Analysis of Unilever's Marketing Plan: Strategies and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's marketing plan. It begins with defining marketing in the 21st century and outlines the role of marketing functions within an organization, including product management, pricing, and promotion. The report examines how marketing functio...Read More

UNIT 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
PART 1..................................................................................................................................................3
1. Definition of marketing in the 21st century-................................................................................3
2. Role of the marketing functions within the organisation-............................................................4
3. Working and interaction of the marketing functions with the other departments-.......................5
4. Extended form of marketing mix within the company-...............................................................5
5. Recommendations-.......................................................................................................................7
PART 2..................................................................................................................................................7
1. Strategic marketing plan with company’s mission, corporate strategy and objectives................7
2. SMART Marketing objectives of Unilever..................................................................................7
3. Marketing research to support new product launch......................................................................8
4. Competitor analysis....................................................................................................................11
6. Setting of marketing budget and allocation of planned expenditure..........................................12
7. Tactical actions...........................................................................................................................12
8. Identifying appropriate control and monitoring measures to ensure achievement of objectives
including metrics to measure success.............................................................................................12
9. A comprehensive media plan that supports the planned marketing campaign, this will include:
........................................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Marketing plan can be defined as the strategy of the advertising which the business will be
implementing for selling their products and the services. The marketing plan helps the company to
determine the target market or the target customers of the company and how to reach them so that
they may attract the large pool of the customers. This help the company to enhance the overall
profitability of the company by increasing the sales of the products (Vishnoi and et.al., 2018).
Unilever company is the British Multinational consumer goods company which is headquartered in
London, UK. This company offers the products such as personal skin care products, beauty well
being, home care products and many more. This report will discuss the role of the marketing
functions within the organisation as well as the interaction of the marketing functions with the other
departments. Further, this report will outline the overall marketing plan for the organisation by
launching new product line.
PART 1
1. Definition of marketing in the 21st century-
The term marketing is referred to as the activity and the set of the instructions as well as the
processes which involves creation, communication and delivering the products which has the value
for the customers, clients as well as the other businesses. Marketing is basically the activities which
is undertaken by the companies for promotion of the buying and selling of the products and the
service which are offered by them. There are professionals who works in the company's marketing
as well as the promotion departments wants the attention of the target customers. The marketing
usually involves the advertising, selling as well as the delivering of the products to the target
customers of the businesses.

The marketing as the discipline includes the various actions which are taken by the
companies for drawing the attention of the customers as well as maintaining the relationships with
them. At the initial stage, the marketing is matching of the products and services of the company to
the customers who are need of such products as this will ultimately provide the profitability to the
company (Prdić, Kuzman and Damjanović, 2019). Marketing has been given various definitions as
it is the process of making the customers interested in the products and services of company. In the
present era, marketing is the term which each and every organisation must include and implement in
the growth strategy. There are many companies who uses the different techniques for the
achievement of goals by increasing the sales of the company's products and services. Marketing is
very broad and vast concept which involves all the strategies which help the company to achieve all
the objectives.
2. Role of the marketing functions within the organisation-
There are major six functions such as the product or service management, marketing
information management, pricing, distribution, promotion as well as selling. These marketing
functions works together for getting the products from the producers to the consumers. Marketing
function is the role which enables the company in identifying as well as source the successful
products for the consumers in which they operate. The role which is played by the marketing
functions is very significant and this helps them in attracting the large number of the customers.
Marketing functions is very important for the company as it is considered as the one of the pillar
within the organisation.
Unilever company effectively adopted the marketing process within the company which
enables them to promote the products and the services towards the organisation. The company
values the customers by considering this, marketing function understands the requirements of the
customers and provide the feedbacks for ensuring that right and the correct product or the services
is reaching to the market (Brock, 2021). There are various tasks which are performed by the
marketing functions such as-
 Market Planning
 Product Design
 Product Development
 Distribution
 Financing
 Sales Support

 Packaging and Labelling
 Customer Service and support
 Market research and development
Unilever company has committed for the responsible marketing as well as the advertising.
As the company is leading at the global scale, they are promoting the benefits of their products and
services by using the number of the channels of the brand communication. There are several
marketing strategies which are used by the Unilever company such as product innovation, pricing
approach as well as the promotion planning.
3. Working and interaction of the marketing functions with the other departments-
Marketing functions helps the businesses to sell the product effectively to the end user that is
their target customers. Each of the marketing functions works together so that the products and the
services which are offered to the customers are effectively reach them. These marketing functions
usually gives much focus on the deep understanding of the customers as well as making their
company's products and services available to the customers.
Marketing functions are not solely responsible for the overall marketing plan as they requires the
close relations with the other functional areas and their departments as well. These are such as-
Marketing and Operations management: The marketing functions works very closely with the
production function and the department for ensuring that the enough research and development
must be planned which satisfies the present needs and wants of the customers, the product must be
manufactured in good quality which is desired by the consumers as well as the volume produced
must be met by the schedules of the time (Thwala and Slabbert, 2018).
Marketing and Finance: The marketing department works closely with the finance department as
well to ensure about operating with the financial capabilities of the company. As the role of the
finance department is to ensure that there is adequate budget for meeting the planning within the
organisation.
Marketing and Human resource management: These both works closely ton make sure that staff
members are focusing on research and development of new products, meeting the production of the
target customers and many more.
4. Extended form of marketing mix within the company-
The extended marketing mix is the basically the combination of the seven elements of the
marketing whose main aims is to work together for the achievement of objectives of the overall

