Axe

AXE is a cool, iconic, youth brand available in more than 60 countries. In India, Axe, which has been launched in 1999, is the largest selling Male Deodorant. AXE is a cool, iconic, youth brand available in more than 60 countries around the world. It was launched in India in 1999 and has already become the largest selling Male Deodorant in India. Apart from the deos, Axe also provides a grooming range for the young Indian male, viz. Shaving Gel, Foam, After-Shave lotion, and Cologne Talc. Each fragrance of Axe is a scent of desire, created by the international diva of fragrances; Ann Gottlieb. The formulation is a base with higher efficacy to help men in attracting the fairer sex better than ever! And need we say anything about feminine attraction? You need to be a true Axe man to handle it all! The Axe Effect - Gets you more than before!

Key facts

Number 1 male deodorant brand in India. Available in over 60 countries.irst

POSITIONING Axe has been positioned as a cool, iconic, youth brand since its launch in India in 1999 and is thelargest selling Mens Deodorant in the country. Perceived as a brand with a very strong fragrance,Axe enjoys the position of a fashionable, stylish and naughty deodorant.Axe can be positioned relative to its competitors in the product category on a variety of factors.The comparative study of the competitors as per the factors of competitiveness can be illustratedas follows.

Axe deodorants are not anti-perspirant but still enjoy popularity in the market because of itscommunication strategies and the strong fragrance. This can be further illustrated by the surveyresults. Exhibit 3 shows the brand preference of a sample of people chosen randomly.The points of difference for Axe are-Weapons of Seduction as well as its corrugated screwcaps. Axe in contrast to its competitors is perceived as a brand that is high on the attractionquotient. HULs scientific research has proven Spray more, Get more and thus, it urges itscustomers to spray more to get the desired effect. Whereas, other deodorants have pull up caps ontheir bottles, Axe clearly establishes itself as a comfortable, easy to use brand with its innovativepackaging. The points of parity include delivery by aerosol spray, anti-odour properties andstrong fragrance.

The positioning statement of Axe can be given as - Among young males (aged 18-28), Axe is abrand of deodorants that helps you to attract the fairer sex because of its strong seductivefragrance. The perceptual map developed for Axe based on a sample survey further reinstates thesame statement. The perceptual map has been drawn on two variables- fragrance and lasting time,which were the most sought after features in a deodorant by the customers (as per the survey).As can be seen, Axe stands very high on fragrance variable though it does not last for a very longtime. It faces close competition from Wild Stone and Set Wet which have similar features asthose of Axe. On the other extreme, expensive deodorants such as Park Avenue and TommyHilfiger have a mild fragrance but last for a longer time duration. These deodorants are preferredby men above 28 years of age who avoid strong fragrances. Another segment is catered to by OldSpice and Gillette which last for a long time as well as have a strong smell and are primarilypreferred by men with an active lifestyle.

Promotion and advertisingGetting the girl has never been easier, thanks to the AXE effect. Asdevoted users know, women cant resist ANYONE wearing those greatfragrances!Axe gets naughty with its softcore promotionSoft-core porn has nothing on Axe body spray for men. Unilever's Axe took the men's groomingworld by storm in 2002 and almost single-handedly created a new product - body spray byfocusing on a typical young guy's fantasy: that a single whiff will arouse attractive youngwomen who subsequently won't be able to keep their hands off of him. Exaggerated humormakes the message campy, without diluting the core message.In the spring of 2007, as the competition for young men's grooming dollars got stiffer, Axerevamped its product packaging and launched an umbrella TV and online campaignsporting the tag "Bom Chicka Wah Wah" - '70s-porn slang for a sexual encounter. In the ads,aroused women exclaimed the phrase to young grocery clerks, waiters and other men theydidn't know. But by then, the ads for Old Spice and other rivals were starting to copy Axe'sfrat-boy approach.As a result, when it came time to introduce its new Vice line body spray, deodorant andshower gel, Axe sought to assert its position as an innovator.Commercial Review AssignmentAxeThe ad attracts people with its humor. The ad shows that if you use Axe then there will be seven Snow Whites instead of Seven Dwarfs, and all of the snow whites will beattracted to you. If a person is very thorough with a thing then they can say that the ad isdepicting women as it shows women being completely overwhelmed by nothing morethen just a deodorant

