Today in Sri Lanka the detergent industry has become a turbulent, rapid changing industry.

There are many brands involved in this day to day household business, here we talk about Surf Excel one of the top brands in the industry. In a country like Sri Lanka, people were used to stick in to soap in cleaning purposes especially in laundry. According to the geographical circumstances ordinary washing soaps werent the most suitable thing in laundry in areas like Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Hambantota etc Here in the middle of 1980s a new solution, washing powder was introduced suitable for any water condition that used in laundry. At the mid of 1990s, the brand Surf Excel was launched in Sri Lanka. At present the brand Surf Excel has become a famous brand among all areas in Sri Lanka by winning peoples hearts. Now it contains several large scale channels and thousands of workers joined. At the beginning of 2010 it is included most famous detergent brands in Sri Lanka acquiring 30% of market share. Surf Excel is originally manufactured in India and imported, marketed by Uniliver Sri Lanka. As being the sole agent in Sri Lanka the marketing process of Surf Excel is totally handled by Uniliver Sri Lanka. At the launching time market segmentation was insignificant as there wasnt many competitors. As being a new product, people were taken forward to buy and use Surf Excel without any effort. But at the end of 1990s due to diversification of the detergent industry Uniliver reconsidered their marketing mix. As a result Surf Excel was introduced in a fresh appearance targeted towards housewives as a highly effective stain remover. This new appearance succeeded in short run but in the long run they had to make some changes to the original one.

Due to the highly competitive environment Surf Excel marketers decided to divide the customers in to more significant parts. In return their target market was matched with housewives having kids. Under a new attribute Dirt is good this new marketing plan was launched and currently they are proceeding with this. Dirt is good implies that the children arent aware of stains at their activities, so stains are essential part of learning. Hence let your children do anything and the stains can be dealt with Surf Excel. This is a new kind of idea that differentiates Surf Excel products which has done an excellent positioning process compared to other competitors.

Considering the other competitors segmentation we can observe that the Surf Excel has bounded comparatively effective segment where the others dont see as a separate unit. Mainly the others focused on removing stains without promoting the process of stain removal but Surf Excel focused on exhibiting the process of stain removal rather than saying. Through there advertisements one can get a clear view of their target market as all of their advertisements appearing kids with stains on their cloths and moms use Surf Excel to get rid of stains.

Surf Excel doesnt focused on how effective it works on the stain but says dont worry about stains because Surf Excel will take off the stains, which means stain removal is nothing to it when the others talking about how to remove stains using their products. This idea gives a special place for Surf Excel among other competitive products, remaining on customers intentions that Surf Excel is the most suitable laundry cleaning product for a family with kids. On the other hand, it implies that if it can handle the stains on kids cloths, removing stains on adults clothes is nothing. This shows the unique features of Surf Excel and the strategy of positioning. Also it differentiate from Unilivers other detergent products due to the same reason and they use this strategy to discourage new enters to the industry taking the ultimate advantage from positioning.

When considering on marketing mix of Surf Excel basically, one can observe competitor dependence mostly except promotions. Other tools of marketing mix such as Price, Placing are mostly same as the others. Those things are discussed in detailed further.

The Marketing Mix of Surf Excel 1. Product When considering market mix tools of Surf Excel the product is the most important thing as the people are used to believe that all detergent products are appear same. Surf Excel having special formula which can work in both hard and soft water which means Surf Excel acts same at the south end of Sri Lanka as well as middle or north end. Specially Surf Excel can be easily identified among the other products as its unique container.

The consumers need can be varied consumer to consumer based on intention. In a product like detergent powder the demand could not be exceed more than 1 kg, according to the target market. Also the product should be available in small sachet matching to the buying power of most of the members of the target market. So the Surf Excel product comes in small sachet to 1 kg powder packs, giving the opportunity to the customer to fulfill his/her need. On the other hand this type of range makes sure that customers of Surf Excel wont bend for another product in a case of lacking buying power.

Surf Excel introduced their product range mainly in two categories.

1. Surf Excel Quick wash. 2. Surf Excel Matic.

Surf Excel Quick wash is strategically targeted on most of customers in their target market. It can be used for both hand wash and washing machine and promoted throughout all parts in Sri Lanka in all forms, such as sachet 50 g, 100 g, 200 g, 500 g and 1 kg. Also can be purchased in any store, super market etc No matter of water (whether hard or soft) but the action remains same. It comes in common usual orange and blue pack, shows the highest selling compared to the Surf Excel Matic.

Surf Excel Matic is specially designed for washing machines and the forms of products are fewer compared to Surf Excel Quick wash. Strategically this is designed for the customers in target market who are having higher buying power. This has gained an extra advantage by catching all the customers based on various buying power. Also Surf Excel Matic is somewhat expensive than Surf Excel Quick wash due to the above reason and mainly sell via super markets.

