MBA404 Report: Consumer Behavior and Dove Shampoo Marketing

This report provides a detailed analysis of Dove shampoo's marketing strategies in the Australian market, focusing on consumer behavior and marketing psychology. The report begins with an executive summary and an introduction, followed by an overview of the Dove product and its potential, analyzed using a SWOT framework. The core of the report critically examines Unilever's marketing strategies for Dove, including the 4Ps of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion), alongside the identification of merits and demerits. Strategic recommendations are then proposed to address shortcomings, such as gender bias in product positioning and the product's limited reach among lower-income groups. The recommendations aim to enhance Dove's competitive positioning and ensure long-term sustainability. The analysis incorporates relevant literature and concludes with an overview of the study's key findings and implications for Unilever's marketing approach.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY

Executive Summary
Marketing may be considered to be one of the most success-critical factors for a business and
hence the management may need to focus critically on their marketing strategies on a regular
basis. The present paper shows the marketing strategies adopted by Unilever, a global FMCG
brand, for their product Dove shampoo in the Australian market. The researcher, through the
analysis and evaluation in the paper, has reached to a concluding statement that may underscore
the fact that the business has been doing fairly well in promoting its offering among the targeted
audience, especially the women looking for beauty products. Though there have been certain
issues that the management is facing with respect to the gender biasness problems of product
positioning and also the lower income groups’ non-reachability of the product, the overall
strategy may seem to be effective. The recommendations have been suggested to overcome these
shortcomings in order to attain the sustainability in the long-run.
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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................4
2.0 Product Overview......................................................................................................................5
3.0 Critical Analysis........................................................................................................................6
3.1 Product Potential....................................................................................................................6
3.2 Marketing Strategies..............................................................................................................7
3.3 Merits and Demerits..............................................................................................................9
4.0 Strategic Recommendations....................................................................................................10
5.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12
Reference.......................................................................................................................................13
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1.0 Introduction
Analysis of marketing strategy may be considered to be one of the most significant and success-
critical factors of a business as the process of such analysis may take into consideration number
of factors that are both internal and external to the business. The instant paper delves into the
analysis of a specific product, Dove, offered by famous FMCG brand Unilever in the context of
the Australian market. At the very beginning of the study, the researcher puts a brief introduction
followed by the discussion on the product overview as well as the product potential on the
backdrop of the established theoretical framework of SWOT. In the next part of the study paper,
the offering has been critically analysed the marketing strategies of Unilever for Dove with
reference to 4P’s of marketing theory. In addition, the merits and demerits of the product have
also been elaborated followed by the three strategic recommendations. Finally, the paper is being
ended by way of a concluding note.
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2.0 Product Overview
Dove can be recognised as one of the most popular and high demanded brands in the hair care
segment. The shampoo varieties of the particular brand are specifically best accepted amongst
the Australian customers. It has been identified that the endorsement strategies and the product
ingredients are mainly targeted towards the female customers of almost all age groups and the
brand has been successful in drawing required attention. Further information highlights that
Unilever in Australia is dedicated to creating hair care products that authentically improve the
hair condition of women consumers. Dove shampoo is all about its tender essence, softness,
mildness and efficiency in all of its products especially its shampoo varieties (Care, 2019). The
chosen product is basically appreciated for its tender care ingredients, which is the major criteria
of all female consumers. Therefore, Unilever has enabled to identify the most important
requirement of Australian female segments and managed to deliver it in its Dove shampoos.
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3.0 Critical Analysis
3.1 Product Potential
The product potential would be analysed using the SWOT framework
Strength
The product design of Dove counts maximum under its strength. Its combination of shampoo
plus conditioner in one pack serves the purpose of cleansing as well as smoothing hair texture.
According to Joshi et al. (2018), the primary reason behind Dove's success is that it always uses
real-life people instead celebrity endorsements for the marketing campaign, which influence
common consumers to connect with the essence of the products and thus leaves an immediate
and long last effect on their buying intentions. The consumers believe that Dove is speaking on
behalf of them and thus they involuntarily favour the brand over others.
Weakness
Due to its product positioning and targeting strategy, Dove is mainly concerted towards the
metro and consumption pattern is designed for the Metros only. Narshana and Ravikumar (2018)
determined that its product lines in the shampoo category have high pricing and thus, penetration
in the non-metros gets more difficult. The price sensitive customers are showing likeable
preferences towards other brands, which is imposing immense threat towards Dove in losing its
potential share in the market gradually. Dove is failing to cater to the price-sensitive segment.
Therefore, territories that are price sensitive are absolutely off limit for Dove.
Opportunities
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In the consideration of Shaju and Naser (2015), the personal care segment in the Australian
market always has the scope of introducing fresh variants or latest product lines. The Research
and Development department of Unilever is popular for being consistent in bringing brought
quite a few champion products lines over the year. The similar effort and success can be
forecasted of Dove shampoo and the brand using its expertise can instil a new life in its brand
cycle each time the product portfolio turns stagnant.
Threats
Market saturation has imposed several underlying threats for Dove. The brands like Olay, Nivea
etc are directly marketing on cream soap or shampoo formula, which can be a future threat for
the brand once the rivals start offering shampoo varieties (Olson et al. 2018). Moreover, Dove is
also failing to tap the price-sensitive consumers, which is leaving an edge before its rivals to
capture the segments by lowering the price margin. Hence, Dove is tending towards witnessing
market saturation o product stagnancy if the pricing strategies are not reformed.
