Unilever Health Supplements: Marketing Mix, Competition, and Branding

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's marketing management strategies, specifically focusing on its health supplements segment. It begins with an overview of the organization, including its mission, vision, values, and objectives. The report then delves into the marketing mix (4Ps) – product, price, place, and promotion – as applied to Unilever's health supplements, identifying areas for improvement. Recommendations are offered to enhance the marketing mix, such as aligning strategies, analyzing competition, providing value to consumers, and expanding promotional efforts. Furthermore, the report evaluates the competitive organizational environment using PESTLE analysis to identify opportunities and threats affecting Unilever. Finally, it explores methods for improving the branding and reputation of Unilever. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wealth of study resources for students.

Marketing management
Unilever

Abstract
Marketing management is the practical application of marketing methods, techniques and
orientation as well. Marketing Management is the procedure of controlling all the aspects of
the marketing such as setting goals and taking decisions regarding a product and its
promotion in the market. The report will analyse the health supplements of Unilever for its
re-marketing. Marketing management helps in identifying the opportunities and reaching out
with an appropriate strategies to explore these opportunities profitability. The marketing
programme and evaluation of effectiveness of marketing mix. Various recommendations to
enhance marketing mix will be provided.

Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Overview of organization..................................................................................................................3
Marketing mix: 4 Ps..........................................................................................................................4
Recommendations for improving marketing mix:.............................................................................6
Evaluating the competitive organizational environment in order to analyse the opportunities and
threats that affects the Unilever.........................................................................................................7
Methods of improving the branding and reputation of the Unilever company.................................10
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Marketing refers to the activities which are involved in creating, designing, delivering
and communicating the offering which have value for the customers, partners, society or
other shareholders. Marketing management on the other hand refers to the process in which
goods, services or ideas are planned, executed, promoted and distributed to attain the
organizational goals. The process of marketing management is based on the idea of exchange
by the government (Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019). The report will aim to analyse the
competitive environment analysis of Unilever, its marketing mix and environmental analysis
as well. It will also provide some recommendations to improving its branding and enhancing
the reputation of product as well.
Overview of organization
Unilever PLC is a British multinational company which is based in United Kingdom.
The company offers various brands under it. Major segments of its products involve beauty
and personal care, home care and food and refreshment segment. Under these segments it
offer a number of products and product ranges. The company have pledged to reduce the
plastic use and it have stopped testing on animals for its beauty products.
1. Mission: The mission of Unilever is to be able to add vitality into the lives of
its customers and other stakeholders (Unilever. 2021). It wants to meet the
needs of consumers for personal care, hygiene and nutrition through its brands
which helps people to look good, get more out of life and feel good too.
Simply, it wants to attain customer satisfaction to the highest.
2. Vision: Unilever’s vision is to create sustainable living a commonplace for all
of its customers. It believes that is the best long term way through which its
business can grow.
3. Values: The values of Unilever involves respect, responsibility, pioneering
and integrity as well.
4. Objectives: The company have three major objectives:
 Helping people to enhance their health and well-being.
 Improving livelihood of people in supply chain
 Reducing environmental footprint of its products.

Products: The company offers beauty and personal care, home care and food and refreshment
products. All of its brands are performing really well in their markets specially the beauty and
personal care segment. However, the health supplements segment of Unilever can use more
marketing in order to create more awareness and better performance.
Marketing mix: 4 Ps
Marketing mix refers to the actions or strategies which a company can utilise in order
to promote its product or brand in the market (Lim, 2021). The marketing mix consists of 4
elements which are known as 4Ps such as:
P: Product
P: Price
P: Place
P: Promotion
The Ps are essential factors which are involved in the marketing of a product or service to
the audience. These describe what the product or service actually is, what the consumer has
to pay to acquire it, in which location the product will be available and marketed and how it
will be advertised in the market to generate sales (Thabit and Raewf, 2018). Unilever can use
these tactics for evaluating its marketing strategy for its health supplements product.
However, it is important for the company to understand that the products are meant to be
adjusted and refined and not static because the product develops and the customer’s
preferences and demand also changes.
 Product: Product is the core business upon which a business rely on. It is the thing for
which a company exists. It is something which is offered by the company to its
customers and it is valued by the customers as well. A should be something which is
compelling for its customers and it must be able to fulfil the demands of customers.
For gaining success in the business, the companies have to understand the product life
cycle and plans its products according to that cycle only. The pricing of product,
where it should be placed and how it should be promoted, all depends upon the type
of product.
The chosen product is Health supplements of Unilever. It offers various
acquisition sprees for health supplement brands. Some of these are OLLY, Liquid

