Description
This presentation is explaining marketing warfare strategies
[MMS B]
Marketing Warfare in India
Submitted to: Prof Issac Jacob
Submitted By: Swati Gupta (116) Ronak Mehta (131) Hemen Parekh (136) Nimit Shah (149) Vicky Shah (152)
Introduction
ANY COMMERCIAL organisation can succeed only if it is financially viable and also profitable. And profits flow from the market; from the customers. Marketing is the process of ensuring that sufficient customers conduct business with an organisation and come back for more, which alone will ensure its continuous profitability. Marketing would be easy, if companies were able to do it in isolation. If a company was the only one in the field, the world of customers would beat a path to its door. But there is always a multitude of external influences, all of which conspire and collude to make things more difficult for it. And competition is the most conspicuous among these factors. What exactly is competition? If it makes, say, fountain pens: then, other fountain pen makers constitute its competition. Not only that. What else does one write with? Companies making ball pens, fibre tip pens, pencils - all these are its competition. And what about typewriters and word processors? What about dictating machines? When it considers the possibility, and often the reality, of fountain pens being used for gifts and giveaways, it is in competition with a very large volume of consumer goods. Competition is the cornerstone for customer delight. It is the guarantee and passport for excellence in manufacture. It is the insignia and lapel pin, announcing quality and reliability of the goods and services which we buy. Few businesses enjoy a monopoly. What is more, competition does not go about its way by carefully avoiding the company, or steering clear of it. Competition is there to get at it, to grab it, and clean destroy it. Their marketing efforts are designed to sell their products, and push the company’s products into wilderness. Marketing is warfare, and competition deploys an ever changing armoury of weapons to secure an edge. Companies need to keep their eyes and ears open, always and every time, even to survive, leave alone succeed. Weapons may change, but warfare itself, is based on two immutable characteristics: strategy and tactics. The difference today is that the same strategic principles of war guide both military commanders and companies, whether they surge ahead into an invasion of the enemy in the battlefield or consumers and competition in the marketplace. The marketing plan of
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companies that stay ahead in the race have possibly added many more pages on the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors in the ruthless market place. They would ideally develop a plan of action to either exploit or defend against their competitors. With the result that more and more successful marketing campaigns now have to be planned like military campaigns in their quest for ultimate supremacy. Conversely, strategic planning is becoming more and more crucial and companies are learning to attack and outflank their competition while defending their own positions; organising better intelligence to anticipate competitive moves; and are ready at all times to wage a psychological and guerrilla warfare against competition. On the personal front, successful marketing people are exhibiting many of the same virtues that make a great military general – courage, loyalty, creativity and perseverance. In war, you win by outwitting, outflanking and overpowering the enemy. The territory you take is representative of your ability to do these things. And marketing today is no different. It clearly involves conflict between corporations and achieving success by outwitting, outflanking and overtaking your competitor’s market and a manager’s ability in penetrating his competitor’s market share is representative of his prowess in adapting to a General’s mould. Defining the Market Warrior No heroes, no heroic moves, but pure strategies determine its success. The general of the organisation with his men devised good strategies and the artillery and the rank commanders in the marketing and sales departments implemented them religiously. The leaders in the market – whether Maruti, Honda, Colgate, Hindustan Lever Limited or any other giant – do not believe in springing surprises but displaying strategic winning moves. They not only give adequate warning before implementation, but also conquer indiscriminately and continuously
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Attack and Defence Strategies
There is no such thing as a good marketing strategy in the abstract. Good strategy is bad and bad strategy is good, depending on who is going to use it. In fact, offensive strategy is very much like defensive strategy, just that the usage is entirely the opposite. The psychological effect of an attack far outweighs any material damage inflicted. Whether the outcome of a battle is victory or defeat is more important than the casualty roll. “We knew that we played a part in that time-honoured aims of military tactics – making the enemy feel so insecure that he leaves the field. That, after all, is the object of all military manoeuvres, whether they are attempts to outflank or direct frontal attacks. Sometimes soldiers and generals kid themselves with arguments about wars of attrition that the basic principle of war is to destroy the enemy. But they are wrong, for it is when a feeling of insecurity corrodes the morale of the enemy that the battle is almost won.” Attacking does not merely consist of assaulting walled cities or striking at. an army in full battle armour; it must include the art of assailing the enemy’s mental equilibrium. The problem with attack is that it takes time. An attacker in a military campaign not only tends to sacrifice surprise but also wastes time in bringing the forces into action. Because of the logistics problem, it can be days or weeks before the full force of an attack is felt by the defender – time that can be enormously useful to the defender. In a marketing attack, transportation is usually not a problem, the bottleneck is the communication. Getting the leadership message across millions of customers can take months or years, but it is definitely worth your bucks to keep trying.
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FMCG – Oral Care
Hindustan Lever is another giant in the offensive warfare strategy following all the principles to the hilt. When one looks at India’s top FMCG company’s tactics in the toothpaste category, one can observe it as a great strategic offensive movement. Understanding the fact that it was extremely difficult to de-position Colgate from the consumer mindset, HLL’s move of intelligent positioning of Close-Up’s freshness through a narrow frontal attack enriched their decision. Not just that, a great frontal attack on Colgate’s health values has also been launched by their flanker brand Pepsodent. Though Colgate still remained the market leader, Hindustan Lever Limited managed to infuse fear in their minds with increasing market share and consumer fidelity. And the opponent of HUL who uses brilliant defensive warfare strategy is Colgate, in India. For a long time Colgate has been ruling the Indian oral care industry. Colgate has a 51% share in the oral care segment. Its flagship brand, Colgate Dental Cream (CDC), is the largest selling toothpaste brand in the Indian market with a 39% market share. The company relaunched the Colgate Dental Cream brand in 2001 with a new positioning. Two new brands – Colgate Herbal, targeted at traditional consumers who seek natural ingredients, and Colgate Cibaca Top, a brand catering to the economy segment – were successfully launched during the year. Colgate has followed brilliant defensive warfare flanking strategy by launching its brands in every price segment. Additionally, its marketing focus has been on selective brands such as Colgate Dental Cream, Cibaca Top and Colgate Herbal, which have been driving growth. Its great quality of flanking and blocking competitive moves from Hindustan Unilever Limited’s Pepsodent and Close-Up sets Colgate as a leader in the oral care industry.
