Procter & Gamble's Marketing Showdown: Head & Shoulders vs Pantene

This report provides a comparative analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Head & Shoulders and Pantene, both subsidiaries of Procter & Gamble. It examines their respective target markets, product offerings, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional activities. Head & Shoulders targets both men and women with a focus on anti-dandruff solutions, while Pantene primarily targets women, emphasizing hair quality and beauty. The report highlights the competitive pricing adopted by both brands, along with their extensive distribution networks, including hypermarkets, supermarkets, and online platforms. Furthermore, it explores their aggressive promotional strategies, including celebrity endorsements and the use of traditional and modern media to enhance brand visibility. The conclusion summarizes the key differences and similarities in their marketing approaches, emphasizing their successes in the market and their distinct brand positioning strategies.

PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING

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Executive Summary
This report aims at illustrating the marketing competence between two rival products. This
has been illustrated through the help of marketing mix. The research method that has been
used for it is a secondary research method. This report illustrates about the market that Head
& Shoulders is targeting i.e. both men and women where for Pantene it is the women whom
they target. The products of the Pantene are sophisticated while that of Head & Shoulders is
competent. Both the companies have set the prices that are competitive and differ in terms of
the sizes of the product packaging. The places through which both the products are available
are hypermarkets, corner shops, supermarkets, discount stores and local markets. Both the
companies are also utilising promotional strategy that is aggressive where the uses of
celebrities are done and in order to enhance the brand presence they are using all the types of
traditional and modern day mediums. Pantene has been leader in this.

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Target market........................................................................................................................................2
Products.................................................................................................................................................3
Price......................................................................................................................................................4
Place......................................................................................................................................................5
Promotions............................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Marketing has critical impact on the success of the firms. Every organisation needs to make
better marketing mix then their competitors (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). In this report
compares the marketing mix of Head & Shoulders and Pantene shampoo. Both these
companies are the subsidiary of Procter & Gamble. Head &Shoulders have been brought in
1961 while Pantene was introduced in the back in the year 1945. Head & Shoulders and
Pantene have higher market share in different markets. The size of the market is increasing as
the use of such products is increasing. The trends suggest that people are moving towards the
products that are available at lower cost but provide maximum value for their products. In
this report marketing mix of two company Head & Shoulders and Pantene Lady’s Shampoo
will be compared. It also suggests about target segment for each product.
Target market
Head & Shoulders
The target market that is designed by the Head & Shoulders for it is described through the
following variables:
 Age: It is targeting people from the age of 8-80 yrs.
 Gender: Female and Male
 Personal disposable income: They are targeting people of all income groups.
 Social class: They are targeting people from all the social class however their major
focus is on the middle class people (RAHMAN and KAZI, 2013).
 Level of education: They are targeting people irrespective of the level of education.
 Family life cycle: People in all the life cycle stage is being targeted by the company.
 Lifestyle: Both mainstream and strugglers are targeted by the company.
 TV program: They watch all the type of TV programs.
 Hobbies: People liking all the hobbies.
Pantene lady’s Shampoo
 Pantene lady’s Shampoo has designed the Marketing Mix for them in terms of
variables are:

