Competition and Brand Performance of Fairy Liquid - Assignment Example

Fairy Liquid Competition and Brand Performance Insert [Pick the Fairy Liquid In the market of cleansers used in the kitchen for dishwashing etc which was governed by powdered and crystal, Proctor & Gamble launched Fairy, a liquid dishwashing soap which swept the UK market with its ability to clean the dishes most effectively. The brand originally belonged to Thomas Hedley & Sons which P&G later acquired the brand and decided to retain the Fairy Baby brand. It wasn’t until 1950s when Fairy Liquid was launched in the market. Towards the end of the first year of its launch, Fairy had 60% of the market share. The idea of a liquid dishwasher was widely accepted by the market with the result that Fairy could make way to launch further of its brand extensions which it did in the coming years. Fairy’s innovation appealed to the masses and its performance became anonymous with combating stubborn and burnt stains the best way (Datamonitor, 2011); fairy.co.uk, 2011; Superbrands.com). The promotions of the brand were strongly backed by Above the Line advertisements with celebrity endorsements to establish strong brand equity. As the brand moved into the future to meet the changing consumer tastes and preferences accordingly, Fairy’s packaging was changed to a transparent bottle which was easier to handle. After a massive success, Fairy Liquid was launched with a lemon scent. This was followed by Fairy non-bio laundry product for sensitive skin, anti-bacterial Fairy Liquid, Fairy Powerspray for tough burnt on stains. With these brand extensions, Fairy could cash in the revenue from every possible segment and sub-segment of liquid cleansers (Datamonitor Research Store. 2011); Datamonitor, 2011; fairy.co.uk, 2011; Superbrands.com). Fairy had and still has the advantage of a long-established equity along with a strong brand image with which it can tap into all the possible markets successfully through its brand extensions. Fairy currently operates in a mature market the product lifecycle of which has predominantly been extended by creating sub-segments of the dishwasher and sink sectors. Fairy has a whopping share of 57% in the sink washing sector and is second to Finish in the dishwasher category (Superbrands.com, Datamonitor, 2011). The launching of Fairy Active Burst and Active Powder Burst marks Fairy’s presence in both the categories of sink and dishwasher category. The brand extensions of Fairy Powerspray and Fairy Active Foam however can be considered as the most selling brand extensions. Following these developments, Fairy Active Foam was voted as the product of the year by the shoppers in 2005 (Superbrands.com). 2. Competition from Retailers’ own brands: From the year 2004 till 2006, Fairy Liquid lost its market share drastically to private labels owned by retailers. These private labels were almost two third the price of Fairy Liquid and the consumers largely switched from Fairy to save money while shopping. Fairy’s penetration had lost its share to these private labels which were being considered a better value for money regardless of the fact that Fairy Liquid had better capability to give the consumers mileage. Fairy had the advantage of strong brand equity which was build over years and decades of advertising campaigns through celebrity endorsements (Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, 2009). During this period of time, Fairy launched many of its variants to try and penetrate the reach of these private labels in UK’s kitchens however little was achieved as the consumers preferred value for money over the newly launched variants. Fairy spent a large amount on its marketing budget to promote these new variants which were supposedly to compete with Private labels effectively. On the contrary, this did not work out as planned and Fairy was still losing its share to cheaper Retailer’s own brands. Marketing and promotional endeavors of Fairy brought no dramatic changes and instead, the brand was continuously losing its market share to Private labels owned by retailers and other cheaper alternative brands (Thomas, 2006; Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, 2009). By conducting market research and focus groups, Fairy found out that the main hurdle to Fairy’s success lay with the fact that the consumers were overlooking the real economy of better mileage which was offered by the brand and favored to save those extra pence by purchasing comparatively cheaper private labels. Besides this, the brand however had a strong image of performing well but the customer did not perceive its value for money as justified. It was seen that women predominantly shopped for household items and their attitude towards shopping was more inclined towards the concept of “Shop to save” rather than spending exorbitantly. By rejecting Fairy and switching to cheaper alternatives (usually privately owned brands) the consumers could feel that they have saved while shopping which would give them a feeling that they had saved. Consumers, who looked for better price deals, were regular buyers of private labels and the consumers of Fairy were amongst them. They did acknowledge the fact that a bottle Fairy had the ability to last longer than the private labels but the premium price which they had to pay for the longevity was not justified as oppose to the price and performance of a private label (Thomas, 2006; Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, 2009). Fairy now needed