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Colgate also does not indulge in any heroics, instead following pure competitive defensive strategy. It would have been unintelligent of Colgate to fight a freshness war with Close-Up as Hindustan Unilever had already positioned the freshness concept into people’s minds. Colgate’s consolidation strategy with Colgate Dental Cream and other flanking defensive strategies are crucial in its accomplishment chronicle. The outcome of the war: Over 2001, HLL continued to score over Colgate, with its market (value) share in toothpastes moved up from 35.5 per cent to 36.7 per cent over 2001. This appears to have come at Colgate's expense. Colgate closed 2001 with a three-percentage-point loss in market share at 46.1 per cent. But Colgate made few winning moves to regain lost ground. Colgate Herbal, launched in 2000 to pre-empt the host of herbal entrants from eating into Colgate's market share, has helped pep up Colgate's oral care portfolio and has a 2.5 per cent share of the market. The re-launch of its gel toothpaste also helped increase Colgate's market share. Cibaca Top, Colgate's entry in the low-priced segment, helped the company ward off lowprice competitors and garner another three per cent share of the market. As a result, between December 2001 and May 2002, Colgate increased its value share in the toothpaste market from 46.1 per cent to 49.6 per cent, while HLL's slipped from 36.3 per cent to 34.3 per cent. HLL faced a setback in its low-price brand Aim, which HLL pulled back after launching it in 2000.
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FMCG – Hair Oil
An example of a frontal attack would be HUL’s Nihar coconut hair oil where the company came out with a similar product to that of Parachute. It is a quiet conquest by Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) in the rural coconut oil market. HLL's Nihar coconut oil achieved a market leadership in the rural coconut oil market in October 2000, by displacing all-time leader Parachute of Marico Industries. As per market research firm ORG-Marg's retail audit for the rural coconut oil market, Nihar's market share stood at 25.4 per cent in volumes in October, while that of Parachute was at 23.6 per cent. The total volume of the rural coconut oil market is around 54,000 tonne, growing at 6-7 per cent annually. Coconut oil is a relatively new area for the multinational, and HLL unleashed significant aggression in this market in the last two-three years. The multinational's strategy is simple: to seem to have performed the trick. Pricing is a critical issue in the branded coconut hair oil market where the consumption of low-priced loose oils is huge. So as to tackle the pricing issue, HLL launched Nihar and Cococare in various price points in pouches, such as Rs 5.50 for 50 ml, Rs 10 for 100 ml and Rs 20 for 200 ml. HLL believes that low-unit price packs will lead to substantial conversions of the loose oil consumers to packaged and branded oils. This, the multinational feels, would also enable the company to gain a higher share of the market. Rural and urban markets contribute equally to the overall Rs 500 crore coconut oil market. HLL's portfolio of brands in this sector comprises Nihar and Cococare. These together command a market share of about 20 per cent share of all-India coconut oil market. Marico's
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flagship brand Parachute is the all-India market leader with a share of about 53 per cent. Thus, even as HLL has managed to scrape through the leadership position of the rural coconut oil market, it is still far from being crowned the all-India leader in coconut oils. Nihar's all-India share at the end of 1999, stood at 12 per cent, as per ORG-Marg retail audit for the rural plus urban market. The brand's share in the beginning of 1999 stood at 9.5 per cent. However, since this gain in share has not really impacted Parachute's all-India market share, the share has been garnered through conversion of loose oil consumers.
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Automobile Industry
Korean car major Hyundai also did a great job when it attacked Maruti’s reign, pitching the Santro against Maruti’s ever popular Zen. They challenged Zen’s mileage and value for money factor with the narrowest frontal attack. They simply concentrated on Santro being just as economical but with better technology. The result has been a resounding success with Santro sales at an incline. Although MUL maintained the top position in terms of total sales, the homegrown auto giant took a beating in terms of market-share, suffering an alltime low of 51 per cent -- a measly number compared to its over 80 per cent share for several years. Consider this: In January 2000, MUL could only claim a market-share of 51 per cent compared to the whopping 78.6 per cent for the same month in 1999 -- a drop of more than 27 percentage points. Unfortunately for MUL, the drop comes not in just one segment, but two -- the small car and mid-size segments. Maruti's loss is Hyundai's gain as the Korean company sold 7,402 units of the Santro while the Zen lagged behind with 6,337 units in January 2000. But Maruti Udyog Limited is iconic in India. Not only has the auto major positioned itself unerringly in the line of attack but has also shown remarkable audacity of attacking its own throne. It is quite astounding that Maruti has four mega success brands in the A segment – the Maruti 800, Alto, Wagon R and the Zen. This bravery to attack itself not only gives Maruti great reputation but is also an obvious reason to continue being a market leader for years.
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Such imposing strategies position one as an evergreen leader in the minds of the customers. During the lethal price war in the small car segment, when Hyundai with its Santro launched a severe attack on the country’s biggest carmaker, Maruti, the latter not only managed to consolidate its position vis-a-vis the Zen, against whom Santro was pitted, but also struck back by launching the Alto and the Wagon R in the same segment. The result has been a resounding accomplishment with each of these brands in the A category. Though Hyundai continues to try, Maruti has been successful in blocking most of the great competitive moves from the Korean automotive giant. From the customer’s viewpoint, Maruti is still numero uno in terms of economy and value for money. Maruti launched Wagon R in Feb. 2000 to compete with the Hyundai's Santro, Tata's Indica, Fiat's Palio in Indian market. It was a huge success at the time of its launch in month of Feb. and March with sales of approx. 8000 units but after that it bumped in the market which resulted in loss to maruti (in terms of profit after tax) for the first time in the history of more than twenty years and reduced market share to 48% from 50%. Later in 2001-2004 Maruti entered in four related businesses such as corporate lease and fleet management (Mid-2001), buying and selling of used cars (October 2001) auto finance (January 2002), car insurance (May 2002) to increase the market share. They also positioned the wagon R as a family car and emphasized on the features of the vehicle. In year 2003-2004 Wagon R growth rate was higher than Santro. In February 2005, Wagon R's sales were higher than the Santro's and in March the Alto stole, too, the Santro's thunder. Another brave leader’s move in the automotive sector is that of Honda. Despite the astonishing success of the old Honda City, the company went ahead, innovated and attacked itself with the new look City. This one with very different looks, a less powered engine but with a lower price tag. The move has been the greatest strategic success in the C segment of the Indian automotive industry’s history, effectively blocking moves from the GM’s Optra, Maruti’s Baleno and Hyundai’s Accent and the Accent Viva. Such strategic courage is what determines the leaders and not any heroic moves.
