Holistic Marketing

Holistic Marketing

The holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design and complementation of marketing program, processes and activities that recognizes the breadth and interdependencies. Holistic marketing recognizes that “everything matters” in marketing. Holistic marketing is very complex concept or integrated form of marketing in which we consider every aspect of marketing whether it is internal or external.

Integrated Marketing has been discussed in the previous post.

Relationship Marketing deals with building relationships with all stakeholders of the company, which will include customers (consumer is the king), employees (they are the heart of HUL), suppliers (relationship based on mutual benefits), competitive firms (market share is declining), society at large (with CSR initiatives).

Internal Marketing  the employees are the one who keep the brand, the company running and they believe in the brand, so they are first customers of the brand. Brand makes sure that the employee finds his/her goals aligned with the goals of the company. It involves creating harmony, coordination and ownership among employees.

Socially Responsible Marketing HUL invests in research working with nutrition and health specialist in its 'ready to eat' food business striving to reduce salt to the recommended dietary levels, reduce trans fat from vegetable oil, sugar from ready to drink teas. The packaging for Vaseline has been reengineered not only to cut plastics, reducing energy consumption but also made the product visually more appealing and functional. These initiatives not only position the products distinctively vis-à-vis the competitors and enhances brand equity, but also ensures well being of customers and the environment.

As it is rightly said by Lord Stark of Game of Thrones "The Winter is Coming". Vaseline Petroleum jelly is a product which is here to stay. The way the Vaseline has approached the problem faced by everyday man/woman during winter season has made it the Numero Uno in the personal skin care space.
 

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning and Market Strategies

Market Segmentation, as AMA defines "is the process of subdividing a market into different subsets of customers that behave in the same way or have similar needs. Each subset may conceivably be chosen as a market target to be reached with a distinct marketing strategy."

The Segmentation aims in improving the brand, increasing the sales, better distribution, and better advertising. It is done on the basis of following variables: geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral.

Geographic
Region	Available in all the regions (less competition)
City	Available in all the cities (not much competition)
Rural and Semi-urban areas	Low penetration because of low awareness
Demographic
Age	15 years and below – given to them by their mothers 15-20 years- choose their own, mostly on recommendation from family members. 21 and above- after once using stick with it
Family Size	Can be a large joint family or a small family; child to adult use the product.
Gender	Female tend to use it more as they like to take care of their skin
Income	All classes regularly use it except low income people and poor, who rarely use it
Occupation	They users can range from business man to house wife, student or any other; product can be used anybody.
Education	Used by both literate and ill-literate, though used more by literate class.
Physiographic
Lifestyle	Regular house wife or a corporate men/women
Personality	Impossible to ascertain
Behavioral
Occasions	When winter comes, dry skins etc
Benefits	Soft hands, no chapped lips or dry heels.
User Status	Everyone the same.
Usage rate	NA
Loyalty status	All the consumers are fair
Readiness stage	Aware, desirous and interested.
Attitude product followed	Enthusiastic and positive

Targeting
As we talked about competition in the skin care health, the market share of Vaseline has declined due to the competition. To increase the sales they need to connect tot the new generation.

Positioning
It refers to customer's perception of the place a product or brand occupies in a market segment. in some markets, a position is achieved by associating the benefits of a brand with the wants or life style of the segments.
Vaseline is positioned on the healthcare platform with a body lotion and petroleum jelly. The customer always see the tangible attributes like performance level, price, packaging, product components before buying the product. Petroleum jelly being the winter cream posses so many uses such as for dry lips and feet. The unique selling proposition of Vaseline is its 100% white petroleum.

 

Orgnisational Buying Behaviour

Organizational buying as the decision making process by which formal organization establish the need for purchased product and services and identify, evaluate and choose among alternative brands and suppliers. Organization generally buy in bulk or through the ways of tie-ups in which they get special offers from the supplier and suppliers also get extra benefit that its product going to be consumed anyways. In organization professional do the purchasing for them or set the tie-ups for future purpose. Organization which has various firms set at different geographical conditions in that case the tie-up is done from the main office and then that is followed throughout all the firms.

There are various participants in organization buying process that includes:

Initiator: are those who request the top management something to be purchased.

Users: The ones who are going to the product.

Deciders: People who decide from the where the product should be purchased.

Approvers: After the decider decided from where to purchase or with whom to purchase. Approver approves it whether to accept the offer or not.

Gate Keepers: The middle or the intermediaries which protect the supplier or any information form reaching to the buyer.

 
 

Consumer Behaviour

In todays scenario where, consumer is the king, Brand's need to study how an individual, group or an organization will select, buy, use any product or service and the factors which influence their decisions. To survive in the market the study is most important tool with them. Apart from above reasons social factors, personal factors, cultural factors, evaluation of alternatives  that go into it. Consumer’s behavior in today’s scenario keeps on changing just because of the availability of the large no. of choices.

For a Brand like Vaseline, its very important that they understand what the consumers want, as unlike other brands, Vaseline deals with Skin Care a niche segment which is very close to the consumer. For Vaseline it becomes extremely important that they know what consumers wan and what they don't want in the product, what they usually don't like about their skin and want to improve.
There are various factors which influence consumer behavior in day to day life, which make them to decide whether to buy the particular product or not.

