Marketing Strategy Report: Ariel Ltd. Washing Product Launch

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Ariel Ltd.'s marketing strategy, focusing on the potential launch of a new washing product in the UK market. It begins with an executive summary and introduces the context of the report, highlighting the importance of marketing strategy in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The report delves into a situational analysis, employing PESTLE and SWOT frameworks to assess the external and internal environments of Ariel. It examines political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors, as well as the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report then assesses Ariel's competitive advantage, focusing on its unique selling propositions (USPs) and its differentiation strategies, and evaluates its current marketing strategies. The second part of the report focuses on segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategies, recommending SMART objectives and goals. Finally, it suggests marketing strategies based on the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) to ensure the success of the new washing product. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and recommendations.

Individual Report

Executive summary
Report is carried on the Ariel Ltd., which is the sub-brand of the P&G global Ltd locates
in the USA. Report has tried to put consideration on conduction of the situational analysis,
competitive advantage & evaluation of the current marketing strategy to develop new strategy in
the situation when they have planned to launch new washing product into the market. Moreover,
report has put down discussion on the STP, SMART objectives along with development of the
marketing strategies to ensure success of this new washing product in the market.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
a) Situational analysis.................................................................................................................3
b) Competitive advantage (USP)................................................................................................5
c) Evaluation of current marketing strategy................................................................................6
PART 2............................................................................................................................................7
a) Segmentation Targeting & Positioning (STP)........................................................................7
b) Recommended objectives and goals (SMART)......................................................................8
c) Recommend marketing strategies based on the application of the marketing mix.................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing strategy is a long term, forward looking approach to plan with a fundamental
goal of achieving the sustainable competitive advantage. It’s a business's entire game plan for
reaching to the people and turns them into customers of a product or service that firm provides to
its customer (Wensley, 2016). The focal purpose of the marketing strategy is to identify business
goal, state marketing goals, go for deep research market research along with profiling of the
potential buyer. In the current time period, marketing is need to be done using product, price,
place or promotion. This report will cover on Ariel which is leading parent brand of the P&G. It
is one of the popular FMCG manufacturer all over the globe and UK mostly. This report will put
light on situational analysis such as Swot, Pestle, STP, USP etc., along with current market
strategy. Lastly, report is having consideration of the setting of the Smart objectives then after
strategies will be discussed further.
PART 1
a) Situational analysis
It refers to the collective methods which manager of the firm can utilises to do analysis of
their internal & external environment to make understanding organisational capabilities, buyers
and supported business environment. It involves Pestle i.e., tells about external capabilities and
forces and Swot i.e., reveals about internal capabilities of the firm such as strength, shortfall etc.
Situational analysis involves identifying of the organisational strength & weakness along with
ascertain various external forces such as political, economic etc. In context of the Ariel, analysis
of the Pestle and Swot analysis for development of the market strategy for this detergent leader
are as follows:
Pestle analysis: It is the commonly using framework or tools used to do analysis and also
monitor the macro-environment factor that would have a pro-found impact on the organisation
performances (Perreault, 2018). Ariel is currently operating in the region of UK, of which critical
analysis in term s of political, economic, social, technology etc., is essential to have discussion.
For Ariel brand, Pestle analysis is explained as below:
Political: In the UK, political environment is stable, peaceful and relevant for every
business. There is few unclearness happening about the Brexit situation, because Ariel operates
in the UK and other parts of the European sector. Government policy & procedures of the UK

