HUL Marketing Strategy

This document includes the marketing strategies used bu HUL

1. By
Ranju R P (1702153)
NITIE Mumbai
For Any Queries
(Mob: [phone]
[email protected])

2. Introduction
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is an Indian consumer goods company based in
Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is owned by Anglo-Dutch company Unilever which owns
a 67% controlling share in HUL. HUL's products include foods, beverages, cleaning
agents and personal care products.
Hindustan Unilever is an Indian subsidiary Dutch company Unilever and is India’s
biggest fast-moving consumer goods company. The HUL company is based in
Mumbai, Maharashtra. HUL has the widest outreach to the customers through its
6.4 million outlets across the country. Hindustan Unilever was established by the
merger of Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, Lever Brothers India
Limited and United Traders Limited in 1956. HUL had a revenue of Rs. 31,987
crores and operating profit of Rs. 5,409 crores in FY 2015-16. HUL has employee
strength of 18,000 headed by Harish Manwani the chairman and Sanjiv Mehta as
MD and CEO. The Hindustan Unilever company has been listed in the Forbes list
as the most Innovative Indian brand in 2015.
HUL face a stiff competition both direct and indirect from some of its rival
companies and some of the rival companies are as follows-

3. 1) Procter & Gamble
2) Johnson & Johnson
3) ITC
4) Dabur
5) Nestle
6) Asian Paints

Marketing Mix(4P’s)
1)Product:
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) is one of the leading FMCG companies in India. Its
parent company is the globally known Unilever. The HUL product portfolio has
been mostly into 4 categories that are food and drinks, home care, personal care
and water purifiers.

Image: company website
The company is the leader in consumer goods industry with many brands under
its umbrella. Its brand and product portfolio consist of-
Food Brands-

4. • Magnum (ice cream)
• Modern bread
• Kwality Walls (frozen dessert)
• Knorr soups
• Lipton tea
• Kissan jams, sauce, juices etc.
• Brooke Bond tea
• Bru coffee
• Annapurna atta and salt
Homecare Brands-

5. • Magic – (water saver)
• Vim dishwasher
• Surf Excel washing powder
• Sunlight washing powder
• Rin detergent
• Domestic disinfectant
• Comfort softeners for fabrics
• Cif
• Wheel detergent
Brands related to Personal Care

6. • TIGI
• Tresemme for hair care
• Vaseline lotions, jelly for skin care
• Sure antiperspirant
• Sunsilk shampoo
• Rexona soap
• Pond’s cream and talc
• Pepsodent toothpaste
• Pears soap
• Lux body wash, soap and deodorant
• Liril soap
• Lifebuoy handwash and soap
• Lakme beauty merchandises
• Hamam soap
• Fair& Lovely products for skin lightening
• Denim products for shaving
• Dove hair-care range and skin products
• Close-up toothpaste
• Clinic Plus oil and shampoo
• Clear hair products
• Breeze soap
• Lever personal care and healthcare products

7. • Axe soap, deodorant, and after-shaving lotion
• Aviance
Water purifier
• Pure it water purifier

Recently, Hindustan Unilever has introduced some new products in the consumer
market like Easywash from Surf Excel, Eyeconic range from Lakme, Anti-Germ bar
from Vim and Hair fall rescue treatment from Dove.
2) Price:
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) is one of the leading company, offering many products
and hence a wide price range. Since HUL is a market leader in almost all the
segment it is present in it keeps a very competitive price for all the products as
the competition is quite stiff in the segments and as the customer in the segment
are looking for value for money products.

8. As the company tries to reach the maximum number of customers in all income
segment HUL produces products with different packages and hence very different
prices although the quality remains the same. Hindustan Unilever also has various
professional product for which it follows premium pricing strategy, for example,
TONI & GUY is very premium priced as compared to Lakmé. When HUL comes up
with new products it comes up with bundling strategy wherein it packs a small
sample to the main product although the product is either in the same category
or with the same brand name. This gives an insight of how HUL prices’ its
products in its marketing mix.