PRICING The price of all the variants of axe are same. the all axe are in the same range, they justhave different fragrance and flavour AXE DARK TEMPTATION Rs. 150, net contain 150ml/96gAXE RECOVER- Rs.-150, net contain 150ml/96gAXE AFRICA-Rs-150, net contain 150ml/96gAll product categories are behaving similarly OR are there any differences? Increasing competition and Dominance of few companiesIf there are differences, then are there any specific movements that can be observed in the product mix of these categories?Line pruning - There is a tendency for product lines to lengthen over time. Hence areview must be carried out regularly.Line modernization Modernizing all products in the lineLine featuring Selecting a few items from the line and promoting them aggressively toattract attention to the total line.

differentiationj Comparison b/w AXE and SETWETOpportunity in business is absolutely everywhere. A company hardly even known a littleover a decade ago is now a pioneer in its field.Axedeo spray has built a legacy and afortune on its commitment to remove the stink of other mens bodies and theyre proudof it. Thats been a starting point and since then theyve diversified into a range of menstoiletries from fragrances to aftershaves. Axe has now like many companies set its sights on India and for a sector that many arent interested in, the competition from Indian brands has just begun and is on the way to becoming bigger. Axes entry into India was based on it simply testing the waters as such. The deodorantindustry in India had been largely unorganized. Men-the gender Axe exclusively make products for have long relied on traditional methods to remove body odor and for manyits not even been an issue. But Axe knew that by creating awareness about their brand and what it could do, theyd be successful. Its amantra that has worked. Axe initially relied on a system of flooding Indian shops with their deodorants. They simplyrelied on the shop owner to sell their product to any malewho was looking for a deodorant. They werent novel using this method. It had andcontinues to be done even today by multinationaldeodorant brands like Nike and Adidas but the fact thatthey constantly reacted to the demand for the spray byincreasing supply has helped them to become leaders in the field. Axe have however been hit by their pricing strategy. They have not set up an extensivemanufacturing base in India as a result of which many of their products are importedfrom factories towards the east. This has pushed the prices of their spray up and its beenthis feature that