are currently in response of the Ariel and due to increasing FDI in the FMCG industry has
positive forces to grow extensive growth to this firm. Henceforth, due to rise in employment for
people in FMCG market, government is in ease to structure policies.
Economical: Due to rise in inflation, exchange & indirect taxation, Ariel is forced to rise
its detergent in order to tackle increase in the cost of production. Moreover, this detergent giant
is under stable condition to plant strategy to counter financial crisis, but with no support of the
market condition, Ariel is forced to go against of it strategic commitment. Due to rise of revenue
burden, Ariel is altering its marketing & pricing strategy (Alqahtani and Gupta, 2017). Ariel is
having better advantage out of its policies or status at the proactive side of the business.
Social: Increasing social influences such as message for the protection of women health,
daily purpose washing and community based shopping is one of the boosting process for Ariel to
led its profitability on an increasing mode. Due to changes in socio-culture environment, Ariel
manager has decided to go one step ahead to work with changing socio-cultural environment. Its
positively responsive to community change of the UK.
Technological: In the current era, washing has already transformed by manufacturing of
the multi-advanced machine to wash cloth. Ariel is mainly known for its washing cloths by the
hands and inspire others to do so (Papadas and et. al., 2017). As, advanced machines need
detergent powder to wash clothes, hence technological factor of this framework not that much
impacting for the Ariel. Expected threats can be making of detergent powder by washing
machine manufacturer.
Environmental: Due to increasing flux in the climate, durability of the detergent powder
is comparatively low. If environment is humid, detergent powder can be moisturised and loosen
its real image or an identity. Due to the environmental burden, Ariel is under pressure to hold to
rectify their products, takes measures to improve packaging process of the detergent powder and
rise its durability for longer time period. With use of an environmental factor, Ariel is expecting
to remove dangerous chemical from their product and led less destructive powder for customer's.
Legal: In past time, Ariel has indulged in some of the critical legal issue, regarding
chemical reaction to the health of the customer's. For some time, such kind of the legal issue has
defamed image of the Ariel and has forced them to turn-around entire product again. Due to rise
of the legal concern, Ariel has invested in quality check, status and organising content of the
detergent again to retain in the market.

SWOT analysis: This framework is helpful to develop a strong business strategy by
make sure about the strength & weaknesses, if faces in the marketplace. Strength & weaknesses
are part of the internal capabilities and Opportunities & threats are external capabilities in the
marketplace. In context of the Ariel, SWOT analysis is as follows:
Strength Weaknesses
Strong financial prospects are the major
strength of the Ariel along with large presence
in the UK market and other town (Macarthy,
2018). Also, Ariel is also having strong brand
image and value to offers to its customer's.
Moreover, strong competitive pricing in
opposite of its competitor is also one popular
strength to be considers.
Weakness of the Ariel is opposed by the local
traders and shopping experience has become
too impersonal. Also, Ariel is having higher
dependency on contract manufacturing to
manufacture product in the orders placed. Ariel
is not supportive to the designer cloths.
Opportunities Threats
Ariel is currently having huge potential growth
in the UK and other major cities of the UK. As,
UK is mostly out of the recession, hence, it’s
been a growth opportunity for the Ariel to
expand its market and starts focusing on
washing of the designer cloths. They can even
manufactures automated washing machine
powder to grab and less water consumption.
Due to the competitor such as Tide, Surf, Persil
etc., competition for the Ariel is stiff and can
be said as like cut throat in that industry. Also,
profit margin is also slipping, as typical
distribution channels. Rise of the consumption
has led pressure on the economies to scale.
b) Competitive advantage (USP)
Competitive advantage is regarded as unique benefits which firm can get by selling some
productive advantage as well as eye features in-built into product. One of the core purpose of the
competitive advantage is to gain firm efficiency and gathering competitive advantage in terms of
rise in the profitability, expands operation of the firm along with building supply chain of the
firm (Liu and et. al., 2016). The focal purpose of competitive advantage is to rebuild and develop
new idea for the altering change in FMCG product and implement that change to gather market

