FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

COURSE TITLE: STRATEGIC MARKETING

ASSIGNMENT ON

TOPIC: ““PRODUCT BRANDING STRATEGY”

SUBMITTED FOR

SOMAIYAH SARWAR

Lecturer,

BBA Department, UODA

SUBMITTED FOR

PROGRESSIVE GROUP

Major- Marketing

Semester 11th

BBA Department,UODA.

SUBMISSION DATE: 12th DECEMBER, 2013

UNIVERSITY OF DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVE

GROUP PROFILE

GROUP NAME: PROGRESSIVE

BATCH: 29TH & 30TH

SEMESTER: 11TH (MAJOR- MARKETING)

MEMBERS NAME STUDENT ID

MD. MASUD RANA 021101002

SULTAN MAHMUD 021102063

SHAMIMA SULTANA MITU 021102035

FANCY AL LABIB 021102026

KAZI MD. KAMAL HOSSEN 021102023

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

12th December 2013

To

SOMAIYAH SARWAR

Lecturer,

University Of Development Alternative, UODA.

Subject: Submission Of An Assignment Of Product Branding Strategy.

Dear Madam,

This is our pleasure to present our assignment entitled “Product Branding Strategy”. The main

purpose of this assignment is how to branding of a product. We have tried our level of best to cover the

topic effectively, and we hope that this assignment meets your expected standard. This experience helped

us immensely to develop our skills in Strategic Marketing. We are thankful to you for your guidance,

suggestions and constructive criticism during the preparation of this assignment.

Please accept this assignment and oblige, We are eager to respond to our questions that you may have

concerning this assignment.

Yours Sincerely,

Masud Rana

On behalf of Progressive Group

BBA department

UODA.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the very beginning, we thank our All Mighty for guiding us to the right path, which helped us to

complete our work successfully. We got support from our institution time to time as and when required.

Our teacher SOMAIYAH SARWAR for providing us such an opportunity to prepare an assignment on.

“Product branding strategy for LUX" Without his helpful guidance, the completion of this project was

unthinkable. During our preparation of the project work, we have come to supportive touch of different

individual’s friends who lend their ideas, time & caring guidance to amplify the report’s contents. We

want to convey our heartiest gratitude to them for their valuable responses.

Finally we not only thankful to our parents but we owe much to them for their moral support, which was

very much necessary for us.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Unilever is a multinational consumer product manufacturing giant operating in over hundred countries all

around the globe. Unilever Bangladesh is the Bangladesh chapter of Unilever, where the company holds

60.75% share whereas the Government of Peoples Republic of Bangladesh holds 39.25% share.

Unilever’s one of the most popular brand is LUX. They segments LUX.’s market according to

geographical locations. It further differentiates these segments into Socio Economic Cluster (SEC) that

takes into account the criteria of education and profession, which ultimately measures the financial

ability of consumers. The cluster is divided into five parts starting from A to E. Unilever targets the urban

and sub urban upper middle class and middleclass segment of the population, who falls under A to C of

SEC. Tactical marketing tools, 4P’s, are extensively used by the company to market LUX. Though LUX

is produced in Bangladesh, Unilever Bangladesh maintains the same standard all around the globe. The

product is available in six different fragrances under three different sizes. Since the demand for beauty

soap market is to a great extent oligopolistic, variations in price lead to price war, which can eventually

break down the company’s market share. Thus Unilever cannot provide a better price than its

competitors. But the price is affordable by most of the people. Unilever Bangladesh has outsourced its

distribution channels to third party distributors, which allow them to distribute LUX in massive bulks

amounting to around ten million pieces. It undertakes the largest promotional activities in the beauty soap

industry. The beauty soap industry has a few major producers of which Unilever holds market share of

slightly less than 50%. Other competing brands like Tibbet, Aromatic and Keya have start eddo have a

strong consumer base, but LUX.’s product features distribution and promotional activities have created

high brand loyalty for which it is still the market leader. Unilever, with the aid of its heavy promotional

activities, has been able to penetrate the market.