rival deo sprays, especially Indian are looking to exploit. To combat this axe has launched a cheaper range of deos in India under theRexonabrand. Both Axe and Rexona are run by theUnilevergroup. TheZatak brand is seen as the direct competitor to Axe which is also doingwell because its been pricing its products cheaper. Its also been around for longer than Rexona in the mens department. Pricing aside, theres the question of branding and this is where Axe clearlydominates. Their advertising campaigns are aimed at young men with catchyslogans and slightly provocative ads which as bold as theyve been, have beensuccessful in pushing up their sales. Its also prompted their competitors to launch their own campaigns with Zataks latestcampaign taking a bold dig at Axe in their own ads signifying for the first time in threeyears that the smaller David is looking to slay the bigger Goliath. Whether this willhappen is something to be seen. For Axe the way forward will require them to bring the prices of their products down andlook to set up a manufacturing hub in India.For Zatak, its about consolidating their position without losing out their consumers to newer entrants The GoodAxe is incredibly convenient to say the least. The newest version of the bottle of Axefeatures a twist top. The new top manages to eliminate any "accidental spraying", theonly major complaint I'd ever had about Axe. Because of this new feature, the bottle can be easily thrown, without care, into a gym bag to offer the best fragrance option for thosewho are active. Personally, I did not bring cologne to the gym for fear of breaking the bottle. The metal of the Axe bottle prevents this problem as well.The multiple fragrances of Axe are a major selling point. The smell that each scent of Axe presents is strong but not over powering, and offers a great alternative to cologne. Eachscent is unique, making it easy to have multiple favorites. Many compliments I'vereceived fall into the "what are you wearing?" category; any four and a half dollar bottlethat causes similar reactions to cologne is impressive. I can thank the smell of "Essence"for saving me the 50-60 dollars that I would usually spend on cologne.The Not So GoodThe only complaint I have with Axe Deodorant Bodyspray centers around its actualdeodorant properties. While the spray deodorant is useful for a day full of relaxation, I'vefound that it's odor eliminating properties struggle with anything more than simple dailyactivities (exercise, warm/hot/humid days). The smell of the product still lingers, but body odors come into the mix when Axe is the only deodorant used to produce an uneasyaroma. Axe does offer stick deodorant, however, and I have found that using a mix of both products offers constant body odor protection without overbearing the senses.Lets face it, not every guy can afford grooming products that cost $20 for a single bar of soap. Hell, thats six months worth of Irish Spring and frankly some guys prefer savingthe cash for other gear. We understand.That doesnt mean walking into the store necessary means you have to sell yourself short.AXEs revamped Vice lineup: Revitalizing Shower Gel, Deodorant Bodyspray andInvisible Solid Antiperspirant are retuned to give you a better, longer-lasting scentcombined with effective protection. The mad scientists at AXE even brought in renownedexpert Ann Gottlieb to do just that. Better yet, the prices are street-wise and no guy candeny the benefits of that.What this means to you:Whether you admit to it or not, you know the commercials.The ones touting of unrelenting female attention when you use AXE products. Well bethe first to admit its not going to happen - the product is a product, and what youreselling is yourself. That said, theyve got some damn fine and hilarious Naughty To Nice commercials (one after the jump) so take a peek, pocket the cash you save andspend it on your own gear.

PackagingPackaging involves designing and producing the container or wrapper for a product. The package may include the product's primary container a secondary package that is thrownaway when the product is about to be used and the shipping package necessary to store,identify, and ship the productThe axe deodorant contain in stylish bottle .its the primary container of theaxe, there is no secondary package for the axe deodorant.Growing Use of packaging as marketing tool; 1.Self service2.Consumer affluence: consumer are now willing to pay a little more for convenience, appearance and prestige of better packages.3.Company & Brand Image: Instant Recognition4.Innovation Opportunity Labelingprinted information appearing on or with the package, is also part of packaging.On the bottle of the axe there is really stylish printing ,stylish cap.written allthe information about the axe deodorant.there net volume, price,manufacture date and there variant.

Promotion strategy "Our goal was to drive sales of Axe Vice products to 18-24-year-old men, to build buzzand to weave the Axe brand into the culture," says Sam Chadha, Unilever director of antiperspirants and deodorants.The resulting buzz, as it turned out, unexpectedly spilled over from Axe on to its sibling brand Dove - and not in a good way.To market Axe Vice, the company eschewed expensive TV ads and commissioned itsagency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, to create a spoofy, five-minute online video. Called "TheAxe Vice Naughty to Nice Program," the film shows the antics of women being jailed for sexually abusing a guy because he smells too good and the unsuccessful efforts torehabilitate them. Says Kevin Roddy, BBH executive creative director: "We were playingoff the series Scared Straight!, in which hardened prisoners frighten at-risk young peopleinto good behavior." But instead of focusing on the kind of sexy women in other Axe ads,"The Vice video found its humor by depicting very wholesome, farmer'sdaughter typegirls turning into raving maniacs due to the Axe scent," he says.The video also includes a comically shameless pr character who hammers home the product message. "The pr guy is intended as a wink to the audience, to show the wholevideo is meant as a joke," Chadha says.Written, produced and edited within six weeks, the video debuted on the Vice-brandedWeb site, axevice.com, in September 2007 and ran through March 2008. Initially, the Axe brand managers were worried that the video's storyline was too outrageous. But Axe'syoung male brand advisers reacted positively, prompting a go-ahead from senior management."Axe has the storytelling element right and the video reinforces the brand's provocativeand contrarian personality, without constraints from TV and radio censors," says LoisKelly, marketing consultant and author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. "The PR guy provides the self-deprecating humor that the audienceloves."To drive traffic to the site in September and October, Axe tapped Edelman for

