The 8 Ps of Marketing Mix
The paper studies the marketing mix of companies taking into account a product of a company. The assignment takes into account Axe range of men’s grooming accessories by Unilever. The first section opens with the 8Ps of marketing followed by the contemporary issues like corporate social responsibilities, advancements in technology and social media interaction. The last section is recommendation for Unilever to improve its marketing mix and market position.
Unilever is one of the biggest manufacturers of consumer goods in the world and has its headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London, the United Kingdom. The company has its operations spread over a hundred countries and caters to the needs of billions of people. The company owns several international brands like AXE, Dove and Pepsodent. The chosen product for the study is Axe, the male grooming brand which consists of deodorants, shaving accessories and body washes.
Product is the most important ingredient of marketing mix and may be tangible(goods) or intangible(services). The products have the capability to serve the customer needs and generate revenue for the companies who market them. The several features of products are design, technology, utility, quality and their warranty. Axe is a range of male grooming accessories owned and marketed by Unilever. The variants of Axe products are hair care, deodorants and antiperspirants, fragrances and body (axe.com, 2017). Axe products are made with high quality ingredients and are available in the market in number of fragrances like musk and spice (Axe, 2017). The products of Axe are very affordable and are available in a several countries. It is sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and China by the name of Lynx. Unilever keeps on introducing new variants of Axe range of products like Axe Signature range of limited edition deodorants to cater to the needs of the new generation of customers. Unilever carries on extensive research and innovation to ensure that Axe continues to hold the top position in the mens’ grooming market in the world (Bhasin, 2017). The durable and light packaging of the Axe products keeps their quality and fragrances intact which makes it possible to ship them all around the world. The product is available all over the world, even in towns which makes high market penetration possible. These results in huge market demand for Axe and high revenue for Unilever.
Pricing is an important element of marketing mix which represents the value a marketer assigns to a product. The pricing takes into account several factors like raw materials, their availability, the cost of production, demand for the demand and quality of the product. It is so important in marketing because it has direct impact on the company’s revenue and thus is considered an integral part of business strategies. Pricing also reflect the knowledge of the firm about customer preferences, their perception of products and their values. Well crafted pricing strategies can increase revenue generation and competitive advantage in the market. A wrong pricing strategy can cause heavy losses which affect the competitive advantage of a company (Mauri, 2014).
The Chosen Product of Unilever
Unilever is the owner of the brand Axe and devises effective pricing strategies to market and sell the product. The company obtains the raw materials for Axe from a large number of suppliers which provide them at economies of scale to company. Unilever is technologically very strong and uses advanced technology and methods to manufacture Axe products. These two factors help Unilever to produce on mass scale and keep the cost of production low. The company distributes Axe products in the market through a network of large number of distributors like wholesalers, retailers and departmental stores (Karray, 2013). This intricate channel makes the product available to the customers at affordable prices which are suited to the buyers’ purchase power. For example, Axe deodorants are available in India at 200 INR and in the United States at $3 on average. Thus, the pricing strategy of Unilever allows it to make the Axe products available all around the world at affordable prices. This effective product offering has helped the company to sell Axe products as one of the top brands in market and earn millions of dollars of profits.
Obadia and Stöttinger (2015) state in their work that the intense competition in the foreign markets have made pricing for exporters an important area of decision making. It is very applicable for Unilever because the company ships Axe products to countries where it has no manufacturing units. The company adopts pricing strategies to take advantage of the differences in international currency exchange rates. Unilever also bundles up Axe products and sells them at single products. These bundled products are available at discounted rates and increase the customer perception of value addition on purchase of the products. The Axe products are available for viewing and ordering over the digital platforms at lower prices. Axe products can be purchased from the official website and from ecommerce websites like Amazon.com. These pricing strategies have resulted in huge demand for Axe products like fragrances and shaving accessories in the market. This demand has catapulted the brand as one of the leading men’s grooming accessories internationally.
Promotion is a very important part of marketing mix because it creates awareness about the product in the market. Promoting products on a large scale creates demand for the products in the market which results in sales. Huang and Sarigöllü (2014) in their work state that promotion creates brand image and brand equity for products in the market. The processes of promotion create awareness and perception about products in the consumers. The multinational companies promote their brands using various promotional media like newspaper, magazine and television. They also use the digital platforms to promote their products which allow them to advertise their products all over the world before billions of customers. This creates global demand for their products which allow them to sell their products to a huge base of consumers and earn big revenue.
