufacturing 7.1

Service 5.8

Trade 4.4

Others 4.3
 Lifebuoy Swasthaya Chetna
Lifebuoy Swasthaya Chetna (LBSC):-
– It is a rural health & hygiene initiative which was started in
2002.
– It was initiatiated in media dark villages in (UP, MP, Bihar,
Orissa) with the objective of spreading awareness about the
washing hands with the soap.
– It’s Need arose from the fact that Dirarrohcal diseases were
major cause of deaths
– It is multi-phased activity which works towards effecting
behavior change amongst the rural population it touches.
– It target children as they are the harbingers of change in
society and mothers since they are the custodians of health.
– The first interaction with students is then replicated with the
women and finally the rest of the community
 Other marketing strategies
• For long term benefit HUL started Project Streamline in
1997.
• Appointed 6000 Sub-Stockist that directly covers about
50000 villages &250million customers.
• Integrate, economic, environment, &social objective
with Business Agenda
• Project “BHARAT” started in 1998
• Initiated as home to home exercise
• Involved distribution of samples of low unit price packs
• Covered 13 million households by the end of 1999
• Idea of microcredit to villagers began with project
BHARAT
 Contd.
• Communication through unconventional channels like
MELA’S , NAUTANKI
• Colorful fliers , entertaining jingles travelling cinema
vans
• Local dancers actors and magicians were recruited
• Script changed to cater to different dialects and
education level
 Why all these Programmes
 To make people aware
 To increase the consumption.
 To increase the income.
 To increase behavior in :-
– Awareness & living standard Lifestyle
– Self consciousness
 And the Quest continues….

100000 ENTREPRENEURS

500000 VILLAGES

600 MILLION CONSUMERS

Shakti shall reach home in village, create sustainable

livelihood opportunities, and enhance the quality of life
in rural India
 Recommendations
 New communications for rural residents:
 Use local gatherings as promotion possibilities
organically(eg. Gifts to the newly weds in HLL
products at weddings, as well as free samples)
 Distribute free samples throughVani
 Start an on-place market in every target village
 Shakti entrepreneurs will set a small market place
within the village and sell goods from it with the
regular intervals, depending on the number of villages
in the area of that entrepreneur(eg. Every Mon or every
other Mon).(Since so far Shakti entrepreneurs are not
eager to use door-to-door system)
 Contd.
 Optimize the skill training programs for the Shakti
entrepreneurs
 Start Shakti clubs for entrepreneurs in an area
 Shakti clubs for entrepreneurs in each area having 20-
25 women should be started with monthly
meetings.This has a goal of women sharing their
successes and problems concerning sales of HLL.Good
case practices should be shared as well as solutions to
problems
 New entrepreneurs appointed and villages selected
 Identify the villages with the most business potential
out of Shakti target area