publicrelations, MindShare for media buying and Walton-Isaacson and GMR for eventmarketing. Print ads with Polaroid photos of mock mug shots of "nice girls who turnednaughty" were inserted in college and military newspapers and thousands weredistributed to men in bars.A contest to win a trip to Las Vegas in October was added to the Vice site. To enter, users played a crime-scene game involving all three Vice products. Online banner ads pushedguys to play the game and enter the contest.Axe posted the video on YouTube, and it was subsequently picked up by other networks.A customized Axe Vice skin was offered on RealNetworks and downloaded over 39,000times.To leverage the video beyond the computer, Axe partnered with Ad Infuse, putting ads onthe Boost, Helio and Sprint mobile-phone networks from September to January. Themobile program targeted customers that online networks couldn't, offering a new level of personalization, according to Trevor Hamilton, director of national advertising sales at AdInfuse. Banner ads showed the logo and images of a "naughty" girl at the bottom quarter of the phone's screen only if the user's profile said he was male, aged 18-24. The banner asked the member to sign up to receive five 30-second clips from the Axe video. Oncethe member clicked the sign-up button, he got a message that the first clip had been sentto his e-mail and he got the option to send the clip to other network members.By mid-January the video had 24,000 views on YouTube, 9 million views overall, and theAxe Vice digital marketing effort (not including itv) delivered 275 million impressionsaccording to Axe.But the reach of the provocative Vice video came with a price. The work contributed to a backlash against Axe and Unilever's female-friendly Dove brand. The Campaign for aCommercial-Free Childhood launched a letter-writing campaign in October askingUnilever to end the Axe advertising, decrying the "hypocrisy inherent in Unilever'smarketing Dove products by promoting 'real beauty' for girls while simultaneouslyadvertising Axe body spray by degrading them," says Josh Golin, associate director. Bymid-January about 2,600 letters were sent to Unilever with no response from thecompany, says Golin. About the same time, a mashup video of Dove and Axe ads was posted on YouTube as aparody of the popular Dove "Onslaught" video, which shows the negative impact of beautyadvertising on young women. The parody modified the original tag "Talk to your daughterbefore the beauty industry does" to "... before Unilever does." Created on his own time byRye Clifton, a senior strategic planner at the Martin Agency, the parody garnered 98,000views by January 24."The Axe campaign is a spoof and not meant to be taken literally," the company said in astatement about the controversy. "Unilever is a large, global company with many brands inits portfolio. Each brand's efforts is tailored to reflect the unique interests and needs of itsaudience," it said. The company is "not sure" if the controversy is impacting the campaign'sWeb traffic or product sales, Chadha says.Axe appears to be unfazed by the hoopla. Wholesale distributors reported that Axe bodyspray led the men's grooming category in 2007. Nearly half of the top-10 best-sellingdeodorant brands for Imperial Distributors were Axe items, led by the body sprays,according to Al Jones, senior vice president of procurement at the company, which servesthe eastern u.s. On the other hand, Dove may be feeling the sting. After growing 12.5percent in 2005 and 10.1 percent last year, Dove sales were up less than 1 percent in the52-week ending December 2, 2007, compared to 2006, according to Information Resources,Inc.The Vice video is a key part of Axe's threefold boost in online marketing in the U.S. from$400,000 in 2006 to $1.4 million during the first 11 months of 2007, per Nielsen Online. Butthat's still just a drop in the bucket of its total annual u.s. ad budget of $41 million to $43million.Even with such a modest price tag, "the Vice video campaign

