Comparative Brand

analysis of Unilever
and P&G

Executive summary
This paper is all about strategies and different practices by the largest MNCs. This study
carried out worlds top two FMCG brands named Unilever and P&G. In this study, we have
found that the need of transformation is not only for products and innovation but also
important for the organizational structure as well. More product line can brings a sustainable
growth in market. So more market presence with more product line over the world is very
necessary to use scale of economy. However, on the other hand, it is very important that the
growth should be a balanced one. P&G have admitted that they were only focused for more
growth in home market rather than foreign one and which results hampering their growth.
While Unilever maintain equal focus on the both, home and foreign market which leads them
to catch P&G in next 5 years. P&G gained a lot from their Gillette merger. On another note,
maintaining business ethics are very important for the market growth.
This report presents two parts, first part shows basic parts of these two organizations, for
instances, core offer, reasons behind for choosing them, market segmentation, brand
proposition, performance evaluation, types of customer market etc.
Second part carries target market, marketing mix, marketing strategies etc. This part gives
elaborate explanation on these topics. Then based on discussion a conclusion has been drawn.

Contents
Executive summary............................................................................................... 1
Introduction........................................................................................................... 3
Part A..................................................................................................................... 3
1. Reasons choosing the two brands..................................................................3
2. Types of consumers market............................................................................ 4
Unilever........................................................................................................... 4
P&G................................................................................................................. 4
Core competitors:............................................................................................ 5
3. Evaluation of historical performance..............................................................5
4. Customer and market segmentation..............................................................6
5. Core offer........................................................................................................ 6
Unilever........................................................................................................... 6
P&G................................................................................................................. 7
6. Brand proposition of its target customers......................................................7
7. Brand differentiation compare to competitors and its reasons.......................7
8. Evaluation of brand execution........................................................................8
Unilever........................................................................................................... 8
P&G................................................................................................................. 9
9. Recommendation on how the brand should do to enhance its market position
........................................................................................................................... 9
Unilever........................................................................................................... 9
P&G............................................................................................................... 10
Part B................................................................................................................ 10
(1).................................................................................................................. 10
Target market................................................................................................ 10
Marketing strategies...................................................................................... 10
(2).................................................................................................................. 13
Unilever Marketing mix.................................................................................. 13
P&G marketing mix....................................................................................... 15
Conclusion........................................................................................................ 17
References........................................................................................................ 17

Introduction
Unilever and P&G are the two most popular USA based multinational companies in the world
and both are provide consumer goods. They are the strongest familiar brand as well. They are
the most profitable brands among the other popular brand in the world. They are the
competitors of each other (Geoffrey Jones. 2015)
This report contains comparative analysis of their brand and marketing strategy based on
marketing mix. Both are from similar categories and targeting similar target market.
However, they are both strong brand because of their different marketing strategies. Both
follow different marketing mix and this report present these differences between them and
compare which one is better.

Part A
1. Reasons choosing the two brands
This report focuses on comparative analysis. In this case, it is necessary to take such two
brands which characteristics are same and from similar categories. That is why, these two
brands are choosing for this report. Some reasons are given below:
Both are FMCG companies (Geoffrey Jones. 2015) and serve consumers goods, like,
cleaning goods, personal goods, beauty goods etc. as well as worlds largest companies. Both
are worldwide companies and strongest brands, belong to similar group, and target similar
market. They are now trying to extend their market share and their target markets are also
same (Geoffrey Jones. 2015). So it is quite easy to compare between two same categorical
companies.

2. Types of consumers market

Unilever

It has above 400 brands but serves only 64 brands and its product line includes cleaning
goods, refreshments, personal care and beauty products, and foods and beverages. Name of
some products are Axe, Lux, Dove, Sun silk, TRESemme, Knorr, Lipton, Rexona, Vaseline,
Ponds, Surf excel, Chocos etc. (Unilever 2014)
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Figure 1: product line of Unilever

P&G

It has above 300 brands and serve 180 brands only in worldwide and divide into four sectors
of consumer market, for instances, beauty care goods, home care goods, family care goods,
and health care goods. Some goods are, Head & shoulder shampoo, Olay, Tide, Pantene,
Vicks, Duracell, Gillette, Pampers, etc.

Figure 2: product line of P&G (Unilever 2014)

Core competitors:

As both are, belong to same categories and market so their core competitors are same almost.
Their major competitors are Johnson & Johnson (family Care), LOreal (beauty care),
Colgate and Palmolive (health care), Kimberly Clerk, Kraft (Foods), Henkel (Home care) etc.
Besides that, both are competitors of each other (Unilever 2014).