efficiency in the UK. Ariel is surviving in a UK market for two decades and already established
its image as a product to remove critical spots or stain dirt. Ariel targets the group of customers
who belongs to upper middle class and rich class society, as it is expensive of its own category
and status. USP's of this product are relation with customer, detergent used for designer clothes,
new product regarding exclusive additional benefits. Competitors of Ariel such as Tide, Surf,
Persil, Daz etc. Ariel is unique because it has quality conscious customers, it was first one, which
introduced with unique fragrances in their detergents to appeal customer along with it provides
long term durability for the clothes (International Business Machines Corp, 2017). It has the
opportunity to take advantage of R&D resources to introduce new product extensions in the
existing markets and to expand it in the other cleansing material segments also like industrial
cleaning, professional cleaning materials, disinfectants, Phenyl based products etc.
If talks of the USP, Ariel is almost grab the market by focusing on quality and rectify the
quality in case of any deficit. Also, they continuously compete with Tide and Surf by doing
market research and gaining customer's feedback on continuous to deliver the best one. Some
other detergent firm such as Tide, Surf, Daz etc. are also operating and due to chance of unique
advantage in the Ariel detergent, chance of copying it is also noticed. But due to support of
patent and copyright, Ariel is very much successful to protect its brand image. Also, brand value
of the Ariel is so unique, that increase in product cost effect won’t be able to impact legal image
of a product. Due to right focus on performance of the Ariel, competitive position of the firm is
sustainable for the longer time duration. Therefore, the purpose for building USP by the Ariel is
having to gather long term market base.
c) Evaluation of current marketing strategy
Current marketing strategies of the Ariel is based on differentiation or homogeneity such
as in terms of the colour, shape of the pouch, design, fragrance etc., of their detergent powder.
They actually promotes their product by communicating differential to its customer's using social
media, advertisement using product demonstration with its competitor and other print media.
They also do marketing using USP of the product or communicate changes made into the
product. Differential allows an Ariel to stand apart out of its peer groups, assist into the creation
of a brand value asserting wide customer's groups to sell (Kingsnorth, 2019). Ariel is also market
its product on basis of lifestyle, status, commitment to wear clean clothes and promotes healthy
wear. Ariel has also made differential strategy on the basis of social or cultural differentiation.

Marketing with use of the peer group has till now proved profit oriented for Ariel to grow in the
market structure. To market, Ariel has currently opted for radio, as audiences of the UK is fond
of listening to this and till now, Ariel is much successful to grab market of the UK (Khan and et.
al., 2016). They have wide range of the market & audience to sell detergents to them. For this,
correct segmentation on basis of demographics, geographic, behavioural etc. is required along
with targeting on the basis of lifestyle and position with use of social media.
PART 2
a) Segmentation Targeting & Positioning (STP)
In the today time, segmentation, target & positioning is one of the familiar approach as
part of the modern marketing. Now a time, this strategy is used to locate customer's, pin-point
them and takes steps so as to pull to the product. Previously, firm uses STP, when any product is
launched, but things are changing (Key and et. al., 2017). To lead existing product in market,
current marketing strategy can be rewind or either alter to grab at-least existing audiences.
Recently, Ariel is planning to bring “Ariel liquid gel” washing stuff for its customers. As, it is a
creative innovation to not replace washing powder, but to easy process of washing of the clothes.
To effectively realise product, Ariel is in the prospect to identify perfect market or audience,
target them by deep analysis of the actual product to the customer's. For this leading detergent
powder firm, contextual analysis of the market with use of the STP is as follows:
Segmentation: Doing customer value is the basis of their segmentation. It’s a productive
consideration for every firm to ascertain base of its executed customer, penetrate with use of
focus group such as who is the customer or why they want to buy. For Ariel, segmentation of the
all new Ariel liquid gel will be locate to its customer's on the basis of demographic as well as
Psycho-graphic. The analysis is a follows:
Demographic: Ariel has decided to target married women and from 30 to 45 years of age
along with women are pre-dominant customer of this product. Ariel gel liquid will assist to
reduce efforts of washing the clothes and due to high cost of the product, they have decided to
target upper class customer (Atwal and Williams, 2017). This is why, because cost of the product
is high.
Psycho-graphic: Ariel will try to target working mother, as they all are loyal of its roles
or responsibilities. She's the manager of the home and perform all of the house maker works. In