3) Place:
HUL has a very wide outreach into many deep pockets of the country. Hindustan
Unilever has 6.4 million outlets across the country out of which 2 million are the
retail outlets. HUL also has 30 factories across the country which are further
connected to more than 2700 stockists which again then reach the retail outlets
which are the convenience stores and the supermarkets.

9. This shows the strong place & distribution marketing mix strategy of HUL. To
reach the rural sector HUL has various rural distributors which then forward to
the rural sub stockists to the rural retailers. With the coming up of carrying and
Forward agencies, it has been able to reach many deep pockets of the country
with a significant cost reduction. Apart from the regular distribution channel HUL
also employs multi-level marketing to reach to customers requiring professional
beauty products.

4) Promotion:
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has been heavily investing in the brand promotions as it
needs them mostly for brand recall and many times for introducing new brands.
Therefore, Hindustan Unilever primarily uses aggressive promotion and
advertising its marketing mix. The advertisements of HUL brands are in the form
of television commercials, newspaper ads or any other magazines and as well as
with the online presence as well.

10. Most of the times these campaigns are targeted by telling stories to build
relations rather than to sell them directly. HUL also has tied up with many
celebrities such as Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Kajol, Varun Dhawan as well
as with the professional hair stylist Jawed Habib. Hindustan Unilever also
participates in tons of CSR activities such as the famous project Shakti to
empower rural women, Sanjivani a mobile service camp, water conservation
projects and many more. HUL also time and again organizes various campaigns to
create awareness among the viewers and improve health and well-being. Hence,
this concludes the HUL marketing mix.

Market Segmentation
The concept of market segment is based on the fact that the market of
commodities are not homogeneous but they are heterogeneous. Market
represent a group of customer having common characteristics but two customer
are never common in their nature, habits, hobbies income and purchasing
techniques.
1) Geographic Segmentation: As the name suggests, this is the segmenting a
geographic landmass into subsets. Most of organizations use this type of
segmentation usually without consciously knowing that is what they are doing.
The basis or validity of 60 this method is that people with similar socio-economic,

11. cultural and lifestyle characteristics tend to congregate in the same geographic
location. Consequently, the postcode of an individual can reveal characteristics
that differentiate that person. Geographic segmentation is easy to define,
measurable and information is readily accessible. Most of the FMCG companies
segment the market on geographically based on the following:
a) Location: They divide the whole market into various countries, continents etc.
One product is marketed in one country and another for another country. E.g. in
India, Unilever along with Colgate & Palmolive offers only basic variants of their
toothpastes, whereas a large variety of toothpastes can be seen in American or
European countries. Similarly, one product for one continent and another product
for another continent. Further, within a country, they further divide the whole
market into various regions like north, south, east and west. In the case of most of
the eatables, HUL try to segment based on region, like Punjabi Masala soups and
chips for the north etc.
b) Density: The FMCG companies try to segment the market based on its density.
They divide the whole market into three segments rural, urban and metro. HUL’s
Wheel detergent tends to capture rural and semi-urban market whereas Rin and
Surf Excel are being promoted to capture urban and metros
c) Distribution channels: This is the technique of segmenting the whole market
based on its distribution system
d) Climate: Next, they try to segment the whole market based on the specific
climate. One product for a climate and another type of product for another type
of climate. HUL offers its ponds for various climates like Ponds cold cream and
moisturizing lotion for winters or cold areas and Pond’s sunscreen lotions for
summers or for hot areas.
2) Demographic Segmentation: Demography is the study of populations. In
demographic segmentation, a given market is subdivided based on demographic
variables. This is the most widely used method by FMCG companies for
segmenting the market as it gives most widely coverage of the area with high
level of satisfaction for each segment. This is also an easy basis to understand and
use. The demographic variables include such as:
a) Age: This is the most widely used method for segmenting the market based on
the age for the respondents. So, FMCGs companies offer different products for
different age groups. HUL has Pears and Dove to offer to teenagers and young
people. While, Lux is promoted for young people only, whereas, Lifebuoy is