SERIAL NO NAME

1. Strategic Brand Management

2. Select A Product

3. Introduction

4. Objectives

5. The Market Of Lux Successful Brands

6. Product Life Cycle Stage Of LUX

7. Alternatives For Brand Identification

8. Brand Leveraging Strategy

9. Conclusion

STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

SELECT A PRODUCT

Strategic brand management means clearly defining your brand and ensuring that your imagery

and behaviors are consistent with your brand definition. Before we talk about how to do this, we

need to discuss the importance of branding your business. Let's start by answering two basic

questions.

1. What is your brand?

2. What is branding?

Brand is any company's personality. It's not just a name, logo or slogan; it's much more complex

than that. Your brand is composed of the thoughts, feelings, experiences, attitudes and beliefs

that people associate with your company. Your brand is therefore not something you "own"

because it exists in the minds of others. Every company has a brand (yes, even yours).

Branding is defining what you want people to think, feel, experience and believe about your

company. When people come in contact with your company they will certainly think, feel,

experience and believe something. Are you going to leave this to chance? Are you going to let

people draw their own conclusions about your business? No! The importance of branding your

business is therefore obvious. Decide in advance exactly what you want others to think of your

business.

STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Strategic brand management is the next step in the branding process. It means actively managing

and influencing these thoughts and feelings in the minds of others. It's not enough to define what

you want people to think, feel, etc. You must follow through and influence these thoughts and

emotions.

A function of marketing that uses techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line or

brand over time. Effective brand management enables the price of products to go up and builds loyal

customers through positive brand associations and images or a strong awareness of the brand.

Developing a strategic plan to maintain brand equity or gain brand value requires a comprehensive

understanding of the brand, its target market and the company's overall vision.

INTRODUCTION

OBJECTIVES

For the purpose of branding strategy we have to select a product. Now we can choice a product

as our assignment & that is LUX. This is the product of UNILIVER Bangladesh.

Unilever at a Glance: Unilever is one of the world’s largest and leading multinational

companies; Unilever commenced their business activities on a larger scale by setting up their

first factory in Netherlands, in the year of 1872. Operating in Bangladesh for over the last four

decades, the company is trying to significantly contribute towards the augmentation of the

standard of living by bringing excellent high quality products at the doorstep of their customers.

The usage of Unilever products by over 90% of the people in Bangladesh stands a testimony to

their successful operation. . Their array of products show that they produce household care,

fabric cleaning, skin cleansing, skin care, oral care, hair care, personal grooming, and tea based

beverage products under worldwide famous brand names Wheel, LUX, Lifebuoy, Fair& Lovely,

Ponds, Close Up, Sun silk, Lipton, Lipton Taaza, Pepsodent, All Clear, Vim, Surf Excel, and

Rexona.

This report is an outcome of an analysis of marketing strategies used by Unilever Bangladesh

Ltd. The main purpose of the report is to find what strategies the company uses to market its

world famous beauty soap, LUX, in Bangladesh; the positive and negative aspects of those

strategies. The report further analyzes the position of Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. in the toiletry

industry in comparison to its competitors. The report discusses the process of using market

segmentation, target marketing, the product, pricing, promotional and distribution strategies and

a competitive analysis.1.3 Methodology of this report: For accessibility and availability of

information, we have chosen to work on the strategies of Unilever Bangladesh Ltd.

THE MARKET OF LUX SUCCESSFUL BRANDS

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE OF LUX

LUX. Most of the information used in this report is from primary sources. The main source of

information was the focus group discussion. In addition, information was also collected from

websites. Chapter 2 Product Category, Market Segmentation, Target Marketing and positioning

this chapter describes the category of the selected product. The chapter is organized into four

sections. Section 1 states under which category the product falls. Section 2 describes show

Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. differentiates the population and categorizes them into different

segments. Section 3 analyzes which segment the company targets and why they target that

specific segment. Finally, section 4 describes the process through which the company tries to

capture a place in the buyers mind.

