Unilever Australia's Present Market Analysis and Profile of the Product - Case Study Example

Product Marketing Plan White-Light Marketing Plan This is a sample marketing plan. The financial and statistical information given remain assumptions for this case study and therefore are not supposed to be applied in actual investment plan. Existing or intending investors should carry out their own research and apply reliable information and data to develop their marketing plans as (Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney, 2009) found out. Thus it is important that in the course of business set up, the organization must find out which licences, legislation and practice codes with have impact of the business. Introduction According to (Rohrich, 2007), within this world of competitive business, marketing is critical component of any organization. The key objectives of marketing are market attraction and conducting activities in order to retain the market. So as to carry out the functions of marketing a well structured marketing plan is highly significant. With no comprehensive plan the marketing job shall have a lot of excuses and can even develop a disturbing consequence for an organization. There are numerous cooperates in Australia which service people. All the major organizations have well established marketing departments where marketing mix and marketing strategies are developed. Product analysis Unilever Australia offers a broad range of consumer products to the Australian people. The operations of the company are grouped into 3 categories: Homecare Food Personal care Within these 3 operational categories, the company manufactures a variety of goods and every category has successfully developed a number of brands. Objectives: The objective refers to the “goals” which the company has to attain so as to meet its broader investment objectives. The objectives of the Unilever are: Market share growth by 5% Precise product differentiation Brand value which is long term Developing and launching fresh products Present market Analysis SWOT Analysis The below SWOT analysis describes the fundamental strengths and weaknesses in the firm and captures the threats and opportunities the Unilever Australia Ltd is facing. Strengths: The company has a significant of well established brands Great industry insight and experience Competitive advantages An outstanding network of distribution Weaknesses: The market has a lot of available substitutes Dependence of raw materials which are from outside There is no control in the market. When there is some form of disruptions between the distributors and the company then the entire market suffers. There no reliability of information, because the market is very large Opportunities Niche marketing Application of surprise packages and new tactics Utilization of peoples’ lifestyle changes for generating the demand Involvement in the growing industry Market expansion scope both horizontally and vertically Threats Market challengers threat People have become negative on spending due the current financial turmoil Unilever’s motto is to maintain its strength in the longest possible time. The company is constantly working with the view of applying its opportunities to the optimum. Although the firm is a market leader Unilever Australia still have certain threats and weakness. The company’s research and development department is striving hard to develop strategies and plans overcome such threats and weaknesses. Industry Analysis Unilever Australia Ltd manufactures pure consumer products. A number of the brands are locally produced while others get imported from their regional factory, for example New Zealand. In Australia, the organization has a Soap production factory as (Rohrich, 2007) found out. Competitive Analysis According to (Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney, 2009), when it comes to the consumer products Unilever Australia is considered to be the market leader. Being a leader in the market there is usually a risk of market challengers’ attacks. The strategy for Unilever is to protect its market share through the production of premium services, developing a full-line strategy, good financing, efficient and extensive dealership system. In Australia the two principle market challengers for Unilever is Proctor and Gamble Limited and Square Toiletries. Profile of the Product White Light- Tooth Whitening System A product is referred to as something which can be offered to the market for use, actuation, attention or consumption that may satisfy need or want. Regarding this marketing plan, “tooth whitening system” is the product. White-Light shall be a world-shattering system which integrates the technology of light to make tooth whiten extremely fast. Light technique of treatment is the latest technique for whitening that used applied by the dentists. The matchless, pending patent White-light is developed to be used within households and is very simple and easy to be used. The superior light incorporated with the uniquely formulated gel, quickly gets rid of the surface stain and infiltrates deeper to remove the stains which are embedded. It works exclusively on stains brought about by smoking, tea, coffee, fruit juice, red wine, aging, and cola among others (Rohrich, 2007). “White-Light” a whitening system for the tooth will