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Media Industry
Zee, an Essel Group company, launched Zee TV, the nation's first Hindi channel by a private organization. Zee TV evoked a massive positive response from Indian viewers, since it brought them a much wider choice of programs compared to Doordarshan. Zee TV's broadcast content ranged from film-based to educational programs. Zee's mass appeal was in direct contrast to Star (launched in 1991) which aired programs exclusively in English. Catering to the needs of the vast Hindi-speaking Indian audience, Zee TV's popularity grew by leaps and bounds during the period 1992 to 2000. In October 1995, Sony Entertainment Television (SET) made its entry into India. Star, which was launched in 1991, was also making an effort to attract larger numbers of the nonwesternized Indian viewers. Zee had to come up with a new strategy to counter this competition. While Star and Sony were concentrating more on improving their programming content, Zee planned the launch of two channels dedicated to news and cinema, respectively. This could be called as a mobile defence strategy. Zee had its action plan ready but it did not have the funds for expansion. It therefore entered into a partnership with Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch), the man behind Star, in 1995. With this deal Murdoch acquired a 50% stake in Zee. Once the Zee-Star deal was finalized, Zee launched the nation's first round-the-clock Hindi news Channel - Zee News and a Hindi movies channel - Zee Cinema. Zee News aired news every hour and its programs ranged from interviews with corporate personalities to discussions on the country's social and political issues. After its success in the domestic market, Zee, in 1995 ventured into the overseas market to capture the NRI audience. From its launch in 1992 till 2000, Zee commanded the highest market share. However, by mid 2000, competition from Star and Sony began to intensify, and
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in 2000 Zee recorded the lowest market share of 5.19%, with Star and Sony having a market share of 18.49% and 11.29% respectively. Zee needed to formulate new strategies to claw back its market share. The new strategies Zee adopted, such as brand extension, brand re-positioning and re-branding, pushed its revenues up once again and its share price rose steadily during the period 2003-04 too. These were the counter offensive defence strategies adopted by Zee. In order to compete with Star and Sony, Zee implemented a two-pronged strategy from September 2000 onwards. One element was to reform the programming content and the second was to redefine the prime time band (which was usually taken to run from 9 PM to 11PM) by extending the programming slots to 45 instead of the existing 30 minutes. Consequently in October 2000, Zee came out with "Sawaal Dus Crore ka" (SDCK), two months after KBC was launched. Zee also launched two new channels Zee English and Zee Movies in 2000. In 2005, Zee re-branded a host of its channels to bring them under the Zee brand. Trendz was renamed ZEE Trendz, ZEE English was renamed as ZEE Café, Smile TV was named as Zee Smile and all the Alpha channels were prefixed with 'Zee' brand name. It also repositioned Zee, with a new catch line-"Jiyo Zee bhar ke". All these moves were aimed at expanding its viewer ship. This made Zee TV rise again. Zee’s market share grew from 17% in 2005 to 27% in 2006 while that of Sony Entertainment declined from 19% to 15% and that of Star TV declined from 65% to 58%. The GRP’s of Zee TV also increased from 142 in 2005 to 232 in 2006. Sony and Star both saw a decline in GRP’s from 161 to 129 and from 559 to 492 from 2005 to 2006 respectively.
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Food Industry
Pizza hut has launched a frontal attack on dominoes a leader in pizza delivery ( offering a 30 minutes or free service to customers offer) . By starting this pizza huts wishes to capitalize in dominoes’s market share
Guerrilla Warfare
Guerrilla Marketing which refers to: standing above the noise of the competition. It deals with matching wits than matching budgets. Guerrilla marketing can be as different from traditional marketing as guerrilla warfare is from traditional warfare. Instead of asking to just invest money, guerrilla marketing suggests that one invests time, energy, imagination and knowledge instead. It puts profits, not sales, as the main yardstick. It urges one to grow geometrically by enlarging the size of each transaction, having more transactions per year with each customer, and tapping the enormous referral power of current customers. The cost of selling a product to a brand-new customer is six times higher than selling to an existing customer. Therefore, guerrilla marketers focus on getting their customers to expand the size of their purchases. This reduces the cost of marketing and also reinforces the marketer- customer relationship. Guerrilla marketing is based on imagination and is targeted towards maximizing profits with minimum resources. To be a successful guerrilla, one needs to constantly produce out-of-thebox ideas and should have the ability to implement them effectively.
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Cola Wars
A relentless frontal attack strategy is what Coca-Cola in India continually launches against its customary rival Pepsi. Of course, Coke in India attacks Pepsi because not only can it match up with Pepsi, which still is the market leader in India, but also gives it a severe psychological trouble with its dominant flanking brand, Thums Up. According to statistics, Thums Up is the number 2 brand in the Indian soft drink industry, third being Coke itself. Coke’s inexorable attack on Pepsi on the too sweet taste of the latter also created a huge psychosomatic incongruity. The strategy it used: Find a weakness in the leader’s strength and attack at that point. Coke being world wide superior to Pepsi is trying to create a battlefield positioning where the ultimate supremacy of the cola war in India goes to Coca-Cola.
Coke has realised that this battle for consumer positioning is extremely important in the emotionally charged Indian market and that’s what supremacy is all about. The attack is also strategic on the cola front, with stronger taste appeal in both the brands being made the premeditated focus. Only time can tell whether or not Coca-Cola India’s ruthless attack on Pepsi will pay dividends or Pepsi would continue to find favour in the consumers’ mind.
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Future Group (Retail sector)
Future Group have come up with 3 catchy ad campaign which surely does catch your eyes, which make a direct attack at stores like Lifestyle, Westside and Shoppers Stop. Keep West-aSide. Make a smart choice! Shoppers! Stop. Make a smart choice! Change Your Lifestyle. Make a smart choice!
In this way, the company slowly but tactfully uses its advertising campaigns to attack on its competitors, and the tagline “Isse sasta aur achha kahin nahi” tries to tell its customers that at lower price its products are of real value. In guerrilla warfare, this company uses intensive promotional campaigns to attack on its competitors.