12. promoted for a rational family person. Similarly, Johnson and Johnsons offer
products for infants and small child.
b) Gender: This is the technique of dividing the whole market into two groups i.e.
Male and Female. Every FMCG company tend to offer different product for both
male and female. The very famous in this segment is the HUL’s Fair & Lovely and
Fair & lovely for men. Earlier, Dove was promoted for only women now HUL has
also came up with Dove men to offer various products to men.
c) Income: This is one of the most used methods of segmentation, in which, the
FMCG companies tend to segment the whole market based on income of the
customers. Means, they divide the whole market into lower income segment,
middle class and upper class. They offer various products for the various
segments based on their income level. HUL has Breeze and Lifebuoy for the lower
income level, Lux for the middle class and Dove and Pears for the upper class in
the bathing soaps. It has Wheel detergent for lower income group, Rin for middle
class and Surf Excel for higher Income group
d) Lifestyle: FMCG sometimes tend to segment the whole market based on
lifestyle of the people. Like HUL promote Taj Mahal tea for the status and quality-
seeking people whereas Lipton and Brooke Bond for the people who put value of
money first. e) Family life cycle: Sometimes, FMCG companies tend to segment
the whole market based on life cycle of the family i.e. one single person to a
parent stage. HUL has dove and pears to offer to a single person whereas it has
Lux for young aged and lifebuoy for the whole family. Like Pepsodent, toothpaste
is being promoted for whole family.
3) Psychological Criteria: Psychological criteria used for segmenting consumer
product and service markets include using attitudes and perceptions (e.g.
negative feelings about fast food), psychographics or the lifestyles of customers
(e.g. extrovert, fashion conscious, high achiever), and the types of benefits sought
by customers from products and brands and their consumption choices.
a) Psychographics: Psychographic approaches rely on the analysis of consumers’
activities, interests, and opinions, to understand consumers’ individual lifestyles
and patterns of behavior. Psychographic segmentation includes an understanding
of the values that are important to different types of customers. A traditional
form of lifestyle segmentation is based on customer Activities, Interests, and
Opinions. These provide useful insight into what makes people ‘tick’. The
consumers can be further classified into the following types of 64 lifestyle

13. categories: belonged, survivor, experimentalist, conspicuous consumer, social
resistor, self-explorer, and the aimless.
b) Benefits Sought: The root of this approach to market segmentation lies in the
idea that we should provide customers with exactly what they want, not based on
how we design products and services for them, but based on the benefits that
they derive from the goods/services that they use. This may sound obvious but
consider what the real benefits, both rational and irrational, are of different
goods and services that people derive from something you have bought recently
in the same context, HUL also has Dove, Lux to breeze that tend to segment the
market based on the benefit sought from them.
4) Behavioral Criteria: Product-related methods of segmenting consumer
goods and service markets include using behavioristic methods (e.g. by product
usage, purchase, and ownership) as bases for segmentation. Observing
consumers as they utilize products and media can be an important source of new
product ideas, and can lead to ideas for new product uses or product design and
development. Furthermore, new markets for existing products can be indicated,
as well as appropriate communication themes for product promotion. Purchase,
ownership, and usage of 65 products and media are three very different
behavioral constructs we can use to help profile and segment consumer markets.
Behavioral Segmentation attempt to group individuals based on their actual
actions:
• End-use what is the product to be used for?
• Benefits sought.
• Usage rates heavy, medium and light
• Loyalty

Targeting Strategies of the HUL
HUL divide the customers into three types of the customers: striving, aspiring and
affluent and make targeting strategies accordingly.
They are as follows:
a) Personal Care: HUL targets different types of customers with a different set of
bath products. For striving customers, it offers Lifebuoy and Breeze, for
aspiring, it offers Hammam and basic Lux variants and for affluent customers, it

14. has Pears, Dove and superior range of Lux.

Key strategy: To straddle the pyramid and move consumers up to more
aspirational brands. Grow share by growing ahead of the Market b) Detergent:
In case of detergents, it offers Wheel for striving customers, Rin for aspiring
customer and Surf Excel for affluent customers.