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 Age: People of age group i.e. 8-90.
 Gender: They are targeting ladies of all age group.
 Personal disposable income: People of all income groups have been targeted.
 Social class: They are targeting people from all the social groups.
 Level of education: For their products they are not looking for people of specific
educational level.
 Family life cycle: They have targeted people in all family life cycle stage.
 Lifestyle: They are targeting people that is leading all kinds of lifestyle i.e. both
mainstream and strugglers (Zuardi, 2020).
 TV programs: People watching all the types of TV programs.
 Hobbies: They have targeted people that are having all the kinds of hobbies.
Products
Head & Shoulders
The products of Head & Shoulders are known for its product’s quality especially anti-
dandruff shampoo produced by the firm has gained higher market reputation in the market.
Their shampoo is known for making the beautiful and smooth hair. It is offering product for
women, and men having itchy, sensitive scalp and dry (Wan, Evers and Dresner, 2012). Their
products are helpful for dealing with severe scalp problems. Some of their products include
Classic clean shampoo, Instant relief shampoo, Citrus Breeze Shampoo, purely Gentle
Shampoo, Instant Oil Control Shampoo and Moisture Care Shampoo. They are also bringing
2-in-1 range which include Oil Spice 2-in-1 for men, green apple 2-in-1, Instant control 2-in-
1, citrus breeze 2-in-1. They are also bringing conditioner such as Dry scalp care with
Almond Oil Conditioner, Green Apple Conditioner, and Smooth and Silky Conditioner.
Pantene
The product that is produced by this company provides high quality care to the hairs of the
women. Their products are designed to make hairs long and strong. At the same time they
provide different variety of items that provides different kinds of care to the women products.
Their products are available in different kinds of sizes such as 675 ml, 180 and also 5 ml.
Their shampoo includes Moisture Boost Shampoo, Repair and Protect Shampoo and Daily
Moisture Renewal Shampoo. The 2-in-1 items products such as Everlasting Ends Split End
Repair Crème, Sheer Volume 2-in-1 Shampoo & Conditioner and Smooth & Sleek 2-in-1

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Shampoo & Conditioner. They also have conditioners such as Anti-Breakage Conditioner,
Daily Moisture Renewal Conditioner and Truly Natural Co-Wash Cleaning conditioner.
Both are different from each other in terms of functional and emotional level in terms of the
fact that Head & Shoulders is known for reducing the scalp related problems while Pantene is
known for improving the hair quality of the women (Irabatti and Irabatti, 2013). Head &
Shoulders try to portray the brand value in which they are showing them as the company
which they remove scalp problems while Pantene portrays them to be product that makes
them beautiful.
Aaker’s brand personality framework suggests about characters and profile of a product in
term of five core dimensions which is separated into a set of facets i.e. Sincerity, Excitement,
Competence, Sophistication, Ruggedness (Malik and Naeem, 2013). These facets are divided
according to the set of traits. On the basis it can be said that Head & Shoulders comes in the
category of competence as it is having traits like intelligent, successful and reliable. On the
other hand Pantene comes on the facet called Sophistication as they have the traits such as
Charming and Upper class.
Price
Head & Shoulders
The prices of Head & Shoulders have been set according to their competitive pricing strategy
they have chosen. They have chosen prices that can attract people and maintain their loyalty
when they face problems related to scalp. They are also offering products in different sizes
hence the prices also differ and people can choose the product as per their requirement and
the price that are attached with it (Smith, Faugère and Wang, 2013). Their products are also
offering discounts in terms of off on their different sized products.
Pantene
This company has also adopted the competitive pricing policy where the rates of their
products are affordable and reasonable. They have high quality products that help them in
providing maximum value for their products at those prices. They are bringing the products
in different sizes that help them in providing some kinds of discounts to the people which is
very much helpful for the company (Zbib, et al 2010).

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Place
Head & Shoulders
This product is offered in all the nations all across the globe. They have gained the control in
the markets such as United Kingdom, Pakistan, Canada, United States, and Bangladesh and
Pakistan. Stores that stock this product are the general stores, big stores and small stores.
Their distribution channel includes services of retailers and distributors for reaching to
consumers through hypermarkets, corner shops, local markets, supermarkets, and discount
stores (Mohanty, 2012). Their products are also available through online shopping platforms.
They have maximised distribution channel.
Pantene
This company also has an international presence where they have product network in more
than 50 nations which include big nations alike UK, U.S. Australia, India, France etc. This
company is using age old channels such as retailers, Wholesalers, and stockists. From
manufacturing unit products delivered to the stocklists with the help of carrying and
forwarding agents and later to the retailers (Mohanty, 2012). The products are available in all
types of stress such as grocery stores, discount outlets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, drug
stores and malls. They are also offering products with the help of online mediums.
Promotions
Head & Shoulders
They have chosen aggressive promotional policy that is more informative and creative. This
company has launched many types of campaigns that will allow the company to produce and
maintain brand visibility. The traditional mediums such as radio, print media, TV ads,
Magazines have been used by them. They have also used the promotional strategies such as
celebrity endorsements with many of the big personalities such as Jenson Button, Nauheed
Cyrusi, Thalia as well as Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor khan. The highly used
communicational channel to build their respective brands is the Television. They are
positioning them as the product that is affordable (Al-Qasimi, 2011).
Pantene