3. Evaluation of historical performance

Unilever exists in 3rd position among their core competitors and the first positions belong
P&G. it has seen from their past history of performance P&G done very well among the
competitors, its valuation is high and its profit margin is also high compare to those unilever.
P&G is the most famous stocks in the FMCG markets (Unilever 2014).
On the other hands, unilever is the smaller company with short profit margin than P&G but it
has value and growth rate over its competitors (Unilever 2015). However, both are exists top
within the market. Average operating profit margins of (2011-2015) both unilever and P&G is
given below:

Figure 3: comparison of profit margin

4. Customer and market segmentation
P&G is worlds top giant company of processed goods and unilever is the second giant CPG
Company in the world. Both are serve two main segments, they are, personal care segment
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and home care segment. Besides that, unilever has one more segment known as refreshments
segment. Their target customers are from all ages of people, like, young, teenagers, baby,
adult etc. as their has every types of good for every types of customer (Unilever 2015).

5. Core offer
Both companies have five different core offers. They are given bellows respectively
(Unilever 2015).
Unilever

Their core offer helps to maintain a comfortable living commonplace as well as create a
better future for their target customers. Unilever makes a clean commonplace for their
potential consumers and reduce load of women work. They are caring for nourishing health
of their customers skin by delivered superior beauty products. They try to make feeling good
to their customers with the help of their products and services.
P&G

The company tries to understand their target consumers wanted and provide superior
services and goods according to their wants and demands. They provide innovative goods and
maintain market capabilities as an industry leader. They constantly try to create a strong
brand image towards in the customers minds. They always offer branded superior packed
goods to their customers by improving efficiency and productivity. They share knowledge,
transfers technology, improve performance to provide better.

6. Brand proposition of its target customers

Both companies are offered distinctive, valuable, affordable, superior, visible, and important
brands for their target customers. Brand proposition of both companies are different but they
consistently delivered unbeatable product line in the market, which has strong market growth
rate. In addition, both companies are ruling their market over their competitors. In this case,
P&G holds top position than all the other companies from several years (Unilever 2014),
(Boston Herald 2009).

7. Brand differentiation compare to competitors and its reasons

Unilever and P&G have brand differentiation over their competitors as well as both have
differentiation between them. However, P&G has more brand differentiation over the other
and some core reasons are given below which makes P&G different from others (Boston
Herald 2009). They are:
P&G maintains high brand loyalty and equity. The company has loyal distribution channel
and recognized as leading retailers. It supplies innovative household goods and services. The
company offers affordable and wide range of pricing with superior quality. They are the first
clearest company of FMCG industry, which makes differentiate them from other companies.

Figure 4: P&G. the clearest company of FMCG industry

Some reasons of unilever, which keeps it superior over its competitors. They are
Unilever serves best quality with lower price. The company maintains dynamic relations with
the retailers and creates strong communication with them. The most strong points are
economical position of the company, which is well organized, as well as well build brand
portfolio. Products and services are very much available for their customers, which is making
them popular company in the eye of their customers.

8. Evaluation of brand execution

Unilever

This organization holds first positioning in the market over its competitors. It has earned
around $42million over its core competitors. It is possible because of its brand execution.
They put their customers at first priority because they their brand is only for their customers
which fulfill their needs and wants. Their brand has clear purpose and clear point of views
towards their target market. They provide a magical experience to their respective customers
and connect with their emotion. These execution styles brought unilever top position in the
market and they are able to maintain successfully their market (Unilever 2015).
P&G

The organization is worlds top multinational company of processed consumers goods. It

has earned more than $80billion over its competitors and it has around 67millions consumers
in the world. Some major facts about their brand execution are diversified brand portfolio
from which customers can pick their own products based on their needs, strong R&D

Figure 5: Segmentation sales range of P&G

department that helps to bring innovative and superior products in the market, worldwide
operation, strong and dynamic distribution network around the world to supply products
instantly and consistently (Boston Herald 2009).

9. Recommendation on how the brand should do to enhance its

market position
Unilever

Unilever should develop their adjusting policies and business model, which could deliver
more job opportunity for women. Because the company helps to reduce workload of women.
The companys products are available in the market but it should develop more its R&D
department to provide a wide range of superior and unique products with diversification with
innovative characteristics of a wide range of brands. It should increase its brand because it
serves only 68 brands among 400 brands, which is too much low.
P&G

P&G should provide interlocking products. As it is packaged consumers Goods Company, it

should design its package more uniquely and package works as silent sales representative of
the company. It should focus more on customers demand to hold their market position by
providing better goods for consumers betterment. P&G has strong competitors in the market
so new concept of advertising should develop so it can help to increase market growth rate.