Uniliver only imports two product ranges from a vast product range compared to the manufacturer. There are available many related products like Surf Excel Blue, Surf Excel Liquid wash etc Considering along the segmentation and target market, a product like Surf Excel blue will be a nicely matching product as the members of target market use blue as well as washing powder. With the previous experiences in Surf Excel washing powder there exists a high probability of accepting such a product by the target market.

2. Price According to the target market the price should not be exceed the limit that a normal family willing to pay for detergent. Also there are many competitors with various prices and small differences of the product outcome. Being one of the old detergent powder Surf Excel dominates a high market share compared to the others. Here Surf Excel has got the advantage of competing with both cheap and expensive brands using its two product range. It competes with cheaper ones using Surf Excel Quick wash and expensive brands with Surf Excel Matic. Uniliver also promotes a detergent powder called Rin which has different qualities other than Surf Excel. Strategically Uniliver does this to survive both products and make the pricing using one as the defender of the other. This helps to Surf Excel to set the highest price margin without refusing by the customer. Also beat the competitors and to gain competitive advantage. Observing the process of pricing of Surf Excel shows that Uniliver is using competition based pricing policy that the Surf Excel doesnt increase or decrease its price independently but depending on the competitors. This acts as a main reason of non-refusing by the customers because price of the all other similar products are also raised at the same time. Also the product range like Surf Excel Matic gives the higher profit margin focused on to the customers who concern on quality rather than price. So Surf Excel Matic price setting not highly based on the competitors prices but the quality. Presently we can observe a price war between Sunlight, Rin, Surf Excel and Diva, four major brands in Sri Lanka. Due to this, the customers may switch from one product to another to get superior satisfaction. There is a nice

opportunity of attracting other customers who use different brands towards Surf Excel and to increase the market share of them. Suggestions If Surf Excel can maintain a medium price among the similar products will give an opportunity to attract customers from the other brands who arent selecting Surf Excel as their detergent powder. Currently there isnt a fixed pricing policy such as discounts at the purchase or price reduction at the major purchases as the other similar brands do. Our opinion is that if Surf Excel can such a policy there market share will be higher in a short time. Surf Excel sachet price is the highest price among the similar product. This has made the most of sachet users away from buying Surf Excel sachet. This should be considered by the Surf Excel marketers. Promotions Surf Excel highly believes in sales gain through promotions. Annually they spend a lot for these promotions. Typically sales promotions can be observed and customer targeted promotions can be highly seen. Specially according to their strategic marketing plan, mothers having small kids target market- are mainly focused they involved in the traditional marketing promotions and also modern techniques they own gondolas POS stalls and etc Also field activities which can be significantly identified from the other similar brands. Especially their field promotions a set of activities for the customers (mothers and their children) are highly popular among the rural areas. Through these activities they motivate customers to buy more or to stick in with them or to attract new customers of their target market. As the advertising they use these events effectively packed and thrown to their target market. Event list

Advertising using media. Surf Excel mainly uses television and daily papers (especially weekend papers) as their advertising media. You may see kids involved in their childish activities with a set of annoyed mothers and a joyful mother. The joyful mother always uses Surf Excel and not paying any attention to the stains on the clothes. Even the mother also joins with the kid to accomplish the kids task. These commercials get popular both children and moms even among fathers. These commercials indirectly force customers to buy Surf Excel. We observe significant arise of these advertisements which implies that there are working well. Apart from the media they use a powerful marketing tool called super market promotions. We can frequently see these kinds of promotions rolling over all the super markets. Here these super market offer a raffle draw or price rewards for the customers who are buying some of the nominated products. As the time this report is being processed we observed three main super markets (Cargills, Keells and Arpico) running this kind of promotions running for the New Year. Surf Excel was a nominated product over the three super markets. Through this kind of marketing promotions Surf Excel gains new customers and attract people for impulse by normalizing the product. Also Surf Excel conducts the way of doing laundry in the areas that are hiving hard water. They conduct seminars, demonstrations at those areas. Through these they have gain a huge competitive advantage. Also they involved in socio responsible marketing by repairing public wells, washing areas etc At the rural area they place a huge cutout near a public well, washing area on a tank, stating the advantages of using Surf Excel. Suggestions
1. There is not a proper way of getting feedback from their promoting campaigns. Most of

participants are not truly customers of the Surf Excel.

2. Surf Excel marketers are mostly concerned on short term promoting events. This gives

short time benefits but not suitable in long run. 3. They are conducting continuous promotion programs which prevent the survival of new entrants products, also gaining customets.

4. Through these promotion programs Surf Excel has been gained a memorable

reputation among all the customers which strongly helps to be survived.

Placing

Group Members
M.M.M Dilushan AS2009351 AS/63344/2008/2009 M.D.M Lahiru B.A.E.H Mendis AS2009426 AS2009449 AS/62768/2008/2009 AS/62786/2008/2009