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This company has high brand image with higher brand recall. For this product they have
adopted aggressive marketing strategy which included utilising all the possible media
communication channels such as Newspapers, Magazine, Television, Radio and other online
mediums. Holdings, billboards at public places have been their major tools for increasing
brand visibility. They have also taken the use of new media such as social media and
YouTube advertisements to improve their brand visibility where they broadcast interviews
with celebrity stylists (Mahdalena, Sulaeman and Priyawan, 2019). They have also adopted
the personality based advertisement campaign where they have used the stars like Katrina
Kaif, Iman, Priyanka Chopra and Kelly Le Brock. Their campaigns are targeting women and
they try to portray them as the hair-care brand.
Conclusion
From the report it can be concluded that both Pantene lady’s Shampoo and Head & Shoulders
have been highly successful in the markets. Pantene focuses on their target segment that is
ladies while Head & Shoulders target both men and women. The products of the Head &
Shoulders come in the category of competence while the Pantene comes in the category of
sophisticated products. Both the companies have set competitive pricing strategy. Both these
products are available through all kinds of retailers and places of all the size. The promotions
are done aggressively where there is use of celebrities in promoting them and there are using
all possible communication channels to increase their brand visibility.

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References
Al-Qasimi, N., 2011. Shampoo: editing, advertising, and codes of modesty on Saudi Arabian
television. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 26(2 (77)), pp.91-121.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand
equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132).
Springer, New York, NY.
Irabatti, P.A. and Irabatti, A.S., 2013. Study on satisfaction level derived by the users of
pantene shampoo in Western Maharashtra. ZENITH International Journal of Business
Economics & Management Research, 3(1), pp.108-116.
Mahdalena, M., Sulaeman, D. and Priyawan, P., 2019. THE REPRESENTATION OF
BEAUTY IN PANTENE SHAMPOO ADVERTISEMENT. CALL, 2(2).
Malik, E.M. and Naeem, B., 2013. Aaker’s brand personality framework: A critical
commentary. World Applied Sciences Journal, 24(7), pp.895-899.
Mohanty, S., 2012. Indian shampoo brand positioning: Multi dimensional scaling
approach. International Journal of Computing and corporate research, 2(5), pp.42-44.
Mohanty, S., 2012. Indian shampoo brand positioning: Multi dimensional scaling
approach. International Journal of Computing and corporate research, 2(5), pp.42-44.
RAHMAN, K.M. and KAZI, R., 2013. REASONS AND EXPECTATIONS OF
CUSTOMERS TOWARDS SHAMPOO BRANDS. CLEAR International Journal of
Research in Commerce & Management, 4(12).
Smith, D., Faugère, C. and Wang, Y., 2013. Head and shoulders above the rest? The
performance of institutional portfolio managers who use technical analysis. Research in
Finance, p.167.
Wan, X., Evers, P.T. and Dresner, M.E., 2012. Too much of a good thing: The impact of
product variety on operations and sales performance. Journal of Operations
Management, 30(4), pp.316-324.

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Zbib, I.J., Wooldridge, B.R., Ahmed, Z.U. and Benlian, Y., 2010. Purchase of global
shampoo brands and the impact of country of origin on Lebanese consumers. Journal of
Product & Brand Management.
Zuardi, M., 2020, January. Consumer Perception Analysis On The Brand Equity Of Shampoo
Sunsilk And Pantene In The City Of Medan. In Proceeding International Seminar of Islamic
Studies (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 177-187).