the modern time, mothers are the leader of the home and have ability to either do or some part of
the work. Hence, this new product is being made in accordance to that and easy their washing
efforts.
Target market: After segmentation strategy, Ariel has planned to follow a mix of a single
segment concentration to focus on its customer that is being identified as Ariel mom. Due to the
revolution of the technology, most of the women are now using washing machine and product
specialisation, in which liquid gel will be used instead of powder to protect health of a customer
(Baker and Saren, 2016). This is the right strategy to rise reach of the product to prominent
customer's in lesser time.
Positioning: It is regarded as creation of the company’s brand image in the eyes of their
prospective. This can be accomplished by doing promotion such as advertising of a product,
creation of the public relation to position the product effectively. As, customer of the Ariel is
mainly working women or home-maker and after completion of the household work, they mainly
look at the television to perfect entertainment. Hence, position with use of the Television ads is
the best one option to attract their mind to this new Ariel liquid gel.
Initially, positioning was done by the slogan of the “washes whitest” and now top
manager of the Ariel has decided to position with use of “Spot is good”, which means that with
use of Ariel liquid gel, washing experience will become positive and really much faster as
compared to an existing one.
b) Recommended objectives and goals (SMART)
As, Ariel is looking to launch new product named as “Ariel liquid gel” which is one of
the potential product as per market point of view, so in such situation, objectives or goals are
need to be develop (Baker, 2016). Before development of the marketing strategy, manager of the
Ariel is advised to develops objectives or goals must be SMART. It means goals must be
specific, measurable, attainable, reliable and time specific. For Ariel, Smart goals are as under:
Objective 1: To retain existing market of approx. 22 percent till coming 5 years: This
objective is need to be attainable to maintain regular profit to run this venture. This objective is
reliable, time oriented and measurable. This can be considered as most relevant goals to keep
adding on new buyers. This is relevant for rising long term scope for business to operates.
Objective 2: To accomplish new customers base by 10 percent within time period of 15.
year as estimated tenure: With launch of the new Ariel liquid gel, top manager of the firm is

expecting new customer or acquire customers of the other detergent based firm. Also, focus onto
retain market leader tag to gain new customers (Bang and et. al., 2016). This objective is both
specific and time bound.
Objective 3: To grow revenue by 5 percent and makes it reach at the £11 million: This
objective is time-oriented, measurable, specific and attainable with stated time tenure. As, Ariel
is much competent to increase its business revenue to reach at by 5 percent. This comes under
consideration of the firm's necessity. Its attainable for business operation.
c) Recommend marketing strategies based on the application of the marketing mix
Marketing mix is the concept of the modern marketing, which concern with price, places,
product and promotion which is termed as 4P's of the marketing mix. As in response to given
smart objectives, it is a best consideration to led Ariel to align to its core competencies such as
product, its parallel pricing, how they placed and promoted in the market. Before going for
marketing strategy to be adapt for this new product of the Ariel, concept of the marketing mix is
one of the necessary discussion here:
Product: Ariel offers high value detergents with low toxic content to wash and clean
cloth properly. Moreover, Ariel is currently having 5 different fragrance and all are very much
popular among customers (Felix and et. al., 2017). Ariel has its eye to launch new product named
as Ariel gel liquid to wash cloth and its highly unique in nature. As, innovation is part of this
new product development and USP is its usage in form of the liquid.
Price: Ariel follows the premium pricing strategy in its marketing mix, of which product
cost is lesser than actual product price to its competitor. Moreover, customers are ready to incur
high pricing to wash out the stains in the single time point. Especially, home-maker women are
ready to pay for best detergents, so it’s an opportunity for Ariel to charge premium price to offer
new liquid gel with committed quality or the status. Also, target market for Ariel is the upper
class, who are ready to pay little high to make ensure non damage of the clothes.
Places: Ariel is well known for its strong distribution chain or network. After being
raises its existence in the UK, Ariel has decided to umpire in the India, France, Japan etc.
(Dangelico and et. al., 2017). Ease of the product is the core competency of the distribution
network for Ariel liquid gel, so as to rise ease of a product to the prospective customer to
purchase.