principally be the shopping product which individuals shall purchase at a higher price less frequently and at a limited purchase stores. Features: Simple and easy to use Easy maintenance Whitens the tooth within ten minutes! Packaging The packaging of this product entails designing and developing the wrapper or the container for white-light. Conventionally the purpose for packaging is protection and holding of a product. However, in the recent past, it has been established that packaging does a number of sales functions ranging from attention attraction to product description and to enable it sale. Regarding this new product of ours, we shall carry out a regular packaging. Within the package, we will maintain the WhiteLight independently and individually. The Whitelight packaging will be carried out in such a design in order to draw the people’s attention. It will be done in a manner that will make it unique from other kinds of the product and will deliver the message much precisely. The packaging will hold some persuasive and descriptive information and also identify our brand as (Taylor, 2009) suggested. Originally, the packaging will be done on the above mentioned style, but relying on the positive feedbacks in the future, there will be plans to perform the packaging in another style, for instance, we will attempt to offer a whitener machine or formulated gel parts. Fig 1 white-light sample The product level The white-light will have five levels and they include; The fundamental benefits of white-light- It is whitener for the teeth which will assist maintain the tooth to be white. Basic product- White-light will be the basic product (Tooth whitening system) its logo and itself. Expected product: The solution to gently white the tooth, reasonable price, and attractive packaging will be the expected product. Augmented product: By applying the formulated gel, it whitens the tooth which not a single product in Australia can do. Potential product: when we will reduce the price on getting a positive feedback, we will offer extra amount, Fig 2 product level The process for segmentation Within the plan for marketing since we are developing a commodity to all the consumers, that implies mass marketing which suggests there is no segmentation by geographic, demographic behavioral among others. Selection process for the target market The new product target market will be; Basically for everyone who has a tooth Majorly for the urban dwellers, we shall concentrate on major Australian cities Individuals who are interested in safe whitener for their tooth in a simple and easy way Individuals who don’t prefer going to the dentist for whitening of their teeth yet are comfortable in spending on tooth whitener. Although this product is entirely new in Australia not a lot of individuals are aware of the product hence, fundamentally we are focusing within the urban areas of major Australian cities, therefore single segment concentration will be our chosen selection for the target market for the product as (Clark and Fujimoto, 2006) pointed out. Fig 3 single market focus The product SWOT Analysis Strengths Technology and eservice Brand image which is strong Rapid tooth whitener Easy and convenient to carry Weakness Limited purchase location High prices Opportunities Unique color gel Unique flavor gel Threats The raw materials prices can rise Offering on low price Our competitors may be able to produce it Strategy for pricing Price setting Price is the payment amount that the customers make to get the product. In setting out our price, we will follow the below steps The price objective is to increase sales and optimize current profit. We project an inelastic demand, since individuals who are “look conscious” will consider using this product and as a matter of fact the price will not be an issue to them. However, we will keep our price as reasonable as possible. The total costs of the product will be factored on the ingredients price, the production costs, the packaging costs, promotional activities costs, and the fix costs of the organization. In Australia no other firm is offering this type of tooth whitener, as a result we do not have any local competition. After we have estimated the costs, then we will include a mark up to obtain the maximum profit. Thereafter, we will establish the final price. On our premium package, the mark-up will be less since the whitening machine and the gel can be packaged as a unit. Pricing Method Since we have indicated that we will include the mark-up to realize the price by applying the mark-up process therefore we envisage to maintain the price between UA$ 100 and 150. Nonetheless, the exact amount determined based on the above mentioned elements. Pricing strategy Looking at “White-Light” being a new product in Australia and it is already popular in some countries like the USA we will apply the “Market Skimming” strategy of pricing. We thus, hope that the consumers will be willing to buy at the price we have settled upon. Location or distribution strategy The process of distribution The company is carrying on well with this function on the existing products. For this product “White-Light” formally the launching will be done is two major cities Melbourne and Sydney. Relying on the positive feedback in future step by step we will expand the market for this commodity