Product
Unilever promotes Axe range of men’s grooming products in very innovative ways to gain maximum customer coverage. The transnational company places Axe as a brand which enriches the individual identity of men. The company promotes Axe as a brand which recognises the cultural diversities among men from various cultures and caters to their needs. The fragrances and shaving accessories under the brand complements the sense of pride among men. This promotional technique used by the company has made Axe a global brand enjoying acceptances among men of every culture and country (Axe, 2017).
Unilever promotes Axe on the print media like magazines and on the audiovisual media like television. The company also advertises Axe on digital platform using youtube, facebook and twitter which creates brand loyalty. Promotion and advertising creates brand loyalty among customers which encourages high market share and profitability (Shen & Bissell, 2013). Unilever is known to carry out disruptive innovation to disrupt the market of its competitors and establish its own brands. The innovative ways of promoting Axe has made it among the leading men’s grooming brand in the world. It aids the company in dealing with threats from the big brands like Old Spice and Gillette, both owned by Procter and Gamble. Promotion helps Unilever to counteract the challenges from new local men’s accessories and retain its consumer loyalty.
Promotion helps the multinational companies to locate supply and distribution chain in the new markets. They promote their goods to gain suppliers and distributors so that they can make the products available in the market at affordable prices (Jin, Wang & Hu, 2015).
Multinational companies distribute their products worldwide through intricate network of distributors who make the goods available through the consumers. The distribution channels have two components namely channel distribution and physical distribution. The channel of distributions comprise of independent entities like wholesalers and retailers who act as middle men. They create facilitated the process of exchange of goods from the companies to their consumers and create time, place and possession utilities. The physical distribution channels around the world facilitate delivery of goods on time and in required shapes and sizes. They are logistics, warehousing companies, inventory control and packaging companies (Ross, 2016).
The multinational companies uses wide distribution channels of wholesalers, retailers, logistics and inventory controls which allow them to make the goods available to the customers at affordable prices. Unilever distributes Axe worldwide through wholesalers and retailers. Axe products are also available in departmental stores and multinational retail chains like Spencers. The products of Axe come under various packaging sizes and prices to suit the needs of the customers. the wide distribution channels have made Axe products available in metropolitan cities, towns and even in the villages. This gives Unilever deeper market penetration compared to its competitors and generates huge revenue. This has helped the company to enjoy competitive advantage in the market and hold top position in the market.
Pricing
The companies partner together to market their products and enjoy significant shares of profitable markets. Partnering brands help in creating stronger image of the products in the markets and help to earn more revenue.
Unilever paretnered with Lazada, the dominant ecommerce company is Southeast Asia to profit from the market. The ecommerce company would be able to sell the products in Southeast Asia using the brand images of Unilever products, including Axe. The consumer goods manufacturing giant will be able to promote and sell its products including Axe to earn huge profits. Their partnership is based on mutual benefits reaped by the two companies amounting to $25 billion by 2030. The two companies are partnering on supply chain management, social marketing and other strategic business areas (Saiidi, 2017).
The people are the most ingredient and drivers of marketing activities. The people or the staff of the companies promote and market products which generate revenue. The role of people can be studied under three heads, personal selling, customer services and training.
The sales persons meet the customers and build relationship with the customers both household and business customers. The sales men meet wholesalers and retailer and convince them to maintain stocks of goods of the company and sell them. They also conduct face to face marketing of the products before the customers. The salesmen of Unilever meet wholesalers and retailers to convince them to stock and sell Unilever products like Axe. They receive orders for the company and help the company to make its products available in markets which are inaccessible by digital or audiovisual promotions. The salesmen meet customers and create a positive market image which results in business expansion of Unilever (Miller, 2015).
The customer service employees receive product related queries from the customers either over the internet or any other ways. They also help in creating a positive image of the company (Chow, Lai & Loi, 2015).
The trainers play a very role in the marketing of the products like Axe because they train the salesmen and the customer service executives. They are responsible for the high performance of these people and the business they generate for the company (Phillips & Phillips, 2016).