marketing strategies. The seven elements are such as-
Product: This is the element which involves the thing which the company offers for sell to the
customers for satisfying their needs and wants. Unilever company is providing the number of the
products such as foods, refreshments, home care as well as personal care which shows that the
company is having diversified products.
Price: This is the amount at which the company is selling the products to its customers. Unilever
company is using the market oriented pricing strategy, premium pricing strategy as well as the
product bundle pricing strategy. This helps them in setting the better prices on the products and
services which will be offered by the company to its customers (Boyjigitov, 2022).
Place: This means that where the products will be available to the customers. The Unilever
company is offering the products at retailers, Kiosks as well as the stores.
Promotion: This is the element in which the companies will use the effective technique for
engaging the customers for choosing their products and services. The Unilever company is using
various effective techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling
as well as the direct marketing.
People: These are all the people which are engaged in any of the business activity.
Process: These are the processes which helps the company to attract the customers as well as
meeting the expectations of the customers.
Physical Evidence: This is the ambience and all the physical items which are seen by the customers
(Grönroos, 2020).
The Unilever company is using only the four P's of the marketing mix that is the product, price,
place as well as the promotion.
Marketing mix contributing to success of the organisation-
The Unilever company is effectively using the marketing mix which is allowing them to
achieve the objectives of the business which ultimately leads to the success of the company. The
marketing mix provides the right direction of the business objectives which helps the company to
keep them tracking by ensuring that the company is marketing right product, to the right people and
at the right time. This helps the marketing department to understand which of the elements must be
combined for meeting the marketing goals as well as the objectives of the overall organisation
(Trinquecoste and Volle, 2021). The Unilever company is achieving the goals effectively and
leading the global market as using the marketing mix is helping them in understanding the products
and the services which are offered by them to the customers. This provides the roadmap to the

companies through which they can continuously pay attention towards the goals and hence can be
achieved by them.
5. Recommendations-
It has been identified that the Unilever company is using only four P's of the marketing mix
so they must use the 7 P's of the marketing mix which is the extended form. As this will enable
them to attract more number of the customers towards the company.
People: This refers to as the people which are involves in any of the single business activity of the
company who are directly related with the products and the services of the company. The Unilever
company using this element of the marketing mix will help them in hiring the right people in the
organisation as well as will effectively understand the needs and wants of the customers.
Processes: These plays the vital role in building as well as delivering the quality services top the
company's customers. Using the effective process by the Unilever company will help them in
reducing the cost and blockers as this will reduce the unnecessary expenses of the company (Thabit
and Raewf, 2018).
Physical Evidence: These are referred to as the things which the customers sees while interacting
with the company. Unilever company must pay attention towards the ambience of the overall stores
and place where the products will be sold.
PART 2
1. Strategic marketing plan with company’s mission, corporate strategy and objectives
The strategic marketing plan can be defined as a process through which any business
organization can further develop its sales and marketing potential in an efficient way. In this manner
a company can widen its scope of profitability. The UK based supermarket retail store Unilever has
included in its marketing strategy a comprehensive marketing plan that is perfectly synchronized
with its preset mission and vision of becoming the most favourable brand. With this the company
aims at delivering suitable outcomes (Vigandt, 2022).
2. SMART Marketing objectives of Unilever
 Specific – To enlarge the product line and sales of the distinguished luxury food products