Promotion: Ariel is well known for its promotion strategies, so as to expand brand value
of their detergent products. Major customer's of the Ariel is home-maker women, housewife etc.
who have influences of TV ads, outdoor shopping along with now a days, e-commerce pantries
to buy FMCG goods which is of daily uses. In this, Ariel is need to plan for well-structured ads
to direct female buyers to actual concept of the product.
Recommendation on an appropriate marketing strategies:
From the above analysis, its recommended option for Ariel to market its new Ariel liquid
gel with support of core competitive advertisements to define or explain uses and differential,
while consuming the Ariel liquid gel in comparison to its competitors. High end advertisement is
required to attract customer towards this product and marketing manager of the Ariel is need to
initiate such kind of the campaign (Boscagli, 2019). Also, washing campaign is the best way to
market new item to many audiences in one time to save excess time & cost. Social media can be
another great option to market this product to N number of customer, as social media is
experiencing user traffic and it has become modern trend of communication with peer or others.
Moreover, word of mouth is the best option to market Ariel's brand new liquid gel from one
person to another and creates a long chain. For such marketing, focus must be to maintain
quality, reputation and image of a detergent product to positive and secured. Word of mouth is
the strong word of commitment to company to spread its vision, satisfaction or value offered in
an effective way. Taking step to market new product with support of the social media can be
considered as advantage to spread word of mouth for the Ariel to accomplishes profits or
revenues.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, marketing strategy is one of the necessary which is meant to rise
competencies of a products or services. Strategy is mainly coming out of set goals or objectives
of a firm to accomplish something unique or necessary to led operation for longer time period.
One of the core purpose of the marketing strategy is to demonstrates an actual functioning of
norms or regulation to accomplishes long term profit capacity of the firm. Along with this, pestle
analysis is termed as external environment to know and realises forces whose have direct impact
on business operation. SWOT analysis is mainly internal forces (S&W) and (O&T) are external
forces of the business firm. Lastly, Smart objectives has proved relevant to set of targets or goals
which are real in values or status.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Alqahtani, A. Y. and Gupta, S. M., 2017. Warranty as a marketing strategy for remanufactured
products. Journal of cleaner production. 161. pp.1294-1307.
International Business Machines Corp, 2017. Automatically generating an optimal marketing
strategy for improving cross sales and upsales of items. U.S. Patent 9,685,048.
Atwal, G. and Williams, A., 2017. Luxury brand marketing–the experience is everything!. In
Advances in luxury brand management. (pp. 43-57). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Baker, M. J. and Saren, M. eds., 2016. Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.
Baker, M. J., 2016. What is marketing?. In The Marketing Book. (pp. 25-42). Routledge.
Bang, V. V., and et. al., 2016. Marketing strategy in emerging markets: a conceptual framework.
Journal of Strategic Marketing. 24(2). pp.104-117.
Boscagli, M., 2019. Competitive strategy analysis in the food system. CRC Press.
Cacciolatti, L. and Lee, S.H., 2016. Revisiting the relationship between marketing capabilities
and firm performance: The moderating role of market orientation, marketing strategy
and organisational power. Journal of Business Research. 69(12). pp.5597-5610.
Chiu, S. C., and et. al., 2016. The influence of tourists' expectations on purchase intention:
Linking marketing strategy for low-cost airlines. Journal of Air Transport Management.
53. pp.226-234.
Dangelico, R. M. and et. al., 2017. “Green Marketing”: an analysis of definitions, strategy steps,
and tools through a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Cleaner
production.165. pp.1263-1279.
Felix, R., and et. al., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework.
Journal of Business Research. 70. pp.118-126.
Key, T. M. and et. al., 2017. Upstream social marketing strategy: An integrated marketing
communications approach. Business Horizons. 60(3). pp.325-333.
Khan, I., and et. al., 2016. Does culture matter in effectiveness of social media marketing
strategy? An investigation of brand fan pages. Aslib Journal of Information
Management. 68(6). pp.694-715.
Kingsnorth, S., 2019. Digital marketing strategy: an integrated approach to online marketing.
Kogan Page Publishers.
Liu, C. H. S. and et. al., 2016. Tourism strategy development and facilitation of integrative
processes among brand equity, marketing and motivation. Tourism Management. 54.
pp.298-308.
Macarthy, A., 2018. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for
Business Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and
More!. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Papadas, K. K., and et. al., 2017. Green marketing orientation: Conceptualization, scale
development and validation. Journal of Business Research. 80. pp.236-246.
Perreault, W. D., 2018. Essentials of marketing. New York: Mc Graw Hill.
Wensley, R., 2016. The basics of marketing strategy. In The marketing book. (pp. 75-107).
Routledge.