fits neatly into Axe's brandstrategy of over-the-top creativity aimed at a very specific audience," says marketingexpert Kelly. While ads for rivals Tag and Old Spice try to be hip and comically sexy, theefforts seem "tactical and are less convincing," she says. "It looks like they are copying Axeand makes the consumer wonder what their real identities are.""Axe's strength is that it's so well-defined in how it acts and what it can do," says Roddy."Rather than trying to find common denominators among many [consumer groups], it liveswithin knowing exactly who it is."

FAIR & LOVELY : REDEFINING BEAUTY

Faculty Contributor : Avinash G. Mulky, Professor Student Contributors : Ajay Jain, Debasish Das, Karthik Rangarajan, Praveen Singh, Sulakshana S
It is common perception that many Indian women are partial towards fairer skin. Recently, noted dermatologists commented that people are now openly asking for a solution to something that has been an obsession through the ages. Equating fairness with beauty has turned out to be a key consumer insight in the case of the fairness creams industry with Hindustan Unilever capturing nearly 53% of the market share with Fair & Lovely. The company has drawn particular scrutiny for its promotions and advertisements featuring darker skinned women turning fairer on using the cream. This article attempts to chart the typical user of a fairness cream by segmenting the market, develops a positioning statement for Fair & Lovely and makes suggestions to increase the brand potential.

Fair & Lovely: Evolution of the Brand

Hindustan Unilever's star product in the fairness creams segment had evolved into one of the most successful brands over three decades in as many distinct phases. Phase 1 saw the launch of the product in 1976 on the basic premise that "younger women wanted to have fairer skin in order to attract a better looking husband." HUL marketed this brand as a beauty cream capable of providing fairness within 8 weeks. The value proposition lucidly communicated to the consumer base read, "Get noticed by the man of your life." During Phase 2 of Fair & Lovely's evolution, the brand talked to a younger college going woman who is self confident and more modern in her outlook and believes home remedies for facial care to be old fashioned. In Phase 3, this further metamorphosed into a brand offering emotional benefits for achievers who actively seek solutions and do not look at marriage as the ultimate source of personal achievement. Fair & Lovely thus became a brand which communicated a message that Fairness leading to Beauty leading to Good husband to Fairness leading to Self-confidence leading to Good career.2

Fairness Cream Segment

The market forces which had helped in shaping the competitive environment for Fair & Lovely include new entrants, new category introductions, increased buying power of consumers and controversies. New entrants are a regular feature in this segment of the skincare market, trying to capitalize on the same value proposition. As recently as in 2007, Nivea launched a fairness cream. Emami's Fair and Handsome created an entirely new category of products within the fairness cream range acting on the insight from consumer research that 20% of all fairness cream consumers are men. This altered the market dynamics completely, forcing Fair & Lovely as the market leader to look up and take notice. Controversies have always surrounded the fairness cream segment, with people accusing them

of being regressive for promoting that fairness is beauty. These market forces have elicited certain reactions from Fair & Lovely and made the brand what it is today. Fair & Lovely - a INR 1,000 crores brand - is the market leader in this segment having captured at least 53% of the total fairness creams market.i The competition can be best understood, if it is divided into three separate categories - Mass premium, Equivalent pricing and the Men's segment, as shown in Exhibit 1.