with the help of digitalization for business growth.
 Measurable – The measurable goal is to increase the company's overall profit by
approximately 20% through diversified sources and attracting new customers.
 Achievable – The achievable objective is set at reaching the favoured outcome of short and
long term goals.
 Relevant – In order to raise profit returns and rise in sales, it has been decided to make use
of digital methods in marketing.
 Time-bound – Within the available time period the goal is to rectify product quality by
guaging the contentment rate of consumers and their brand response.
3. Marketing research to support new product launch
The concept of marketing research basically refers to categorically removing different kinds
of subisidiary areas of assistance that a company employs to use in the prospect of relocating
appropriate source channels. This is done to gain the desired outcome of organizational objectives.
Market based researches should be done and carried out keeping in consideration two imporatant
factors – firstly the suitable target customer cliques and second is the relevant forces of demand and
supply in the market (Cornwell and Kwon, 2020). With this approach of conducting reasearch
Unilever firm can widen its market strategies.
Situational analysis
A situational analysis is a procedure of collecting the numerous methods and technique to
analyse the internal and external factors in a business environment (Rogers and Vertovec, 2020).
This entire process includes the factor in regard with the Unilever organization which is described
below –:
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 Unilever has around 150,000 employee
workforce in over 300 retail stores.
 This retail giant offers a wide product
Weaknesses
 Unilever uses high-low pricing
structure
 Poor global reach

range which consists of farm produced
organic goods.
 Well diversified market supply chain
 Unpopular among its natives
 Unilever's lack of public attention is
becoming expensive for the UK market
in a recession prone economy thus
negatively affecting brand image.
Opportunities
 Striking good strategic relations with
smaller brands and companies will also
prove helpful in its business
acquisition.
 Inclusion of new additional products
along with supply of private labels can
effectively boost Unilever's market
presence along with increasing its
clientele.
Threats
 Unilever faces certain powerful threats
from some huge dominating retail
businesses such as Sainsbury's, Asda,
etc.
 There are political and legal threats too
in the form of tax increment, changing
policies of government, and economic
crises.
Pestle analysis
Political Unilever is well-adjusted within the political structure of government
regulations. This refers to its large scale availability of free trade policies
through EC trade agreements. Unfortunately the event of Brexit led to the
fallout of the organization resulting in higher costs of production for the UK
retailers. This will negatively impact its international outlets indicating
massive store shutdowns with increased prices of all its products.
Economical In spite of its premium market position, the company is encountering
economic threats in the form of numerous discount and budget stores which
are on the rise. This has disrupted its target audience market as the brand
refused to incorporate a good discount of Christmas offer in the past. Due to
this, it started importing goods from foreign suppliers.

Social Unilever has an extensive portfolio of brands across foods, home appliances,
and personal care. For instance there are a lot of soap brands in the market
that can be bought at low prices with the main purpose of cleaning but they
fail to hydrate the customer's skin. The shifting trends in market are
hampering the popularity of the organization.
Technological The factor of technological innovation has helped in the sales growth of the
consumer goods of the Unilever retail firm. Self help systems like self-
checkout has become an industry wise usage mechanism. The UK based
retail giant has incorporated the same along with focusing on the creation of
new technological operating models.
Legal There are a lot of legislative factors which are negatively affecting the
Unilever brand. The retail supermarket has been involved in some legal
issues in the past pertaining to health and safety regulations of its working
staff.
Environmental The environmental elements keeping in line with the company's production
process are highly favourable to its business. The enterprise has also invested
in fair trade relations such as buying directly from small retailers as this is a
much more organic way.
5C's analysis
Company The company factors of Unilever consists of its global sustainability
methodologies of conducting business along with product innovation. It is
also known for its R&D investments in conjunction with its strong financial
position and surge in consumer demands.
Customers It is critical for Unilever company's marketers to include in their business
and marketing strategies the novel concepts of influencer marketing
methods. The company can also use the strategy of broad segmenting and
positioning for increasing customers in their niche product markets.
Competitors The retail market is dynamic in nature with several rival competitors of
Unielever. In such an environment the company faces certain substitute

product threats that might hamper with its sales growth and revenue
opportunities.
Collaborators In the global market the retail organization's pricing strategy is heavily
influenced by its collaborative partnerships such as associate marketers,
suppliers, producers, and shareholders. Its marketing expenses are driven by
these collaborations.
Climate The climatic factors are also known as contextual players of a company. In
the scenario of Unilever's market analysis, its advertising campaign and
organizational structure and culture comprises foreign exchange operations,
inflation, economic and political risks.
4. Competitor analysis
 Competitive Rivalry – The Unilever's industrial rivalry among the global and local food
and drinks industry is extremely high (Quix and van der Kind, 2019).
 New entrants – Within the industry, there are a lot of factors involved pertaining to various
functions like manufacturing, high distribution costs, patenting, qualitative expenses,
licensing laws, and more.
 Power of consumers – It is high for this industry due to high level of competitors and their
counter products. The company can curb this disadvantage by enlarging its customer base.
 Power of suppliers – The suppliers play a key role in the demand and supply chain of the
firm. The foods industry too like many others get affected by the powerful position of
suppliers.
 Threat of Substitution – The company can benefit from being service oriented too besides
supplying consumer products as its new strategy.
New product value-proposition
Value propositions of new product launches can be defined as the sort of proposal statement
that depicts introductory features for gaining competitive marketing edge. This is framed for serving
the purpose of satisfying cutomers' growing needs like Unilever's ''edible nutritional'' food offer.
5. Marketing strategies
The purpose of marketing is to research and analyze the ideal customer wants and needs by