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Airline Industry
The months of July and August 2002 witnessed unprecedented development in the commercial aviation industry in India. For the first time in the history of the industry, efforts were made to make air-travel affordable for a larger section of the population. With air-travel fares being much higher than rail and road travel fares, the average Indian traveller rarely travelled by air. However, in these two months, the companies offering air-travel changed the market dynamics completely. The reason for the above was not very difficult to understand. Though there were only three major players in the Indian aviation market, namely Jet Airways (JA), Air Sahara (Sahara) and the state-owned Indian Airlines (IA), competition was getting fiercer by the day. Thus, when JA launched its promotional campaign 'Everyone Can Fly' that offered special fares on select routes, industry observers commented that such a move was long overdue. Immediately, IA responded by launching its 'U Can Fly' scheme with similar conditions as that of 'Everyone Can Fly.' As part of its promotional strategy, the marketing team of KFA showcased the airlines as 'the new flying experience'. Advertisement hoardings at airports
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depicted the stylish interiors of the 'Funliners', which conveyed a youthful, fun-filled, and world-class image. All the aircraft had in-flight entertainment systems and well designed interiors. There was only one class, i.e., the Kingfisher Class, rather than the economy class and business class bifurcation of other airlines. New low cost carriers (LCCs) like SpiceJet and GoAir entered the market after KFA's launch and they started an all-out price war by slashing down on fares. For instance, in December 2005, GoAir started offering 10,000 free air tickets on four new routes (Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, and Bangalore). Established players like Jet Airways (India) Ltd., (Jet Airways) too looked to consolidate their market positions. In August 2002, Sahara surprised its competitors and customers alike, by announcing the 'Steal a Seat' campaign. Beginning August 26, 2002, customers could bid for 10% of Sahara's unsold seats for as low as Re 1. However, customers would have to plan their journey 25 days in advance. Industry observers remarked that the most interesting feature of the price war in 2002 was that Sahara, the smallest of the Big Three, was the most aggressive. Apart from launching the novel bid schemes, it also offered the highest agent commissions to increase volumes of the tickets sold, while maintaining the lowest fares. Thus, we see that the various players in the airline industry have adopted guerrilla attack strategies, which are targeted towards the other players, to survive and succeed in the industry and be able to face competition effectively and efficiently and also to acquire major market share.
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Telecom Sector – Reliance Communications
The entry of Reliance Infocomm (now Reliance Communications) redefined marketing models in India. Reliance Infocomm through its aggressive, unconventional tactics changed the rules of the mobile marketing game. There were many different strategies used by Reliance. The vision of Dhirubhai Ambani - a mobile phone in every Indian’s hand - drove Reliance Infocomm further to reach out to places hitherto untapped by any telecom company in India. The rules of the game changed with Anil Ambani, 'the inheritor of India's most celebrated legacy', going great guns with a coverage spanning over 3000 towns and around 150,000 villages across India. This can be called as a bypass strategy of Reliance as it focussed more on penetrating the market with coverage in the villages rather than concentrating on towns and cities. It targeted the nation as a whole and not just the cities. For marketing promotions Reliance again used unconventional strategies. The mobile service was promoted aggressively through every marketing channel. Huge signs were put up in front of every gas station and office space in addition to the prime spots booked across the nation. The bulk purchase of signboards ensured that the cost was lower as compared to that available to competitors.
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Defensive strategy
Counter Attack by dettol on Savlon Savlon was a brand owned by a pharmaceutical MNC ICI ltd. Later ICI's OTC brands was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Savlon was relaunched in Indian market in 1993. The brand was expected to give the market leader Dettol, a run for its money. But even after millions of rupees spent, Dettol still rules the antiseptic lotion market.
Savlon had lot of advantages over Dettol. According to media reports, some lab tests indicated that Savlon is an effective germ killer than Dettol . Savlon is effective against both Gram Positive and Gram Negative germs. Another advantage about Savlon was that it does not sting while being applied on wounds. Dettol used to give a stinging sensation while applied on wounds. Savlon also had a better scent compared to the more clinical smell of Dettol.
Armed with these properties, Savlon went into a direct attack on Dettol . The product was positioned as an antiseptic that does not hurt while healing. The main differentiators for the brand were its no-sting property and better smell. According to media reports, during the relaunch, J&J spent heavily on promoting the brand. The relaunch was a success and consumers tried out the new product. But the story did not continue like that.
Dettol confronted the frontal attack from Savlon in a different manner. It tried to attack one of the most valuable brand of J&J - Band -Aid by launching Dettol plasters.
This move got J&J defensive. It never expected Dettol to attack another brand in retaliation. Dettol plasters had the potential to attract consumers because of the brand equity commanded
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by Dettol Antiseptic.
J&J scrambled to protect Band-Aid by launching a series of variants in the medicated plaster segment. In doing so, resources was spent on defending Band-Aid rather than in advancing Savlon.
Savlon suffered heavily because it lost the support interms of investment in brand building. Dettol had a brand equity built over more than 50 years (at that period of time) and it is not an easy task to break into that equity. It needed painful long term sustained investment.
How ever Savlon was pushed to a back burner after Dettol introduced the plaster. Savlon never re-emerged.
During 1998, a funny incident happened.In 1998 HLL acquired the rights to launch Savlon Soaps from J&J. While the rights for antiseptic lotion remained with J&J, the marketing alliance was for soaps.
HLL was worried at the success of Dettol soaps. Armed with a strong association with antiseptic property, Dettol soap became a huge success and cornered a significant chunk of the premium medicated soap category. HLL, who wanted to rule the entire soap category wanted to arrest the rise of Dettol soap.
Instead of trying to develop its own brand of soap, HLL looked for an easy solution. Thus came the idea of marketing alliance with Savlon. With much fanfare, Savlon antiseptic soap was launched. J&J was happy because it got some cashflow by giving the rights of Savlon. The marketing alliance lasted only for 4 years.
There are marketing experts who say that the positioning of Savlon was not correct. Nostinging and sweet scent are not important for a consumer looking for an antiseptic lotion. What they look for is effectiveness. Hence Savlon was trying to differentiate on attributes which are not considered to be important by the consumers.
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More over, consumers tend to believe that the stinging sensation is a side-effect of the effectiveness of the antiseptic. So if it does not hurt, it is not effective. Dettol has taught them that way.
But actually it did not achieve its desired success because J&J was not able to support it interms of investment. Somewhere along the way, the company disowned the brand. One reason can be that antiseptic lotion is a small market that does not warrant such heavy investment. But if that is so, the company shouldn't have introduced a brand in such a category.
Savlon now occupies a negligible part of the market. It is a popular brand in the institutional market but in the consumer market, it is a no-brand.
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Conclusion
Thus, the similarity between war and marketing here is that both tend to attack the enemy’s strategy and create anarchy in the rival camp. The strongest survive and the weakest die.
There is a doubling of the total output of goods and services in the advanced societies about every 15 years. This means that by the time an individual reaches old age, he will be surrounded by a society producing 32 times as much as when he was born. Such frontal attacks play on the inherent trait of impermanence – the transience – that penetrates our consciousness, radically affecting the way we relate to other people, to things, to the entire universe of ideas, art and values. If acceleration is a new social phenomenon, transience is its psychological counterpart. Companies must focus on long term war strategies if they want to craft their leadership in the minds of the consumers in this chokehold era of product as well as advertising explosion.