Exhibit 1 Fair & Lovely's competitors in the fairness creams market

Customer Perspective: Loyalty

In order to understand the current position of the brand from a consumer's perspective, market research was conducted. An existing survey conducted on the basis of attribute-based loyalty (to understand determinant attributes which govern the customer choice, particularly when confronted with alternatives and substitutes) and secondary data gathered from reputed journals were used to understand a typical customer and chart his/her profile. In addition, a questionnaire was floated to a random sample set, eliciting opinions on the performance of Fair & Lovely and depth interviews were conducted with lead users and lost users in order to determine the ideal positioning of the brand. Based on the market research, a typical consumer has been identified and portrayed in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2 A typical fairness cream user In general, consumers had good and bad things to say about fairness creams. They believed that fairness can be associated with confidence. But the survey results also revealed that such creams do not fulfill their claims and that fairness is not the only functional benefit that consumers are looking for in a face cream. There are many perceptions about Fair & Lovely

as a brand, some of which were positive. For example, since it is the oldest fairness cream, it has become a household name particularly in the southern part of the country. But Fair & Lovely is believed to be a product for the middle class by and large and its promotion strategies are dismissed as regressive in nature. The positioning strategy of the brand becomes apparent from this exercise and it clearly equates fairness with beauty and success. For the urban women from 17-25 years of age, Fair & Lovely offers the best path to beauty, self confidence and success among all fairness creams because it provides fairer, clearer, healthier and glowing skin in just 7 weeks.

Brand Equity
David Aaker defines brand equity as a set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service of a firm and/or to that firm's customers.3 Mapping the brand equity of Fair & Lovely using the Consumer based brand equity pyramid (CBBE)4 reveals that it has strong brand equity. Brand salience, as evaluated by the degree of "top of the mind recall" and "brand awareness" is good. Performance is based on the reliability built by the brand and the image which is defined by its heritage and its user profile, both of which are extremely high in this brand. The brand has built up credibility and a perception of quality leading to good judgments and feelings. Finally the loyal consumers of Fair & Lovely have an attitudinal attachment towards the brand, leading to high brand resonance.

Market Segmentation and Target Groups

The market for the fairness creams can be divided both demographic parameters, such as income, age and occupation of the customers as well as along the behavioural axis, including differentiation on the basis of the benefits (functional, emotional and self-expressive) sought. With variation in the income of the user, the brands favoured by him/her change. As substantiated in Exhibit 3, a low to middle income customer would prefer using a brand targeted at the middle class, like Fair & Lovely, whilst the better endowed users aspire for premium products such as Perfect Radiance, by Fair & Lovely. Exhibit 4 charts out those brands that customers seeking different benefits are likely to favour, whilst also mentioning the sub-brand that Fair & Lovely had introduced to cater to that segment. It divides the market into six distinct segments based on the behavioural patterns exhibited by the consumers. Some users aspire for a brand for emotional and selfexpressive benefits. These customers have been surreptitiously termed as Vanity buyers. Similarly, the Price sensitive buyer is likely to rate affordability higher than other parameters while the Inquiring buyer is likely to be the early adopter of product innovations, such as the Ayurvedic or multi-vitamin skin creams.

Exhibit 3
Demographic segmentation of the fairness creams market

Exhibit 4 Behavioural segmentation of the fairness creams market

Need For Change

Fair & Lovely has come a long way since 1976 when it was first introduced in India, modernizing along with its consumers. Women in the society have transformed and the brand has evolved to capture this need. Currently though, underplaying the fairness attribute may

hurt the brand so the focus has to be extended and not shifted. This extension includes fairness but adds that extra something to the product as well as the brand. The addition of attributes to products would increase the perceived value for the customer which is an important objective with a mature product such as Fair & Lovely. Though Fair & Lovely is the market leader in this segment, an erosion of its market share is always on the cards, especially since there are no significant points of difference from its competitors. The basic product needs to be re-positioned with additional attributes to increase its points of difference from the other competing brands. This revamp needs go beyond just the look of the package (which has been constantly changing) and instead, drill into the core of the brand.

Recommendations
In order to ensure the longevity of Fair & Lovely, changes in three of the 4Ps of marketing have to be initiated. The product, its price and promotion have to undergo a makeover. Such changes will inevitably necessitate a revamp of the basic model of Fair & Lovely as well as the introduction of new sub-brands to capture currently unattended segments. This can be initiated only by redefining the segments and identifying new target groups, for positioning the new sub-brands.