sending surveys through a timely follow-up of their preferential requirements for a satisfying
experience. The brand uses broad differentiation strategy to win over the market and the strategy
has also resulted in many advantages but, followed by the advantages there are also certain
limitations of this strateg. The company can promote the luxurious food product through a
combined and integrated marketing system of online and offline, traditional and non-traditional
channels with a broad emphasis on its current market and old and potential consumers (Daniel,
2018).
6. Setting of marketing budget and allocation of planned expenditure
The Unilever organization needs to fulfill its pre-requisite requirements of setting a
comprehensive and reasonable budget for its marketing activities keeping in mind that it is feasible
and economical in nature (Zhao and et.al., 2019, July). A proper scheduled way of plan setting will
help facilitate the retail brand to appropriately identify, fragment, and allocate its spending capacity
in a fiscally correct manner. Out of the many purposes of implementing these strategies, one is to
attract the attention of the prospective customers in order to reach the objective of sales and profit
maximization. In addition to this, SMART goals with ROI measures need to be tracked as well.
7. Tactical actions
Tactical actions are those measurable activities that need to be kept in check constantly and
are extremely significant for the Unilever retail corporation for regulating, monitoring, and
improving its business strategies. The company needs to extend its geograohical reach for its sales
expansion besides its jurisdictional market approaches. It requires a proper planning structure when
it comes to product goals and objectives for a qualitative outcome (Schultz, 2020). Moreover, the
organization should and must incorporate new-world tecnology and platforms in its marketing such
as digital posting, social websites, AI campaigns, etc.
8. Identifying appropriate control and monitoring measures to ensure achievement of objectives
including metrics to measure success
The Unilever retail organization needs to employ certain applicable control and monitoring
methods and models for gauging its the eficacy of its net success growth and developmental aspects
among its business and marketing strategies.
Return on Marketing Investment
Almost similar to the return on investments (ROI), the concept of return on marketing investment
(ROMI) is a directive tool that guides through the right pathway of strategic market channeling. The
function of this measuring tool/technique is to pick out the risks in the invested areas of the
company, for instance, if the Unilever firm has invested profoundly in its online advertising

resources then the contribution of using the ROMI tool is to trace the efficacy and effectiveness of
the strategic metrics (Lal and et.al., 2020). This is done with the help of a formulaic procedure that
demands that the business sales growth be subtracted from the marketing price divided by the same.
Also, the Romi is calcuated as:
Sales growth – Marketing cost/Marketing cost = ROI
Customer Lifetime Value
The customer lifetime value (CLV) is another metric tool that is used by business firms for
comprehending and monitoring the end users' wants, needs and preferences. This can be done for
enlarging consumer subscriptions of the company for annual and future bases (Mosaddegh and
et.al., 2021).
CLV= Average purchase Value * Average purchase frequency * Average customer lifespan
APV = Total revenue/ Total number of purchase
APF= Number of purchase/ Number of unique customer
ACL= Sum of customer life span/ Number of customer
9. A comprehensive media plan that supports the planned marketing campaign, this will include:
Media Channels July August September
Influencers 10£ 15£ 25£
Print media 120£ 90£ 130£
Social media
marketing (SMM)
50£ 30£ 25£
Podcasts 40£ 30£ 40£
Hub-spots 33£ 25£ 15£
Recommendations and rationale
The purpose of marketing is to research and analyze the ideal customer wants. The Unilever

company has a good network of both traditional and digital marketing platforms. Besides its
strengths, it has a very low customer satisfaction level. This calls for a strategic application of the
segmentation approach towards the identification of the company's market segments. It can segment
its products based on the latest market researches to help identify its required market size.
Appropriate digital, offline and social media channels for communication
In today's cut-throat competitive world of business management, the mode of digital
marketing as a growth strategy is must. It can be defined as an online marketing strategy carried out
through various diversified means such as content marketing, search engine marketing and
optimization, social media marketing, etc. The Unilever company can use this as it helps promote
not only the business brand but also impacts local and global reach of customers at a fast pace.
CONCLUSION
The above report has precisely covered the entire concept of the business element of
marketing planning and process and strategic management plan. The UK based supermarket retail
organization 'Unilever' had been chosen for this purpose for a comprehensive contextual analysis.
The report has critically explained the role of marketing and the way in which it correlates with
other business units of the mentioned company. It has further conducted a comparative framweork
analysis of it marketing mix structure and has elaborately presented its business objectives.
Furthermore the research study has produced a full-fledged marketing plan supported by a media
plan to assist the marketing campaign.

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