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Thank You
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doc_855230974.docx
This presentation is explaining marketing warfare strategies
[MMS B]
Marketing Warfare in India
Submitted to: Prof Issac Jacob
Submitted By: Swati Gupta (116) Ronak Mehta (131) Hemen Parekh (136) Nimit Shah (149) Vicky Shah (152)
Introduction
ANY COMMERCIAL organisation can succeed only if it is financially viable and also profitable. And profits flow from the market; from the customers. Marketing is the process of ensuring that sufficient customers conduct business with an organisation and come back for more, which alone will ensure its continuous profitability. Marketing would be easy, if companies were able to do it in isolation. If a company was the only one in the field, the world of customers would beat a path to its door. But there is always a multitude of external influences, all of which conspire and collude to make things more difficult for it. And competition is the most conspicuous among these factors. What exactly is competition? If it makes, say, fountain pens: then, other fountain pen makers constitute its competition. Not only that. What else does one write with? Companies making ball pens, fibre tip pens, pencils - all these are its competition. And what about typewriters and word processors? What about dictating machines? When it considers the possibility, and often the reality, of fountain pens being used for gifts and giveaways, it is in competition with a very large volume of consumer goods. Competition is the cornerstone for customer delight. It is the guarantee and passport for excellence in manufacture. It is the insignia and lapel pin, announcing quality and reliability of the goods and services which we buy. Few businesses enjoy a monopoly. What is more, competition does not go about its way by carefully avoiding the company, or steering clear of it. Competition is there to get at it, to grab it, and clean destroy it. Their marketing efforts are designed to sell their products, and push the company’s products into wilderness. Marketing is warfare, and competition deploys an ever changing armoury of weapons to secure an edge. Companies need to keep their eyes and ears open, always and every time, even to survive, leave alone succeed. Weapons may change, but warfare itself, is based on two immutable characteristics: strategy and tactics. The difference today is that the same strategic principles of war guide both military commanders and companies, whether they surge ahead into an invasion of the enemy in the battlefield or consumers and competition in the marketplace. The marketing plan of
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companies that stay ahead in the race have possibly added many more pages on the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors in the ruthless market place. They would ideally develop a plan of action to either exploit or defend against their competitors. With the result that more and more successful marketing campaigns now have to be planned like military campaigns in their quest for ultimate supremacy. Conversely, strategic planning is becoming more and more crucial and companies are learning to attack and outflank their competition while defending their own positions; organising better intelligence to anticipate competitive moves; and are ready at all times to wage a psychological and guerrilla warfare against competition. On the personal front, successful marketing people are exhibiting many of the same virtues that make a great military general – courage, loyalty, creativity and perseverance. In war, you win by outwitting, outflanking and overpowering the enemy. The territory you take is representative of your ability to do these things. And marketing today is no different. It clearly involves conflict between corporations and achieving success by outwitting, outflanking and overtaking your competitor’s market and a manager’s ability in penetrating his competitor’s market share is representative of his prowess in adapting to a General’s mould. Defining the Market Warrior No heroes, no heroic moves, but pure strategies determine its success. The general of the organisation with his men devised good strategies and the artillery and the rank commanders in the marketing and sales departments implemented them religiously. The leaders in the market – whether Maruti, Honda, Colgate, Hindustan Lever Limited or any other giant – do not believe in springing surprises but displaying strategic winning moves. They not only give adequate warning before implementation, but also conquer indiscriminately and continuously
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Attack and Defence Strategies
There is no such thing as a good marketing strategy in the abstract. Good strategy is bad and bad strategy is good, depending on who is going to use it. In fact, offensive strategy is very much like defensive strategy, just that the usage is entirely the opposite. The psychological effect of an attack far outweighs any material damage inflicted. Whether the outcome of a battle is victory or defeat is more important than the casualty roll. “We knew that we played a part in that time-honoured aims of military tactics – making the enemy feel so insecure that he leaves the field. That, after all, is the object of all military manoeuvres, whether they are attempts to outflank or direct frontal attacks. Sometimes soldiers and generals kid themselves with arguments about wars of attrition that the basic principle of war is to destroy the enemy. But they are wrong, for it is when a feeling of insecurity corrodes the morale of the enemy that the battle is almost won.” Attacking does not merely consist of assaulting walled cities or striking at. an army in full battle armour; it must include the art of assailing the enemy’s mental equilibrium. The problem with attack is that it takes time. An attacker in a military campaign not only tends to sacrifice surprise but also wastes time in bringing the forces into action. Because of the logistics problem, it can be days or weeks before the full force of an attack is felt by the defender – time that can be enormously useful to the defender. In a marketing attack, transportation is usually not a problem, the bottleneck is the communication. Getting the leadership message across millions of customers can take months or years, but it is definitely worth your bucks to keep trying.
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FMCG – Oral Care
Hindustan Lever is another giant in the offensive warfare strategy following all the principles to the hilt. When one looks at India’s top FMCG company’s tactics in the toothpaste category, one can observe it as a great strategic offensive movement. Understanding the fact that it was extremely difficult to de-position Colgate from the consumer mindset, HLL’s move of intelligent positioning of Close-Up’s freshness through a narrow frontal attack enriched their decision. Not just that, a great frontal attack on Colgate’s health values has also been launched by their flanker brand Pepsodent. Though Colgate still remained the market leader, Hindustan Lever Limited managed to infuse fear in their minds with increasing market share and consumer fidelity. And the opponent of HUL who uses brilliant defensive warfare strategy is Colgate, in India. For a long time Colgate has been ruling the Indian oral care industry. Colgate has a 51% share in the oral care segment. Its flagship brand, Colgate Dental Cream (CDC), is the largest selling toothpaste brand in the Indian market with a 39% market share. The company relaunched the Colgate Dental Cream brand in 2001 with a new positioning. Two new brands – Colgate Herbal, targeted at traditional consumers who seek natural ingredients, and Colgate Cibaca Top, a brand catering to the economy segment – were successfully launched during the year. Colgate has followed brilliant defensive warfare flanking strategy by launching its brands in every price segment. Additionally, its marketing focus has been on selective brands such as Colgate Dental Cream, Cibaca Top and Colgate Herbal, which have been driving growth. Its great quality of flanking and blocking competitive moves from Hindustan Unilever Limited’s Pepsodent and Close-Up sets Colgate as a leader in the oral care industry.
