The detergent industry in India is segmented on the basis of three mail price strategies
Popular Economy Permium
The premium and concentrate segment accounts to about 2% of the total volume. The major players are Nirma, HUL and P&G. In which Nirma and HUL are close competitors, put together controls 30% of volume in the market.
ARIEL Segmentation Demographic – Demographic – Family size Benefits – Benefits – Quality, service, income Urban and semi urban areas User status- regular user, potential user and non user
Targeting Housewives as they are decision makers in most of the buying situations. Colour sensitiveness of clothes Washing machine users
Positioning Ariel is positioned in the premium category and is among the most expensive hand available in the Indian market. The company has launched mid priced brands like Ariel Super Soaker to cater to the lower income group consumer, which forms a significant portion of the Indian market. Premium brand against its competitors Superior technology Fragrance oriented detergent Low temperature wash detergent Contains double action system which gets fully dissolved Removes tough stations
SURF EXCEL Segmentation HLL launched the Sunlight (yellow) , Wheel(green), Rin (blue) and Surf Ultra(white) detergents powders for different market segments. This strategy of segmenting the markets understanding its needs and then evolving marketing mix to suit separate segment needs helped HLL win back its lost market. In fact Nirma made all other consumer product companies sit up and take a fresh look at their markets because of its low price. HLL has adopted a flanking strategy with its brands catering to every customer segment. Rin and its variants cater to economy segment and premium segments. Wheel was launched to fight Nirma in the popular end of the market. Segment for which brand is intended is are the customers for premium powders, which are sold at rs. 75/kg and above. In premium segment detergents sell in price range of rs. 80-120 and other major brands are henko, tide and ariel.
Targeting Surf excel is targeted at the upwardly mobile housewives who prefer to have cleaner clothes without damage and also those households that have washing machines. Surf Excel in HUL is laundry brand for premium-class. Earlier the focus of the brand was on functional attribute of whiteness alone in 1970s (from ad featuring Lalitaji). But over the year the focus of this range of detergent powder has changed to broader emotional positioning and now it claims to cater to „constantly changing washing needs of the Indian homemaker‟.
Positioning Surf excel “mummy‟s best friend” is positioned as a brand that a housewife will look to upgrade herself for better cleanliness without damaging the clothes. The brand is clearly positioned as a premium and upmarket brand and the achievements show an upper middle to upper class small family with a fashionable home and modern clothing collection. This range of detergent powder provides the benefits of „removing stains‟ and „keeping the color as it is‟. The taglines of the brand has been „Dag Mitane Ki Sakti, Power Aur O Ke Mukable Dugni‟, „Dag Hataye Raang Nahi‟ etc. . “surf excel hai naa” campaign is more intended at improving the brand recall. Na‟. Surf Excel quick wash was launched to cater to the water scarcity problem in India – it reduces water consumption and the rinsing time. The concept was promoted with innovative ADs
with theme „Do Bucket Pani Ab Rozana Hain Bachana‟. The recent theme of the Surf Excel ADs has been „Daag Acche Hain‟ or „Dirt is Good‟.
NIRMA Segmentation Nirma follows the „Value for Money‟ strategy for all its products and both its brands cater to the popular segment of the market. Super Nirma, its brand in the high end of the economy segment is not a focus area for growth. Nirma was introduced at a price that attracted the cost-conscious Indian consumer. Nirma follows the backward integration strategy to become the lowest cost detergent manufacturer in the world. Nirma is the leader in the economy segment
Targeting Economy segment, value for money, semi urban and rural markets Middle and lower middle income segment
Positioning Nirma over the decades has consolidated it‟s position as “value for money” detergent. The popular jingle of Nirma “Doodh si safedi” is the longest running jingle on all india radio. Nirma places customer at its center of strategies and then formulate plans to deliver maximum values to consumers in terms of price and quality
Consumer Behaviour in terms of purchase decision:
Detergents are low involvement purchase and hence the perception of the brand becomes very important. Since it‟s an FMCG product lots of marketing efforts are concentrated on promotional mix so as to ensure that the product falls in the consideration set of the consumer and subsequently pushing the brand by repeated and creative advertisements to convert the consideration into final purchase. For the same reason FMCG giants HUL and P&G comes up with new and innovative campaigns from time to time to enhance brand awareness and establish brand loyalty. Brand recall is also very crucial and hence suppose in a metropolitan area where there is scarcity of water, the campaign of surf excel which states “4 bucket paani ab
rozana hai bachana” will play at the back of the mind of decision maker(housewives) and hence there is huge possibility that she‟ll go for surf excel if she values this particular benefit. The purchase decision is also influenced by the emotional appeal, where in children are staining their clothes to do something purposeful, and also the perception created is that these stains would easily be removed by Surf Excel, so superior quality mixed with emotions would influence the purchase decision. Even different coloured granules with anti-oxidant properties for superior cleaning will influence the customers who value performance of the product. For working women compact detergent that allows her to just add detergent in washing machine and she gets desired result without putting additional efforts say rinsing or brushing would compel her to go for ARIEL OXY BLUE. Also certain people want stain removing qualities at low temperature as they believe that use of hot or lukewarm water damage clothes, these set of customers are ready to pay premium if they are assured that the detergent would serve the purpose without influencing the fabric composition (colour,texture). For such customers they have designed ad campaigns that stresses on “low temperature wash detergent‟ and double action system. These two attributes in particular influences the decision process of a consumer for whom superior performance of the detergent is an utmost priority. In semi-urban or rural set up where people do want good results with minimum investment, and where white clothes are synonymous with clean clothes, Nirma‟s jingle “doodh si safedi Nirma se aaye” will work the best as customer doesn‟t want to spend lot of money but still wants the job which is cleanliness of clothes to be done. Also these people are using Nirma for decades and brand has become synonymous with washing powder, Brand recall plays major role here and as soon as the need 4 washing powder is triggered, Nirma is the 1st name which would come to their mind and would dominate the purchase decision.