Part B
(1)
Target market

Both organizations provide consumers goods, like, personal care goods, home care goods,
beauty care goods, health care goods, family care goods etc. (Unilever 2015).
Therefore, both companies target markets are similar and they target all ages, colors, sizes of
people. Their primary target market is women and secondary target market is men. Because
most of the products are manufactured for women and recently they produced goods for men
(Unilever 2015).
The women choose especially beauty and personal care goods and more than twenty million
women, which is nearly 57% around the world. They target women based on buying trend of
these products and their own attributes. Unilever and P&G both provide high quality and
innovative beauty care products with lower costs, which makes them leader in the market. In
this case, R&D department helps them to research to find out their potential target market. In
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addition, P&G has other types of customers too like, mass merchandisers, drug stores, club
stores etc. (Boston Herald 2009)
Marketing strategies
Unilever

Unilever is one of the most culture-diversified companies in the world. It has 24 different
nationalities managers forming top-level management and making corporate governance
stronger so that they can make fast and accurate decision to cope up with changing and
challenging environment. Unilever set their goods according to their customer preferences,
like, skin, hair, deodorant, ice cream, tea etc. most of the profit come from personal care and
foods (Unilever 2015).
In this case, unilever choose different tactics and they develop adaptation according to locals
needs and deliver different products in different countries. The production process is same for
all goods in different countries but they adopt local condition to reduce the cost (Unilever
2015).

Figure 6: Growth history of unilever

Unilever find out the differences from their competitors and it applies fast movers tactics and
they introduced different unique products before its rival P&G. They always focus on
innovation and give priority R&D which research on customers need and demands level,
their taste level and want(Unilever 2015). They find out new market based on new potential
customer and their marketing strategies are different in different countries. They make
acquisition with local companies so that they can distribute their products efficiently, these
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marketing strategies helps to shape standardization of their products as well as gain profit
equally from every region. As they follow regional adaptation policy it will help to satisfy
customers demands more with reduce cost.
It has biggest market in Asia and Middle East than its rival P&G. Unilever is changing their
promotional, pricing, and packaging activities to cope (Unilever 2015) up with these regional
demands because they want lower manufacturing cost with lower cost of raw materials.
Unilever has been able to do that which keeps it ahead overs its rival.
P&G

On the other hands, unilevers biggest competitor P&G earns profits from beauty and
personal care, home care, and baby care goods. It is weak in foods segment than unilever,
thus unilever enjoys such benefits over its competitor. P&G deliver superior and strong
customer value and taking worldwide with diversified products and recorded $83.68 billion
in sales (Coolidge, Alexander 2015).

Figure 7: Comparison between profitability of these companies

P&G focuses connect + development process which is very unique from its competitors. It is
P&Gs innovation version which different from others. P&G uses this tactics now both
internally and externally, connect expertise according to customers choice to develop their
products (Cincinnati News.Net. 2014).
P&G focuses more on developed countries especially North America and Europe, and earns
only 38% from developing countries (Coolidge, Alexander 2015). It is following global
standardization strategy as it is served developing countries and mixed technology to input
innovative characteristics for their respective customers. R&D department research
customers demands and needs level then they find out their potential customers.
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P&G is constantly improving contacts with their existing customers and targets always
middle class families. Thus, they connect them with their development. However, the
company is the biggest rival of unilever but they are down in food segment (Cincinnati
News.Net. 2014).

Figure 8: Comparison of successfulness to use TV advertising

They use heavy advertising and media to reach the news of their new products to their
customers. They always prefer customers choice and sensitive to their price and quality.
They have more than 75,000 suppliers all over the world and improve the lives of more than
5billion of peoples with their wide of goods (Cincinnati News.Net. 2014).
(2)
Unilever Marketing mix
Product

Unilever provides around 64 brands for their consumers and among them, the top most
popular brand is Dove. The company divides their brands into four categories, for instance,
home and personal care and foods and beverages (Boyle, Matthew; Jarvis, Paul 2014). It is
the global largest ice cream brand with heart brand symbol and their annual sales around $5
billion.

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Figure 9: Product wise market share of Unilever

Besides that, soya syrup, deserts, cooking oil, margarine etc. are their some famous food
brand. In addition, detergents, shower gels, hair products, deodorants, dishwashers etc. are
some popular home care goods. The company try to reach every single customer by
manufactured the products based on their choice (Boyle, Matthew; Jarvis, Paul 2014).
Unilever has sub product line under in each category, like, hair care products has 44 different
sub products and beauty care products has around 50 product line with sub products.
Price

Unilever provides a wide range of goods and products to their consumers with affordable
price and their price range is not fixed it is different based on different countries currency.
During the time of deciding the price range, they firstly find out the pricing strategy of
competitors (Unilever 2014). They put high price for high quality and premium products and
medium price for regular products. They always put the price carefully to sustain their brand
image and to increase market growth rate as well as consumers preferences.
Place

Unilever now serves in almost 100 countries and further planning to serve more 50 countries
(Greg Thain; John Bradley 2014). Company has now three business segments in designing
process for future expansion to bring success.