These factors include:

Marketing Stimuli
Products & service	Petroleum Jelly, customer service
Price	Comparatively priced to competitors
Distribution	Available across regions and markets
Communications	Adverts across mediums

 

Other Stimuli
Economic	Very economical considering the benefits
Technology	Advance R&D goes into skin care
Political	-
Cultural	Family, friends, suggestion.

 

Consumer Psychology
Motivation	Dry skin, easily available, comfortable pricing
Perception	Works good for dry skin and skin care in general
Learning	-
Memory	Last experience

Consumer Characteristics
Cultural	-
Social	Dry skin may lead to inferiority complex, saves the consumer from it
Personal	Soft skin, day goes by without discomfort

 

 

Buying Decision Process
Problem recognition	Dry skin, chapped lips, dry feet etc.
Information search	Availability around, variant search
Evaluation of alternatives	Emami and Himalaya
Purchase decision	Odor, stickiness, price
Post purchase behavior	Satisfied/dissatisfied



 

Purchase Decision
Product Choice	Based on preference and problem at hand
Brand Choice	Based on Brand image and past experience
Dealer Choice	Nearest
Purchase amount	Depends on the customer
Purchase timing	When need arises
Payment method	Cash



 

Sales Management

AMA says "  Sales management is the planning, direction, control of the personal selling activities, of a business unit, including recruiting, selecting, training, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying, and motivating as these tasks apply to sales force. It involves three interrelated processes :- (1) formulation of a strategic sales program, (2) implementation of the sales program and (3) evaluation and control of sales force performance."

The thing what we see here clearly is that Vaseline doesn't do personal selling of any sorts.

The company does have it team(s) that take care of the sales and distribution, but it is never personal selling. Product is routed thorough wholesalers and retailers to the consumer at every possible location. The local vendors choose the product to sell on their on discretion and the company doesn't pay them for that.

Promotion

In an era where sustaining in the market is getting difficult day by day because of the competition, Promotion which is know as marketing communication is one major attribute which helps the product or the service to attract customers and to have large market share. By employing techniques which enable them to generate high revenues, companies successfully stay afloat in the market today.

According to AMA, Integrated Marketing Communications is the planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by the customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.

IMC includes the following points:

• Advertising
• Sales Promotion
• Events and Experiences
• Public Relations and Publicity
• Direct and Interactive Marketing
• Word-of-Marketing
• Personal Selling

The process:

The effectiveness of IMC plan depends on the following criteria:
Coverage: number of audience reached.
Contribution: the contribution of the marketing communication to create the desired response and communication effects
Commonality:  the extent to which common associations are reinforced across options
Versatility: The robustness of the marketing  communication.
Cost: analysis of cost to chalk out the most cost effective and efficient program.

Let see now Integrated Marketing Communication of HUL for Vaseline petroleum jelly :

Advertising: Advertising has mass reach and the ability to reach geographically diverse audience. Vaseline petroleum jelly employs advertising across several media. Like this print ad where Vaseline is making a cheesy statement when Michael Vaughan used petroleum jelly on his bat.

Newspaper ad:

 

 

 

Outdoor space:

 



 

Sales Promotion: Vaseline has come with new different variants of the original petroleum jelly and does sometimes comes up with exciting offers fro customers.

 

Events and Experiences: Vaseline associates and sponsors various beauty pageants and contest over the world. Vaseline ropes in the celebrities and socialites for the same. This Vaseline is sponsoring Kenya Fashion Week  

 

Public Relations and Publicity:  Vaseline has been doing a lot of CSR work and that way they ensure they are giving back to the society and the environment.

 

 

 

Direct and Indirect Marketing: HUL's website hul.co.in/Vaseline and Vaseline's own website vaseline.in talks about the brand and facts and trivia related to uses and benefits of petroleum jelly. It also talks about the latest offerings form the brands stable.

 

Word-of-Mouth: Word of mouth promotion is a very powerful tool in this regard. Word of mouth gives a certain credentials to the brand and the customer trust the word if its from a close friend or a family member. Also Vaseline has a Faebook page where they interact with the customers and maintain a close relationship with them.

 

Personal selling: In case of Vaseline its rarely seen that they do personal selling.

 

Branding

According to AMA, "A brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary."

Vaseline whose parent company is HUL in India, quite a big and powerful. Its Vaseline petroleum jelly was the first to be launched in India

Brand Equity: It is the added value endowed on products and services. It may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the prices, marker share and profitability the brand commands for the firm.

Brand Promise: It is the marketer’s vision of what brand must be and do for its consumers. What benefit it going to give to the customer so that they feel like associated with the brand. At the end of the day, the true value and future prospects of a brand rest with consumers, their knowledge about the brand and their likely response to marketing activity as a result of this knowledge.

There are three major elements which is Brand should convey:

Brand Awareness: To increase awareness and the availability of the brand and increase the brand name's retention in customers' mind

Brand Attitude: Under this brand should follow the attitude of a problem solver or problem avoider. Vaseline petroleum jelly in itself is product which projects the attitude of problem solver.

Brand Purchase Intent: Vaseline petroleum jelly because of its multipurpose uses has been attracting the customers over the years. The few things which make Vaseline better then its competitors.:

• works as a lip gloss.
• works very well on chapped lips.
• prevents battery corrosion.
• acts as a filter for camera lens.
• prevents car windows from freezing.
• helps in keeping colors intact in  paintings.

All the above factors/uses and many more make Vaseline petroleum jelly the market leader in Skin care.