I.V., SmartyPants and Onnit. After COVID-19 the demand for heath supplements
have grown. However, the products of Unilever are no so popular in market (Othman
and et.al., 2019).
 Price: Price is the value which the consumers pay to avail the services and products
offered by a company. The price should be linked to the actual value and received
value, however, it should also consider the costs, competitor prices and seasonal
discounts as well. The price be high if the product is regarded as luxury by the
customers. Providing discounts is all optional and depends upon the company only
(Kotler and et.al., 2021).
The prices of Health supplements of Unilever are high. Due to the demand and
value of health supplements they are priced high as well as taking the competitor’s
prices into the account.
 Place: Place is the point of sale. It also involves the processes through which the
company will deliver its products to the market and its customers. The goal in this
factor is to make the product available to consumers in such a way that the consumers
are most likely to buy them. It also refers to displaying of products in the store
displays in certain cases. While in some cases, placement may be regarded as the acts
of displaying or involving a product I the films, television shows and in webpages for
getting attention for the particular product.
The Health Supplements of Unilever are available from online websites as
well as from the stores as well. Due to COVID-19, the demand for online shopping
have enhanced (Panchenko and et.al., 2020).
 Promotion: Promotion refers to the activities which involves advertising, promotional
strategy and public relations as well. Promotion is aimed to reveal the need of the
product and value of the product over the competitor to the customers. It reveals why
the customers would buy this particular brand of the product over other brands. The
placement and promotion is tied together to reach the core audience.
Unilever promotes it health supplements through various promotional
strategies such as television advertisements, boards & hoardings and through its social
media marketing.

Recommendations for improving marketing mix:
Marketing is something which changes constantly due to the changing demands,
preferences and trends of customers. Adapting changes is the key to successful marketing. As
the company have been facing issues and is not happy with the current market position of its
health supplement products, it can use the following recommendations to improve its
marketing mix:
 Align strategies: It is recommended that the company should align its marketing
strategy with its business strategies do that risk of non-success of marketing strategies
is lowered. The company can develop strategies for its functional areas within its
marketing which aligns to its new marketing strategy (Pomering, 2017). Alignment
will keep everything on same page and will also help in enhancing the factors which
contribute to the business in attaining its organizational and overall goals.
 Analysis of competition: It is recommended that the company should analyse the
competition before developing its marketing strategies. As the competition in FMCG
sector is huge, analysis of competition can help the company in analysing the factors
which can help it to attain the competitive advantage over the competitors. Through
this the company can enhancing the sales of its Health Supplements. It can use the
competitive link analysis through the tools such as Open Site explorer.
 Providing value: It is recommended that the company should provide the products
which the consumers value. Consumers feel that their opinions and suggestions does
not mean anything to the companies. Unilever can take this opportunity and tale
suggestions on how it can improve its product from various platforms such as social
media.
 Spreading the wealth: It is recommended that the company should be invest more and
explore various areas where it can promote its products. Every month a new online
platform is introduced. The company should focus on grabbing areas as much as it is
possible for it. Through this to can widen its reach to the customers and provide them
latest news and information as well. It will help the company to develop its business
on a wider level.

Evaluating the competitive organizational environment in order to analyse the opportunities
and threats that affects the Unilever
The competitive environment refers to that environment in which different business
organizations compete with each other and performs different promotional strategies. The
strategies can only determined when there is the better understanding of the competitive
environment. (Hatzijordanou, Bohn and Terzidis, 2019). As the Unilever company has
decided to make the effective market strategies for increasing the consumer share in relation
of the health supplements. Therefore, it is important to analyse the competitive environment.
Here are the ways in which the analysation can be done:
PESTLE Analysis
This refers to the political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental factors
that affects the business. Here is the PESTLE Analysation of the Unilever. Political factors- The political factors includes the trade policies of the government.
As Unilever is the international firm and operates the functions on international level.
Therefore, the company has to follow the trade policies of international marketing
(Vashchenko, 2017). For example: in order to implement the effective marketing
strategy for the health supplements at the international market. The company has to
follow the trade policies. As the government puts the special testing over the health
supplements. The criteria of each country is different. The organization has to follow
the trade policies in order to ensure the smooth running of the business. Economic factors- The concept of increasing wages is one of the biggest threat for
the company as this increases the cost of production in the company. As a result, the
prices of the products also increases. This further result in distracting the consumers
(Naumkin, 2020). The company has adopted the affordable pricing policies. This
strategy of the firm results in increasing the sales of the firm. Social factors- This involves the changing taste of the consumers. Currently, the
consumers are being more health conscious. And this is the biggest opportunity for
the firm in order to gain the large share in the market. The health supplements
products ensures the health to the customers. Technological factors- Changing in the technology is one of the threat to the firm. As
the technology plays the important role in the growth of the business. For example: if
the competitor firm has more effective technology, it results in producing effective
output by the competitor firm. The Unilever company is using the different ways of