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Figure 10: Top 10 places where Unilever serves

It has own distribution channel to distribute in different countries, as well as has own supply
chain management which do own activities from purchase raw materials to manufacture. It
has active global presence and creates a great opportunity to emerge in market and in
developing countries as well. It adapts regional policy to provide high quality product with
lower price. Thus, they gain a substantial profit from each country where they run their
business (Greg Thain; John Bradley 2014)
Promotion

Company uses electronic media and print media heavily to reach each customers door they
also offer some scheme like, premium packages, design, to attract more customers In
addition, they use billboards, banners, signboards, and social media for advertising. They
arrange face-to-face marketing, posters campaign, flyers, and magazines on their beauty
products to show their concern towards their women customers
P&G marketing mix
Product

This company serves versatile products to their customers because they mostly serve in
developed countries where they prefer updated products (Coolidge, Alexander 2015). They
also provide coconut based food and cleaning goods, health care products, laundry products
etc.

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Figure 11: Product wise market share of P&G

All most all categories has around hundreds innovative products. Most demanded products
are Head & shoulders, Joy, Ariel, Olay, Pampers, safeguard, Tide, Whisper, Downy and
Pantene etc. and these are known as ten pillars of the company. (Coolidge, Alexander 2015).
Price

Company serves most superior branded household goods so range of prices are varying
according to product or service category and their characteristics (Cincinnati News.Net.
2014).

Figure 12: Share of most preferable brand of P&G

Before put price on any products they analysis competitors pricing strategies and profit
margins as well as customer preferences, their lifestyles, their affordability etc. (Cincinnati
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News.Net. 2014). Because it helps to decide which price, consumers will accept and they will
afford to buy their necessary products.
Place

Company serves mostly in developed countries, North America, Europe, etc. as well as some
developing countries Africa, Asia etc. Company has seven business units and set own
distribution channels (PG.com. 2016). They have own warehouse to store their products
(Cincinnati News.Net. 2014) and now serve in eight locations as well as local market based
on demand level (PG.com. 2016)
Promotion

Promotion strategies of P&G are very fine and well structured, they use heavy electronic
media, Facebook advertisement, online advertisement, as they serve developing countries and
they are very addicted in electronic life.

Figure 13: Advertising effect of P&G

They used billboards, banners, radio, television, newspaper advertisements in developing

countries (PG.com. 2016). They change their selling strategies according to customers
choice and preferences (Dyer, Davis; Dalzell, Frederick; Olegario, Rowena 2004).

Conclusion
Above discussion, it has proved that both organizations are strongest competitors of each
other and they served in a well-organized way. They both served high quality product and
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careful about their customers needs and demands. They always try to give best quality to
their customers and use proper promotional activities to reach every single individual with
their products.

References
Geoffrey Jones. (2015), "Unilver: a case study". hbs.edu.
Unilever (2014), "Unilever.com".
Unilever (2016), "Preliminary Results 2015" (PDF)
Unilever (2015), "Facts".
Boyle, Matthew; Jarvis, Paul (2014), "Unilever Spreads Split Boosts Chance of Exit as
Shares Gain". Bloomberg News.
unilever.com. (2015), "Our approach to sustainability".
Unilever (2013), Unilever R&D Locations
Greg Thain; John Bradley (2014), FMCG: The Power of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods.
First Edition Design Pub. p. 426.
Manuel Hensmans; Gerry Johnson; George Yip (2013), Strategic Transformation: Changing
While Winning. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 139.
Chaudhuri, Saabira (2016), "Unilever Spreads Divisions CEO Quits". The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
The Procter & Gamble Company, (2013), "2012 Earnings Report, The Procter & Gamble
Company".
us.pg.com. (2016), "history_of_innovation".
Boston Herald (2009), "Procter & Gamble board meets amid CEO reports".Associated Press.
Retrieved May 5, 2012.
Coolidge, Alexander (2015). "P&G brand sales, restructuring will cut jobs up to 19%".
Cincinnati. Retrieved March 3, 2016.

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Cincinnati News.Net. (2014),"Around 100 brands to be dropped by Procter and Gamble to

boost sales".
PG.com. (2016), "Leadership Development - Who We Are | P&G".
Dyer, Davis; Dalzell, Frederick; Olegario, Rowena (2004), Rising Tide: Lessons from 165
Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 159139-147-4.

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