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Colgate also does not indulge in any heroics, instead following pure competitive defensive strategy. It would have been unintelligent of Colgate to fight a freshness war with Close-Up as Hindustan Unilever had already positioned the freshness concept into people’s minds. Colgate’s consolidation strategy with Colgate Dental Cream and other flanking defensive strategies are crucial in its accomplishment chronicle. The outcome of the war: Over 2001, HLL continued to score over Colgate, with its market (value) share in toothpastes moved up from 35.5 per cent to 36.7 per cent over 2001. This appears to have come at Colgate's expense. Colgate closed 2001 with a three-percentage-point loss in market share at 46.1 per cent. But Colgate made few winning moves to regain lost ground. Colgate Herbal, launched in 2000 to pre-empt the host of herbal entrants from eating into Colgate's market share, has helped pep up Colgate's oral care portfolio and has a 2.5 per cent share of the market. The re-launch of its gel toothpaste also helped increase Colgate's market share. Cibaca Top, Colgate's entry in the low-priced segment, helped the company ward off lowprice competitors and garner another three per cent share of the market. As a result, between December 2001 and May 2002, Colgate increased its value share in the toothpaste market from 46.1 per cent to 49.6 per cent, while HLL's slipped from 36.3 per cent to 34.3 per cent. HLL faced a setback in its low-price brand Aim, which HLL pulled back after launching it in 2000.
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FMCG – Hair Oil
An example of a frontal attack would be HUL’s Nihar coconut hair oil where the company came out with a similar product to that of Parachute. It is a quiet conquest by Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) in the rural coconut oil market. HLL's Nihar coconut oil achieved a market leadership in the rural coconut oil market in October 2000, by displacing all-time leader Parachute of Marico Industries. As per market research firm ORG-Marg's retail audit for the rural coconut oil market, Nihar's market share stood at 25.4 per cent in volumes in October, while that of Parachute was at 23.6 per cent. The total volume of the rural coconut oil market is around 54,000 tonne, growing at 6-7 per cent annually. Coconut oil is a relatively new area for the multinational, and HLL unleashed significant aggression in this market in the last two-three years. The multinational's strategy is simple: to seem to have performed the trick. Pricing is a critical issue in the branded coconut hair oil market where the consumption of low-priced loose oils is huge. So as to tackle the pricing issue, HLL launched Nihar and Cococare in various price points in pouches, such as Rs 5.50 for 50 ml, Rs 10 for 100 ml and Rs 20 for 200 ml. HLL believes that low-unit price packs will lead to substantial conversions of the loose oil consumers to packaged and branded oils. This, the multinational feels, would also enable the company to gain a higher share of the market. Rural and urban markets contribute equally to the overall Rs 500 crore coconut oil market. HLL's portfolio of brands in this sector comprises Nihar and Cococare. These together command a market share of about 20 per cent share of all-India coconut oil market. Marico's
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flagship brand Parachute is the all-India market leader with a share of about 53 per cent. Thus, even as HLL has managed to scrape through the leadership position of the rural coconut oil market, it is still far from being crowned the all-India leader in coconut oils. Nihar's all-India share at the end of 1999, stood at 12 per cent, as per ORG-Marg retail audit for the rural plus urban market. The brand's share in the beginning of 1999 stood at 9.5 per cent. However, since this gain in share has not really impacted Parachute's all-India market share, the share has been garnered through conversion of loose oil consumers.
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Automobile Industry
Korean car major Hyundai also did a great job when it attacked Maruti’s reign, pitching the Santro against Maruti’s ever popular Zen. They challenged Zen’s mileage and value for money factor with the narrowest frontal attack. They simply concentrated on Santro being just as economical but with better technology. The result has been a resounding success with Santro sales at an incline. Although MUL maintained the top position in terms of total sales, the homegrown auto giant took a beating in terms of market-share, suffering an alltime low of 51 per cent -- a measly number compared to its over 80 per cent share for several years. Consider this: In January 2000, MUL could only claim a market-share of 51 per cent compared to the whopping 78.6 per cent for the same month in 1999 -- a drop of more than 27 percentage points. Unfortunately for MUL, the drop comes not in just one segment, but two -- the small car and mid-size segments. Maruti's loss is Hyundai's gain as the Korean company sold 7,402 units of the Santro while the Zen lagged behind with 6,337 units in January 2000. But Maruti Udyog Limited is iconic in India. Not only has the auto major positioned itself unerringly in the line of attack but has also shown remarkable audacity of attacking its own throne. It is quite astounding that Maruti has four mega success brands in the A segment – the Maruti 800, Alto, Wagon R and the Zen. This bravery to attack itself not only gives Maruti great reputation but is also an obvious reason to continue being a market leader for years.
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Such imposing strategies position one as an evergreen leader in the minds of the customers. During the lethal price war in the small car segment, when Hyundai with its Santro launched a severe attack on the country’s biggest carmaker, Maruti, the latter not only managed to consolidate its position vis-a-vis the Zen, against whom Santro was pitted, but also struck back by launching the Alto and the Wagon R in the same segment. The result has been a resounding accomplishment with each of these brands in the A category. Though Hyundai continues to try, Maruti has been successful in blocking most of the great competitive moves from the Korean automotive giant. From the customer’s viewpoint, Maruti is still numero uno in terms of economy and value for money. Maruti launched Wagon R in Feb. 2000 to compete with the Hyundai's Santro, Tata's Indica, Fiat's Palio in Indian market. It was a huge success at the time of its launch in month of Feb. and March with sales of approx. 8000 units but after that it bumped in the market which resulted in loss to maruti (in terms of profit after tax) for the first time in the history of more than twenty years and reduced market share to 48% from 50%. Later in 2001-2004 Maruti entered in four related businesses such as corporate lease and fleet management (Mid-2001), buying and selling of used cars (October 2001) auto finance (January 2002), car insurance (May 2002) to increase the market share. They also positioned the wagon R as a family car and emphasized on the features of the vehicle. In year 2003-2004 Wagon R growth rate was higher than Santro. In February 2005, Wagon R's sales were higher than the Santro's and in March the Alto stole, too, the Santro's thunder. Another brave leader’s move in the automotive sector is that of Honda. Despite the astonishing success of the old Honda City, the company went ahead, innovated and attacked itself with the new look City. This one with very different looks, a less powered engine but with a lower price tag. The move has been the greatest strategic success in the C segment of the Indian automotive industry’s history, effectively blocking moves from the GM’s Optra, Maruti’s Baleno and Hyundai’s Accent and the Accent Viva. Such strategic courage is what determines the leaders and not any heroic moves.