Key Strategy: Work the pyramid; Grow profitably ahead of the market; regain
profitability through judicious price increases and cost-effectiveness programs
Striving Affluent Aspiring Affluent Aspiring Striving Dove Pears and Lux Lux and
Hamam Lifebuoy and Breeze Surf Excel Rin Wheel
c) Hair Care: HUL offers Clinic All Clear and Dove to the Affluent customers,
Sunsilk to the aspiring customers and Clinic Plus to the Striving Customers.

15. Key Strategy: Work the Pyramid; convert non-users & increase penetration;
upgrade the existing users to aspirational brands d) Tooth Paste: HUL offers Close
to affluent, Pepsodent to aspiring customers, whereas, it offers both brands in
smaller packing for the striving customers.
Figure 5.9
HUL strategy pyramid for Tooth Paste Key Strategy: Grow with market with our
brands Close on freshness platform and Pepsodent on family & health platform
Affluent Aspiring Striving Affluent Aspiring Striving Clinic All Clear and Dove
Sunsilk Clinic Plus Close Up Pepsodent Close and Pepsodent in small packing 71
e) Tea: HUL has different tea varieties for the different segments. For the affluent
customer, it offers Taj Mahal and Lipton Yellow Label. For aspiring customers, it
has Red Label, whereas, for the striving customers, it has Taaza tea.

16. Key strategy: Presence across the pyramid; drive up trading of consumers;
Convert loose tea drinkers to packet tea consumers

Positioning
1)Soap segment
Lifebuoy:
• Positioned as a family soap;
• Synonymous with health and hygiene
Lux:
• Positioned as a film stars choice
• Product extensions – Fragrance and ingredients
• Variants like moisturizer, sunscreen & cleanser
Reach their target market through
Advertisement
• Price Range: brands positioned at different price points

2)Detergent Segment
• Surf excel:
• A premium version of surf
• “Daag Ache hai”
Surf:
• Positioned as value for money
Wheel:

17. • Low priced detergent. Introduced to compete with
• Nirma. - “Mehnat se azaadi”

3)Dishwasher Segment
• Vim Liquid
• Vim Powder
• Vim Bar
Surface Cleaner: Not much success initially
• Vigor – launched in 1993 – withdrawn in a year
• Domestos – also bombed in the market
• Domex – Launched in 1997 – became the market leader.
Competitor:
• Lizol at Rs.38/500ml ; Domex : Rs.32/500ml

4)Hair wash segment
• HUL is the market leader in the hair wash category with
• 65% market share.
Dove:
• Targeted towards the upper and upper middle class;
• Uses the concept of natural beauty
• Ads use common women and their „real stories‟
Sunsilk:
• Positioned as the hair expert
• Identified different hair needs
• Ads targeted young girls (gang of girls), used style icon
• Priyanka Chopra
Clinic plus:
• Targeted towards the family.
• Packaging shows family with healthy hair
• Ads use kids as influencers „n use the mother-daughter
• bond
Clinic all clear:
• Targeted towards the youth.
• Positioned as an anti-dandruff shampoo
• Endorsed by celebrities (earlier men and now women)

18. 5) Oral Care segment
Pepsodent:
• Targeted towards the entire family.
• USP- anti-bacterial agent triclosan
• Ads used children as influencers
• Prices less than Colgate (50,100,200 gms)
Close-up:
• Targeted towards the youth.
• Positioned as a product for mouth freshness.
• A common theme in all ads was confidence.

5) Food segment
Kissan Fruit Kick Spreads:
• Targeted at people above 15
• USP- no added preservatives, low in calories
Kissan Jams:
• Targeted at kids
• The „jammy‟ ad campaign with Rahul Dravid
• was very popular with children
Kissan Annapurna Salt:
Kissan Annapurna Atta:
• Targeted at urban consumers preferring low fatty
• foods
• USP- „Extra Fibre‟
Knorr Soups:
• Quick Meals
• Targeted at urban consumers
Cornetto:
• Targeted at young adults and older
• people.
Feast:
• Targeted at teenagers
Max:
• Targeted at children

19. 6)Beverages segment
Brooke Bond and Lipton – two main umbrella brands
Brooke Bond:
• Stood for refreshment and aroma
Lipton:
• Stood for youth and vitality