Product life cycle of LUX Soap a new product progresses through a sequence of stage from

introduction to growth, maturity and decline. This sequence is known as the product life cycle

and is associated with changes in the marketing situation, thus affecting the marketing strategy

and the market mix. The product revenue and profit can be plotted as a function of the life cycle

stage as shown in the graph below:

In the introduction stage, the firm seeks to build product awareness and develop a market for

the product. The Product branding and quality. Impact on the market mix is as follows: level is

establishment, and intellectual property protection such as Pricing may be low penetration.

Patents and trademarks are obtained. Pricing to build market share rapidly or high skim pricing

to recover development costs.

STAGES OF LUX

In 1960 LUX went colored 1929 LUX launched in 1925 India LUX launched in USA as 1916

Toilet soap LUX launched in USA as Laundry soap.

INTRODUCTION

In (1929-1950s) Company Objectives Actions Sales Low Cost of manufacturing High Profits

Negative Marketing Objective Create product awareness in major cities Product strategy Offer a

basic product Price strategy Higher than Lifebuoy Distribution Created network in major cities

Advertising strategy Awareness among early adopters.

GROWTH

In (1950s-1990s) Company Objectives Actions Sales Rising Sales Cost of manufacturing

Average cost reduction Profits Positively increasing Marketing Objective Maximizes market

share Product strategy Offer variants Price strategy to penetrate the market Distribution

Intensive network in the entire country advertising strategy Awareness an interest in mass

market.

MATURITY

ALTERNATIVES FOR BRAND IDENTIFICATION

BRAND LEVERAGING STRATEGY

CONCLUSION

In (1990s to till date )Company Objectives Actions Sales Peak sales Cost of manufacturing Low

Profits High Marketing Objective Maximize profit while defending market share Product

strategy Diversify brand Price strategy To match the nearest competitor Distribution More

intensive focusing on rural area Advertising strategy Multiple brand ambassadors for different

variants.

The good news is that you do not have to be a Jedi master to do it. You have almost total

control over two aspects of your brand. These are called Brand Image and Brand Experience.

Brand Image is what people see. It includes your logo, business cards, offices and the

clothes you wear when you meet with your clients. It also includes more casual contact with

your brand through publicity and marketing communications. Everything you say and do further

defines your image.

Brand Experience is what happens to people when they are exposed to your company.

When you exceed client expectations, you are giving your clients a great experience. Your

clients will tell others about that experience and influence their attitudes and beliefs about your

company.

Global branding Strong brands and innovation are central to our ambition to double in size. We

are investing in brand equity, finding and strengthening the connections between consumers and

the products they buy. Where equity is strong, we are leveraging it – creating efficiencies by

focusing on fewer, bigger projects that enhance margins. In addition, we are seeking superior

products, which consumers will prefer, driving profitable growth. Our business model is

designed to deliver sustainable growth. For us, sustainability is integral to how we do business.

In a world where temperatures are rising, water is scarce, energy is expensive, sanitation is poor

in many areas and food supplies are uncertain and expensive, we have both a duty and an

opportunity to address these issues in the way we do business.

The inputs to the model, like those of all major packaged goods manufacturers, are threefold:

brands; people; and operations. These map directly on to our Compass ‘Winning with’ pillars –

both continuous improvement and the market place pillars support the operations strand of the

model.

The differentiator in our business model is our USLP and the goal of sustainable living. The

outputs of the model are threefold: sustained growth; lower environmental impact; and positive

social impact. These align directly with our vision statement.

Lux is soap for quality conscious women and others, especially those belonging to the middle

class; those who are conscious about their appearance generally use it. Those who respect the

brand and have been loyal to it for years use it. The consumers share with lux a relationship of

trust and dependability and of respect. They look up to the brand and literally worship the brand.

Lux thus commands the respect and even love of the consumers.

END