to reposition its brand which was long established by a series of celebrity endorsements. Fairy was positioned with the historic message of Fairy Liquid goes on for longer. However, this was not enough for the consumers to perceive it as a brand which was economic despite being a little expensive. The Fairyconomy campaign was introduced with a drive to make the consumers understand that by buying cheaper alternatives the consumers were actually trading low as the premium charged by Fairy was actually proportionately less than what the consumers would pay for the number of dishes a cheaper one could wash. This meant that Fairy Liquid would wash more dishes in the same quantity as any other cheaper alternative would. This was packed in the package of a campaign called Fairyconomy which comprised of print media, electronic media, out-of-home and point of sale promotions. The distribution of the brand was kept same however the shelf facings would now feature stickers which said “Now lasts 50% longer” (Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, 2009). The promotional campaigns did not feature brand ambassadors this time because it was believed that the whole idea of communicating the true economy of Fairy will not be executed effectively if a brand ambassador was used. This was because the ambassadors had now developed a strong association with the attributes of the brand that is longevity, and performance and that, the creative idea which Fairy was trying to communicate, will not get registered as strongly if any creative idea was not used. The execution of the idea was done in three ways. The first TV commercial showed a lady slipping on rubbish because she used a low quality bin-bag which tore. The second execution featured a bank robbery gone wrong as the robber tore his poor-quality tights which he wore as disguise. The third execution depicted a spoilt surprise party owing to cheap light bulbs. These ideas integrated Fairy Liquid’s economy and justified premium price, clearly communicating the disadvantage and diseconomy caused by using cheap and low quality substitutes (Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, 2009). The campaign turned out to be effective as when the advertisements’ effectiveness was gauged, it was found that the previous adverts featuring celebrities were less effective with the result that the brand’s index of Value for money rose post campaign. The ultimate impact of this campaign was on the market share of Fairy Liquid which started to rise steadily and the market share of Private Labels started to experience a decline (Thomas, 2006). 3. Fairy and Principles of Brand Management: The brand managers of Fairy repositioned the brand of Fairy when it was faced with competition from private labels. The concept of brand positioning and the Blue Ocean Strategy was being applied in Fairy’s case when new brand extensions were introduced. Similarly, every brand is revamped and repositioned when the need arises. For example, in response to competition from Nintendo’s Wii, Play Station and Xbox repositioned themselves to become a complete package for entertainment. Similarly, when the brand is at the maturity stage of its lifecycle, it needs to be revamped. New extensions need to be launched or the existing ones need to be altered to appeal to the customers. Over the years, global brands have gone through the process of repositioning and revamping which have helped them survive. Old Spice, which was once the market leader in men’s fragrances, has lost its share to newer brands (Keller, 2000; Keller, 2007; Matthews, 2011). Besides the repositioning, Fairy used the concept of building long-term brand equity through the product’s consistent performance which was backed by celebrity endorsement. Besides this, the concept of Brand Proliferation which Fairy used to cater to all the possible segments of wash-ups through Fairy Powerspray, Fairy Anti-bacterial, Fairy non-bio etc; is being used by most corporations worldwide. Heinz ketchup for example has a wide range of ketchups for both the up-markets and down-markets KELLER, K. L. (2007). This goes to say that management of all the brands follows common principles of brand management however the standard of procedure may vary from industry to industry. References FAIRY.CO.UK. (2011). Fairy Products. Fairy.co.uk. Available at: http://www.fairy-dish.co.uk/products/ DATAMONITOR RESEARCH STORE. (2011). Procter & Gamble: new Fairy Liquid bottle set to capitalize on royal wedding fever. Datamonitor. SUPERBRANDS.COM. Fairy Liquid. Superbrands. 54, 55. Available at: http://www.superbrands.co.il/pdf/FAIRY.pdf THOMAS, P. (2006). Behind the label: Fairy Liquid - Just how mild and green is the UKs top-selling washing-up liquid? Pat Thomas investigates. The Ecologist. 36, 30. INSTITUTE OF ADVERTISING PRACTITIONERS IN IRELAND. (2009). IAPI advertising effectiveness awards 2008: cases from the 2008 IAPI Advertising Effectiveness Awards. Dublin, Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland DATAMONITOR (2011). Fairy Liquid Case Study: Using evocative marketing techniques to boost product sales. Datamonitor. Marketresearch.com. KELLER, K. L. (2000). Designing and implementing branding strategies. Communication Abstracts. 23, 3-149. KELLER, K. L. (2007). Strategic brand management: building, measuring, and managing brand equality. Harlow, Prentice Hall MATTHEWS, M. (2011), “ Analysis: Xbox 360 Capitalizes On Wii Contraction Through February In U.S.”, Gamasutra, March 11 Read More