3.2 Marketing Strategies
The product potential would be analysed using 4P's of the marketing mix
Product
In the shampoo segment, Dove has managed to introduce several categories like antidandruff,
hair fall treatment, hair nourishing, keratin treatment, protein shampoo, etc. in the opinion of
Menon et al. (2015), manufacturing of a Dove product involves foremost ingredients such as
synthetic surfactants, vegetable oils, zero levels of Ph, salts of animal fats and 1/4th moisturizing
cream. The specific brand deals in product lines majorly for women segment and is committed
to offering product superiority to enhance their hair texture, shine and nourishment.
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Price
Dove shampoo has been estimated as a premium or superior product in the Australian market,
however, the brand has an effective and incorporated pricing policy for its product lines that
involves keeping its pricing strategy affordable and reasonable but distinctive (Morgan et al.
2019). Compared to the similar product lines of its rivals, Dove’s shampoos are placed a bit on
higher margin yet its qualitative product categories have come into a great help to the company
for being able to incorporate its pricing strategy lucratively.
Place
Dove is a universal brand with a successful worldwide presence. The network lines of the brand
are spread in several parts of globe and product of its product lines are steadily placed in several
nations like South Africa, Philippines, United States, Turkey, Thailand, Australia, etc
(Kingsnorth, 2019). The shampoo segment of Dove is sold in almost eighty regions with the
support of a stable and well-organized distribution channel. It involves producers, retailers to
customers through the generic stores, retail outlets, convenient kiosks, supermarkets, discount
stores, modern trade and hypermarkets.
Promotion
It has been identified that Dove has strong brand awareness in the Australian consumer market
and the effort has been successful because of its branding and advertising. Cacciolatti and Lee
(2016) stated that marketing efforts play a huge role in the success of the chosen brand.
Campaigns and endorsements manage to enhance the visibility of the brand and establish a
positive impact on consumers’ minds. Promotions and endorsements for the shampoo segment of
Dove have been aired on various commercial channels of television, also on radio and buzzed on
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social networking sites (Ferrell and LeClair, 2015). It also successfully roped in the Australian
print media to cater its product lines through ads in magazines, newspaper and billboards.
3.3 Merits and Demerits
Merits
It has been determined that Dove shampoos have advanced damage care and repaired treatments
that meet the major requirements of the target customers. Patrutiu-Baltes (2016) stated that
women customers are very typical in terms of using a shampoo or any other categories for their
hair treatments. However, the combination of cleansing, strengthening and conditioning
ingredients used in its shampoo serve all the purpose. Hence, the ingredients and the right
endorsement techniques usually act in favour of Dove shampoo.
Demerits
The major disadvantage of the product is that it fails to resist the oily scalp. Consumers those
have the issue of the oily scalp cannot use the shampoo for a long term tenure, as it contains
moisturising and conditioning texture, therefore, oil secretion occurs on a quick basis, which
adversely leads to high hair fall issues (Lee and Johnson, 2019). Moreover, the high price
placement of its product is another demerit, where the competitors are capturing the price
sensitive segments offering similar quality and benefit with affordable range.
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4.0 Strategic Recommendations
 It has been determined from the above discussion that Dove usually targets female
customers to boost the sales of its product lines. The similar had been the case with its
shampoo category. On the other hand, the competitors are focusing on both the genders
and designing products as per their needs to retain stability and survive in the market.
This enabled competitive brands to capture more shares in the market and also to reduce
the threats of product stagnancy. Hence, it is high time for Dove to expand its customer
segments and introduce products or shampoo focusing on male customers as well to
retain its competitive positioning in the Australian market (De Mooij, 2019). The market
is shifting their preferences overtime and the switchover cost is too low that allows the
target customers to experiment with other brands offering related superiority at much
lower prices.
 It has also been identified that Dove targets the premium customers and therefore, the
products are usually placed on a higher range. However, the upper middle and the lower
middle groups are also becoming the potential segments for the personal care market
(Lopez and Castaño, 2019). Therefore, the majority of the brands operating in the
consumer goods sector are reforming their pricing strategy accordingly to fit the pocket
size or affordability of the specified group (Arenas-Gaitán et al. 2019). Hence, it is
necessary for Dove also to place their existing or to introduce fresh hair care lines for the
middle-income group customers by placing it at a slightly lower margin to seek their
maximum attention. This would support the brand in lower its threat of market stagnancy
or reaching saturation and also getting hold of new customer segments that can boost its
profit margin in the market of high vulnerability.
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 The above content also underscores the shortcomings of the product that is its resistant
effect or nature of suiting the consumers having oily scalp issues. It means that
consumers having normal scalp texture can only use Dove shampoo, however, the ones
having oily or combination texture cannot use it as it can create an adverse reaction of
hair damage or hair fall (Buss and Foley, 2019). Hence, Dove also needs to introduce
other shampoo categories that contain low conditioning or creamy effect but is more
concentrated on cleansers and hair nourishment.
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5.0 Conclusion
On the basis of the discussion and analysis as performed in the preceding sections of the paper, it
may be considered that the intended product has been widely accepted among its targeted
audience and user base. The management of Unilever has been focussing on the quality of the
product with steady and comprehensive marketing strategies comprising both print media
promotion as well as celebrity endorsement in the Australian market. As a result, the reachability
of the product has been considerable. On the other hand, the management has also been
focussing on making the existing customers loyal by way of continuous product improvement
and after-sales experience improvement. On the other hand, disruptive innovation and
widespread and consistent promotion have been used to spread the offering among the wider
group of people. Therefore, it may be finally concluded that the well-designed marketing
strategy supported by the efficient management has been sizeably contributing towards the
attainment of corporate goal of sustainability for the brand Unilever in the Dove segment, in the
long-run in most cost and time efficient manner.
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