technology in order to ensure the effective output to their customers (Stenberg and
Vu-Thi, 2017). The company is using this threat as an opportunity. Legal factors- This factor involves the fair practices in the business. This can be act
as a threat and as an opportunity as well. It is totally depends upon the firm. For
example: The Unilever company has assured the fair practices to the consumers. The
health supplements that has been provided by the Unilever are completely safe for the
customers. Even all the products has been proven safe for the customers.
 Environmental factors- This has been considered as one of the most important factor
that affects the business. Those businesses who provide harm towards the nature and
does not take any measures for increasing the effectiveness of the environment has
not given the value by the customers (Hatzijordanou, 2019). In this matter, the
Unilever company is effective enough in performing their responsibility towards the
environment. The firm is using the concept of sustainability. As a result, the goodwill
of the company is increasing in market and many investors are investing in the
company.
Porter's five forces
This refers to that environmental analysis tool that defines the five forces of the
competition that affects the business along with determining the strengths. Weaknesses.
Opportunities and threats of the business. It involves: Competition in the industry- The Unilever company is one of the leading firm. In
order to increase the market share of the health supplements the company has the
threat from those companies that are producing the health supplement products. The
company has effective image in the market. And the company has adopted the
effective marketing strategy in order to show them superior from their competitors
(Almeida and Santos, 2018). The affordable price policy along with assuring the
quality of the products is one of the biggest weapon of the firm that is used against the
competitors. Potential of new entrants- The Unilever company is free from this threat as the
company already captures the large number of share in the market. And the firm has
the effective base of customers. All the customers are highly loyal towards the
company. As a result, there is no threat has been related to the new entrant. Power of suppliers- This involves charging high prices by the suppliers for the raw
material. This leads to increase in the cost of production (Perera, 2020). This further
leads to increase the price of the product. It is one of the biggest threat to the

company. In order to solve this issue, the firm has approached the different suppliers.
If one supplier increases the prices then firm buys the resources from the different
supplier. Power of customers- The customers has the power in relation of driving the prices
lower. As the customers have full power of shifting towards the different brand if the
prices are made higher by the firm. The Unilever company believes in the concept of
studying consumer behaviour. This enabling the firm in understanding their customers
in more effective manner (Pádraig, 2017). As a result, the attention of the customers
are driven towards the organization. This is opening large number of opportunities for
the firm in terms of increasing their sales for the health supplements products.
 Threat of new substitutes- This involves the same products produced by the
competitor firm. There is threat of shifting towards the competitor's product. This
results in loss for the company. The Unilever company has adopted the effective
marketing strategy in order to gain the attention of the consumers. The company has
adopted the concept of producing the large range of the products in the affordable
prices (Kreps, 2019). Company has effective pricing policy for the health supplement
product as well. Customers will get the benefit of gaining effective healthy in
affordable prices. As a result, the company has the high number of opportunities in
order to expand in market.
Methods of improving the branding and reputation of the Unilever company.
 Know inside and out: The Unilever company can enhance their product image when
they can provide a qualitative product to the consumers. It is necessary to understand
the product importance and value by itself so that only a consumer will also feel the
necessity of the product. Unilever company should know the product inside and out
from which they can provide a relevant information the consumer (Foroudi, Gupta,
and et.al., 2019). It is important to know why the consumer will select the product and
why they don't.
 Recognize the consumer desires: After getting the knowledge of the product, the
Unilever company should focus on the target audiences. A customer will only
purchase the product when company will supply the appropriate needs and
requirement of an individual. Unilever needs to improve their health supplements
products image which will require also required to fulfil the definite demands and
needs of the customer.

 Communicate the brand values: In this method, a company should furnish all the
responsibilities they are telling doing so. Unilever company wanted to improve their
health supplements, in this context they are required to complete all the promises
which they had told to be done. These promises can includes the delivery policies,
return and exchange, product material, and guarantees and warranties duration. When
a company will accomplish all these promises or activities then only a customer will
have a trust and faith on the products of the organization.
 Focus on the looks: Today, everything needs to look perfect and attractive. Unilever
company requires focusing on the design and its presentation of their products so that
people will find a unique structure and method which will approach and attract the
consumer in a huge scale. People always looks for the differentiation in the products
and services to utilize and can be beneficial to them in any way. The first impression
is the best and last way to create an attractiveness in the products and goods. Clicking
and uploading the great photos will also attract the consumer to utilize the goods
which will improve the position of the brand and makes a valued reputation in the
market (Dimitrova, Korschun, and et.al., 2017). Applying this method, the company
brand position will increase and raise them to develop the more outcome.
 Use of technology: In this modern era, promoting the brands and services through the
social media platform is the best way to approach the consumer. As the consumer
value will increase the reputation and branding of the product and services will also
increase. Nowadays, social media is the biggest and easiest platform to promote and
represent the business and products value. Unilever company can utilize the digital
media platform or structure to increase and enhance their product image as there are
numerous people available on social websites from which they can deliver their best
content and information to the individual product. Utilizing this method, an
organization can increase their growth and development in the market.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that marketing refers to the actions
which helps the company in making the consumers aware and remind about the products of
the company. Unilever is the company which deals in three major segments such as beauty
and personal care, home care and food and refreshment. Through the competitive analysis the
external factors through environmental analysis tools such as Porter’s five forces and PEST
analysis. Through the marketing mix the 4Ps of marketing helps in analysis of marketing

strategies of Unilever. Various strategies through which it can improve its branding and
reputation of its product. All the strategies leads to revamping of health supplements of
Unilever.
REFERENCES
Books and journals