to other divisions. The process for distribution of this product will take the same process as the rest of other products, as illustrated here below. Promotional Instruments Promotion refers to the activities which convey the product’s merits and persuade the potential customers to purchase it. Therefore the target audiences are basically the product’s potential users. Since we particularly target the urban market, our major promotional items will focus on them. Various kinds of promotional activities will be carried out to introduce and establish awareness regarding the product to the populace as (Clark and Fujimoto, 2006) established. Advertising Television Advertising: concerning this product, the information will be offered in such a manner that will comprise, “the use of whiting toothpaste is not always the effective for each and every person and paying a visit to the dentist for teeth whiting is very uncomfortable for a lot of people and the process is very long”. And “White-Light” is a very light and small product and easy effective and easy to use at home comfort. This product will whiten the teeth faster and in a safe way and since the gel is designed for flavor, is will help in providing fresh breadth. Therefore people should use White-Light. On these ads, either animations or people will be used or even both of them, however this will depend on the cost. The ad will also include other colorful, attractive and informative publication on the internet, radio, newspapers, billboards and magazines. Event organization, sponsoring and campaign will also be applied as some of the promotional activities. Testimonial Advertising It implies the use of believable or influential characters to advertise. For our case, we shall depend on the dentist since they are the most trusted people when it comes to teeth matters. We will strike a deal with the dentists so that they may recommend or suggest to the public to use White-Light. Free samples will also be provided to the dentists in order to demonstrate to their patients and tell them to use the product. Sales promotion Free samples will be supplied in educational institutions for example, hospitals, dental colleges as well as super stores and also in dental clinics. The original and the free samples qualities will be slightly different. Medium Cost In AU$ % To the Grand Cost Newspaper 523,000 22.9% TV 263,000 11.5% Outdoor 487,000 21.3% Event organization / sponsoring 580,000 25.5% Radio 200,000 8.8% Extra campaign costs 220,000 9.8% Total Costs 2,273,000 100.0% Public Relations To introduce or extend the product to the market, marketers are required to establish public relationship. The company will always strive to develop events or stories which by default will get to ignite the public attention in getting to learn or know the product. This will be done through press conferences and very famous dentists will be included in such programs so that the message can be trustworthy to the public. Seminars will also be arranged in universities, schools and medical colleges regarding the effectiveness and advantages of using White-Light. This will definitely create more positive feedback since in the present day the younger population is very concerned with their appearance. In such seminars free samples will be provided. Possibly in future the company will sponsor certain events in order to attract the potential customers. Action Plan According to (Taylor, 2009), Unilever Australia Limited is a properly structures company. Each department executes its job appropriately. This marketing plan is to be implemented and accomplished through various departments. Formally the marketing plan will be approved by the top management. Once it has been approved, the implementation will begin. The product strategies, the activities of promotions, and setting of the price will be carried out by the department of marketing. The department of production will do the product designing, manufacturing as well as packaging. The financing and budgeting of the product shall be done by the finance department. The organization shall assign a brand manager for this product who will be responsible for the general functions of this product. References: Hansen, M.T., Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. (2009), “What's Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?” Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp.106-117. Clark, K.B. and Fujimoto, T. (2006), “The Power of Product Integrity.” Harvard Business Review. Nov.-Dec., pp.107-118. Umemoto, K. (2009), “Managing Existing Knowledge is Not Enough: Recent Developments in Knowledge Management Theory and Practice,” in Choo, C.W. and Nick Bontis (eds.), Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital & Organizational Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.463-476. Gotze, U., Northcott, D. & Schuster, P. (2008) Investment Appraisal: Methods and Models. Germany: Springer. Gowthorpe, C. (2005) Business Accounting and Finance for non-specialist. 2nd ed. London: Thomson Learning.  Rohrich, M. (2007) Fundamentals of Investment Appraisal: An Illustration Based on a Case Study. Germany: Oldenbourg. Taylor, A. (2009) ‘How strategic budgeting can control cost while improving performance’. Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance. 20(3) pp. 53-58. Read More