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Media Industry
Zee, an Essel Group company, launched Zee TV, the nation's first Hindi channel by a private organization. Zee TV evoked a massive positive response from Indian viewers, since it brought them a much wider choice of programs compared to Doordarshan. Zee TV's broadcast content ranged from film-based to educational programs. Zee's mass appeal was in direct contrast to Star (launched in 1991) which aired programs exclusively in English. Catering to the needs of the vast Hindi-speaking Indian audience, Zee TV's popularity grew by leaps and bounds during the period 1992 to 2000. In October 1995, Sony Entertainment Television (SET) made its entry into India. Star, which was launched in 1991, was also making an effort to attract larger numbers of the nonwesternized Indian viewers. Zee had to come up with a new strategy to counter this competition. While Star and Sony were concentrating more on improving their programming content, Zee planned the launch of two channels dedicated to news and cinema, respectively. This could be called as a mobile defence strategy. Zee had its action plan ready but it did not have the funds for expansion. It therefore entered into a partnership with Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch), the man behind Star, in 1995. With this deal Murdoch acquired a 50% stake in Zee. Once the Zee-Star deal was finalized, Zee launched the nation's first round-the-clock Hindi news Channel - Zee News and a Hindi movies channel - Zee Cinema. Zee News aired news every hour and its programs ranged from interviews with corporate personalities to discussions on the country's social and political issues. After its success in the domestic market, Zee, in 1995 ventured into the overseas market to capture the NRI audience. From its launch in 1992 till 2000, Zee commanded the highest market share. However, by mid 2000, competition from Star and Sony began to intensify, and
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in 2000 Zee recorded the lowest market share of 5.19%, with Star and Sony having a market share of 18.49% and 11.29% respectively. Zee needed to formulate new strategies to claw back its market share. The new strategies Zee adopted, such as brand extension, brand re-positioning and re-branding, pushed its revenues up once again and its share price rose steadily during the period 2003-04 too. These were the counter offensive defence strategies adopted by Zee. In order to compete with Star and Sony, Zee implemented a two-pronged strategy from September 2000 onwards. One element was to reform the programming content and the second was to redefine the prime time band (which was usually taken to run from 9 PM to 11PM) by extending the programming slots to 45 instead of the existing 30 minutes. Consequently in October 2000, Zee came out with "Sawaal Dus Crore ka" (SDCK), two months after KBC was launched. Zee also launched two new channels Zee English and Zee Movies in 2000. In 2005, Zee re-branded a host of its channels to bring them under the Zee brand. Trendz was renamed ZEE Trendz, ZEE English was renamed as ZEE Café, Smile TV was named as Zee Smile and all the Alpha channels were prefixed with 'Zee' brand name. It also repositioned Zee, with a new catch line-"Jiyo Zee bhar ke". All these moves were aimed at expanding its viewer ship. This made Zee TV rise again. Zee’s market share grew from 17% in 2005 to 27% in 2006 while that of Sony Entertainment declined from 19% to 15% and that of Star TV declined from 65% to 58%. The GRP’s of Zee TV also increased from 142 in 2005 to 232 in 2006. Sony and Star both saw a decline in GRP’s from 161 to 129 and from 559 to 492 from 2005 to 2006 respectively.
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Food Industry
Pizza hut has launched a frontal attack on dominoes a leader in pizza delivery ( offering a 30 minutes or free service to customers offer) . By starting this pizza huts wishes to capitalize in dominoes’s market share
Guerrilla Warfare
Guerrilla Marketing which refers to: standing above the noise of the competition. It deals with matching wits than matching budgets. Guerrilla marketing can be as different from traditional marketing as guerrilla warfare is from traditional warfare. Instead of asking to just invest money, guerrilla marketing suggests that one invests time, energy, imagination and knowledge instead. It puts profits, not sales, as the main yardstick. It urges one to grow geometrically by enlarging the size of each transaction, having more transactions per year with each customer, and tapping the enormous referral power of current customers. The cost of selling a product to a brand-new customer is six times higher than selling to an existing customer. Therefore, guerrilla marketers focus on getting their customers to expand the size of their purchases. This reduces the cost of marketing and also reinforces the marketer- customer relationship. Guerrilla marketing is based on imagination and is targeted towards maximizing profits with minimum resources. To be a successful guerrilla, one needs to constantly produce out-of-thebox ideas and should have the ability to implement them effectively.
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Cola Wars
A relentless frontal attack strategy is what Coca-Cola in India continually launches against its customary rival Pepsi. Of course, Coke in India attacks Pepsi because not only can it match up with Pepsi, which still is the market leader in India, but also gives it a severe psychological trouble with its dominant flanking brand, Thums Up. According to statistics, Thums Up is the number 2 brand in the Indian soft drink industry, third being Coke itself. Coke’s inexorable attack on Pepsi on the too sweet taste of the latter also created a huge psychosomatic incongruity. The strategy it used: Find a weakness in the leader’s strength and attack at that point. Coke being world wide superior to Pepsi is trying to create a battlefield positioning where the ultimate supremacy of the cola war in India goes to Coca-Cola.
Coke has realised that this battle for consumer positioning is extremely important in the emotionally charged Indian market and that’s what supremacy is all about. The attack is also strategic on the cola front, with stronger taste appeal in both the brands being made the premeditated focus. Only time can tell whether or not Coca-Cola India’s ruthless attack on Pepsi will pay dividends or Pepsi would continue to find favour in the consumers’ mind.
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Future Group (Retail sector)
Future Group have come up with 3 catchy ad campaign which surely does catch your eyes, which make a direct attack at stores like Lifestyle, Westside and Shoppers Stop. Keep West-aSide. Make a smart choice! Shoppers! Stop. Make a smart choice! Change Your Lifestyle. Make a smart choice!
In this way, the company slowly but tactfully uses its advertising campaigns to attack on its competitors, and the tagline “Isse sasta aur achha kahin nahi” tries to tell its customers that at lower price its products are of real value. In guerrilla warfare, this company uses intensive promotional campaigns to attack on its competitors.