The companies like Unilever control and monitor their market processes to ensure that they create value for the company and the customers. The companies make their processes more customer oriented to ensure more market penetration and revenue. They receive feedback from the customers and incorporate them into their new products or improvised versions of their existing products. The companies like Unilever consider their customer reviews and complaints regarding their products like Axe. The company introduces new versions of Axe deodorants and shaving accessories to meet the new requirements of the markets (Gopal et al., 2013).
Promotion
Physical evidence of the Unilever is rendered by its logo and the trade mark of its products like Axe. They advertise the brand power of the company and the assure the customers about the high quality products (Chen, Yeh & Huan, 2014).
The corporate social responsibilities refer to responsibilities which companies carry out being a part of the society. The companies like Unilever today are social entities who work responsibly to contribute towards development of the society. The company acts in responsible and ethical ways by abiding by laws like Schedule VII of Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. Unilever strives to act by operating in sustainable ways to reduce pollution and conserve natural resources (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy, 2017). CSR helps Unilever to contribute towards social development and build a strong corporate image (Huang et al., 2014). This helps the company to market its products in the market, gain deeper market penetration and earn higher revenue (Plewa et al., 2015).
The multinational companies promote their products on the social media to gain higher customer attention. They reorganise their promotional strategies to incorporate the changing tastes of the society, for example increased interest of the new generation in twitter, facebook and other social sites. Unilever has more lakh followers on Twitter who interact with it about their preferences (twitter.com, 2017).
Advancements in technology has helped the companies, especially the multinational companies to increase their production. Technology helps multinational companies like Unilever to bring about innovative products which help them to gain competitive advantage in the market. The companies use advanced technology like video conferencing to communicate with their geographically dispersed location that accounts for their internationally integrated operations. They use technology to bring about innovations and sustainability in their operations (Yoo, 2013).
Unilever and other multinational companies are required to function ethically to contribute towards the benefits of the stakeholders and capital maximisation of the shareholders. Unilever employs employees from the whole and provide them with conductive working environment and high compensations. The company acts in ethical ways to benefit the stakeholders like customers and shareholders (Brusoni & Vaccaro, 2016).
Unilever aims to reduce its carbon emission by operating in sustainable ways in order to contribute towards social welfare. The company buys raw materials from the supply chain that follows its sustainability codes of conduct. Unilever faces controversies like exploitation of natural resource to obtain raw materials like deforestation to make paper. The company should take actions to stay away from such controversies.
Distribution
The company should strengthen its marketing strategies and activities to increase market penetration of its products like Axe. The products of the company feature high on the lists of their category but loses or faces stiff competition from Procter & Gamble. Gillette owned by Procter & Gamble beats Axe shaving accessories in the market. The Axe deodorant lost its top market to Fogg which is a new company (Singh, 2017). Unilever must strengthen or reform its marketing strategies to counteract threats from the powerful multinational giants and new companies.
Unilever has very low presence in the organic segment and should market more organic products. The brands like L’oreal and P&G are ahead in the market due to the organic products. For example, L’Oreal has organic products like hair colour which has no ammonia but Lakme, Unilever’s fashion brand has no such products. The company should strengthen its presence in the organic segments by producing organic products like coconut oil based shaving cream by Axe and organic shampoo under the brand name Clear.
Unilever must expand its product line to incorporate new products to give stiffer competition. Gillette owned by P&G offer ranges of shaving accessories like shaving creams and ultra smooth razors. Axe, the men’s grooming arm of Unilever looses to P&G because it does not manufacture razors. The company must follow its rivals and expand its men’s grooming segment to new products like razors. It will help Unilever to offer more products to customers and increase their feeling of value addition.
Unilever must combine the products and offer them to customers at discounted prices. The company can bundle up its strong branded products like Axe with weaker brands like Rexona at discounted price. These strategies will help the company to sell more products and increase customer satisfaction. This way the company will be able to sell its weaker products to earn at least minimum profits.
The company should increase its digital presence and sell entire range of products over the internet. It should enter into more partnerships with ecommerce companies like Lazada in all its profitable markets. This will help it to provide stiffer competition to P&G and other companies.
Conclusion:
Unilever is a great company with big brands like Axe and Lakme. The company should strengthen its marketing strategies to get a stronger position in the market. The multinational giant must concentrate on bringing out organic variants of Axe which will make it take over P&G very strongly. The company must introduce razor and new products to compete with bigger brands.
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