Exhibit 5 Changed bases of segmentation for new product introduction

The Pledge: Vamping up the Product

A market leader must be potentially aware of flank attacks on its authority. As change becomes the name of the game, even brands like Fair & Lovely have to innovate by either

changing their base product and offer new benefits to the customers or by introducing new products to capture different segments of the market. Primary research revealed that the high-end segment of the market (graduates/post-graduates with an annual income exceeding INR 500,000) seek benefits other than fairness in a face cream. The growing number of users in this segment thereby presents an opportunity for the introduction of a new attribute that would best cater to their expectations. Apart from fairness, users look for a "tangible glow" that could be imparted to their skin after usage. Lucent protein is an ingredient which can produce immediate glow by the action of botanicals and Vitamin C esters. The package will be suitably redesigned to differentiate it from the other fairness creams which are predominantly wrapped in pink covers. The package, as depicted in Exhibit 1 must reflect a golden hue to highlight glow and sunshine, and when introduced in tandem with the old variant, it will stand out sufficiently for users to make a transformation to the new variant over the course of time. Fair & Lovely has not exploited the potential presented by some of the segments of the market, mostly notably the ageing women population and the teens market. Depth interviews with respondents from each of these segments revealed the need for women between 30 and 50 of age to stay "wrinkle-free and young". An anti-ageing cream with wrinkle lift properties would satiate the needs of these women. Similarly, the usage of the product in the teens market was surprisingly low. Specific problems like pimples could be cured, by providing a skin cream with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory protection.

Exhibit 6 The revamped basic Fair

& Lovely and its 2 new sub-brands

The Turn: New promotional programmes

With the introduction of the new variants in the market place, Fair & Lovely must focus its promotional activities in order to sell a category need, increase brand attitude and to generate the intention to purchase in the minds of the consumer. Towards that extent, TV commercials must be aimed at generating awareness and increasing brand recognition of the new products. Considering that Fair & Lovely's market share touches nearly 60% and it has a high brand recall of nearly 80% - a conservative estimate, then in order to convert at least 20% of the users exposed into customers, 9,200,000 customers have to be exposed to these commercials on prime time television. Only then can Fair & Lovely hope to achieve its targets. Advertisements in the print and electronic media must highlight the functional benefits and the self-expressive benefits that accrue to the users of the brand. For example, the new suggested variant Fair & Lovely Lucent Proteins must clearly highlight the concept of "beauty beyond fairness". By using a celebrity endorser like Hema Malini for promoting the antiageing cream, the message sent out would be loud and clear - ageing with laugh lines, and not wrinkles. Exhibit 2 shows one such sample advertisement.

Exhibit 7 New print

advertisement for Fair & Lovely's anti-ageing cream

The Prestige: Pricing Competitively

An organization's costs would set a floor to the price, however, that is not the basis for actually setting a final price to the product. Competitor's prices and the price of substitute products like provide a reference floor, for starters. The customers' assessment of the product's unique features establishes the price ceiling. Therefore, in order to evaluate the final price, the recommended strategy would be to base the price on the customer's perceived value from the product. For a 50 ml package, competitive advantage could be sustained if priced at INR 64, as explained below.

Exhibit 8 Perceived value pricing strategy for Fair & Lovely

Conclusions
Today Fair & Lovely is the market leader with 53% market share but in the era of increasing competition, erosion of market share is more a reality than mere speculation. With products like Emami's Fair and Handsome hitting out unexpectedly, Fair & Lovely should be proactive and increase the points of difference with its competitors. Moving beyond the message of fairness as beauty must be the center of its marketing communication. The recommendations provided would do just that, extending the core message of the brand through to the product and communicating it by various promotional strategies. In fact, this is where the next INR 1,000 Crores are most likely to come from.
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