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Airline Industry
The months of July and August 2002 witnessed unprecedented development in the commercial aviation industry in India. For the first time in the history of the industry, efforts were made to make air-travel affordable for a larger section of the population. With air-travel fares being much higher than rail and road travel fares, the average Indian traveller rarely travelled by air. However, in these two months, the companies offering air-travel changed the market dynamics completely. The reason for the above was not very difficult to understand. Though there were only three major players in the Indian aviation market, namely Jet Airways (JA), Air Sahara (Sahara) and the state-owned Indian Airlines (IA), competition was getting fiercer by the day. Thus, when JA launched its promotional campaign 'Everyone Can Fly' that offered special fares on select routes, industry observers commented that such a move was long overdue. Immediately, IA responded by launching its 'U Can Fly' scheme with similar conditions as that of 'Everyone Can Fly.' As part of its promotional strategy, the marketing team of KFA showcased the airlines as 'the new flying experience'. Advertisement hoardings at airports
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depicted the stylish interiors of the 'Funliners', which conveyed a youthful, fun-filled, and world-class image. All the aircraft had in-flight entertainment systems and well designed interiors. There was only one class, i.e., the Kingfisher Class, rather than the economy class and business class bifurcation of other airlines. New low cost carriers (LCCs) like SpiceJet and GoAir entered the market after KFA's launch and they started an all-out price war by slashing down on fares. For instance, in December 2005, GoAir started offering 10,000 free air tickets on four new routes (Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, and Bangalore). Established players like Jet Airways (India) Ltd., (Jet Airways) too looked to consolidate their market positions. In August 2002, Sahara surprised its competitors and customers alike, by announcing the 'Steal a Seat' campaign. Beginning August 26, 2002, customers could bid for 10% of Sahara's unsold seats for as low as Re 1. However, customers would have to plan their journey 25 days in advance. Industry observers remarked that the most interesting feature of the price war in 2002 was that Sahara, the smallest of the Big Three, was the most aggressive. Apart from launching the novel bid schemes, it also offered the highest agent commissions to increase volumes of the tickets sold, while maintaining the lowest fares. Thus, we see that the various players in the airline industry have adopted guerrilla attack strategies, which are targeted towards the other players, to survive and succeed in the industry and be able to face competition effectively and efficiently and also to acquire major market share.
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Telecom Sector – Reliance Communications
The entry of Reliance Infocomm (now Reliance Communications) redefined marketing models in India. Reliance Infocomm through its aggressive, unconventional tactics changed the rules of the mobile marketing game. There were many different strategies used by Reliance. The vision of Dhirubhai Ambani - a mobile phone in every Indian’s hand - drove Reliance Infocomm further to reach out to places hitherto untapped by any telecom company in India. The rules of the game changed with Anil Ambani, 'the inheritor of India's most celebrated legacy', going great guns with a coverage spanning over 3000 towns and around 150,000 villages across India. This can be called as a bypass strategy of Reliance as it focussed more on penetrating the market with coverage in the villages rather than concentrating on towns and cities. It targeted the nation as a whole and not just the cities. For marketing promotions Reliance again used unconventional strategies. The mobile service was promoted aggressively through every marketing channel. Huge signs were put up in front of every gas station and office space in addition to the prime spots booked across the nation. The bulk purchase of signboards ensured that the cost was lower as compared to that available to competitors.
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Defensive strategy
Counter Attack by dettol on Savlon Savlon was a brand owned by a pharmaceutical MNC ICI ltd. Later ICI's OTC brands was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Savlon was relaunched in Indian market in 1993. The brand was expected to give the market leader Dettol, a run for its money. But even after millions of rupees spent, Dettol still rules the antiseptic lotion market.
Savlon had lot of advantages over Dettol. According to media reports, some lab tests indicated that Savlon is an effective germ killer than Dettol . Savlon is effective against both Gram Positive and Gram Negative germs. Another advantage about Savlon was that it does not sting while being applied on wounds. Dettol used to give a stinging sensation while applied on wounds. Savlon also had a better scent compared to the more clinical smell of Dettol.
Armed with these properties, Savlon went into a direct attack on Dettol . The product was positioned as an antiseptic that does not hurt while healing. The main differentiators for the brand were its no-sting property and better smell. According to media reports, during the relaunch, J&J spent heavily on promoting the brand. The relaunch was a success and consumers tried out the new product. But the story did not continue like that.
Dettol confronted the frontal attack from Savlon in a different manner. It tried to attack one of the most valuable brand of J&J - Band -Aid by launching Dettol plasters.
This move got J&J defensive. It never expected Dettol to attack another brand in retaliation. Dettol plasters had the potential to attract consumers because of the brand equity commanded
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by Dettol Antiseptic.
J&J scrambled to protect Band-Aid by launching a series of variants in the medicated plaster segment. In doing so, resources was spent on defending Band-Aid rather than in advancing Savlon.
Savlon suffered heavily because it lost the support interms of investment in brand building. Dettol had a brand equity built over more than 50 years (at that period of time) and it is not an easy task to break into that equity. It needed painful long term sustained investment.
How ever Savlon was pushed to a back burner after Dettol introduced the plaster. Savlon never re-emerged.
During 1998, a funny incident happened.In 1998 HLL acquired the rights to launch Savlon Soaps from J&J. While the rights for antiseptic lotion remained with J&J, the marketing alliance was for soaps.
HLL was worried at the success of Dettol soaps. Armed with a strong association with antiseptic property, Dettol soap became a huge success and cornered a significant chunk of the premium medicated soap category. HLL, who wanted to rule the entire soap category wanted to arrest the rise of Dettol soap.
Instead of trying to develop its own brand of soap, HLL looked for an easy solution. Thus came the idea of marketing alliance with Savlon. With much fanfare, Savlon antiseptic soap was launched. J&J was happy because it got some cashflow by giving the rights of Savlon. The marketing alliance lasted only for 4 years.
There are marketing experts who say that the positioning of Savlon was not correct. Nostinging and sweet scent are not important for a consumer looking for an antiseptic lotion. What they look for is effectiveness. Hence Savlon was trying to differentiate on attributes which are not considered to be important by the consumers.
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More over, consumers tend to believe that the stinging sensation is a side-effect of the effectiveness of the antiseptic. So if it does not hurt, it is not effective. Dettol has taught them that way.
But actually it did not achieve its desired success because J&J was not able to support it interms of investment. Somewhere along the way, the company disowned the brand. One reason can be that antiseptic lotion is a small market that does not warrant such heavy investment. But if that is so, the company shouldn't have introduced a brand in such a category.
Savlon now occupies a negligible part of the market. It is a popular brand in the institutional market but in the consumer market, it is a no-brand.
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Conclusion
Thus, the similarity between war and marketing here is that both tend to attack the enemy’s strategy and create anarchy in the rival camp. The strongest survive and the weakest die.
There is a doubling of the total output of goods and services in the advanced societies about every 15 years. This means that by the time an individual reaches old age, he will be surrounded by a society producing 32 times as much as when he was born. Such frontal attacks play on the inherent trait of impermanence – the transience – that penetrates our consciousness, radically affecting the way we relate to other people, to things, to the entire universe of ideas, art and values. If acceleration is a new social phenomenon, transience is its psychological counterpart. Companies must focus on long term war strategies if they want to craft their leadership in the minds of the consumers in this chokehold era of product as well as advertising explosion.
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Thank You
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