Marketing Mix:

This portion describes the way Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. use the tactical marketing tools for
marketing LUX in Bangladesh.

Product:
LUX is an internationally renowned beauty soap brand of Unilever. Though manufactured in
Bangladesh for the local market by Unilever Bangladesh Ltd, as an international brand, it
maintains an international quality for the product. Formula given by Research and Development
departments in foreign countries, LUX is produced in Bangladesh from imported raw materials
like sodium soap, glycerol and different extracts according to flavors, coming from Unilever
plants situated abroad.

LUX is offered in Bangladesh in six different flavors which are:

 LUX Sensuous Sandal
 LUX Hypnotic Rose
 LUX Iconic Iris
 LUX Charming Magnolia
 LUX Soft Touch
 LUX Velvet Touch
 LUX Fresh Splash
Taking into account the convenience of its customers, the company manufactures all flavors of
LUX in three different sizes 35g, 40g, 75gm, 100g, 125gm and 150gm.

 Price:
Though Unilever Bangladesh gives its LUX customers a lot in terms of the product itself, it
cannot provide a better pricing. This is due to some constraints in the beauty soap industry.
Beauty soap is a product with a vulnerable demand in Bangladesh. Lux’s price with its major
competitor. Company carries out research on competitors’ price and brand loyalty when it feels
extreme necessity of changing price. The brand loyalty test is an exploratory research which is
known as Brand Health Check-Up (BHCU).
 Product Name Image Format Size Price
Charming Soap/Bar 125g 48tk
Magnolia

Fresh Splash Soap/Bar 100g 34tk

Hypnotic Rose Soap/Bar 75g, 125g 32 tk, 48tk

Iconic Iris Soap/Bar 125g 48tk

Purple Lotus Soap/Bar 100g 34tk

Soft Touch Soap/Bar 35g, 40g, 75g, 10tk, 12tk,25tk,

100g, 150g 34tk,48tk

Velvet Touch Soap/Bar 35g, 40g, 75g, 10tk, 12tk,25tk,

100g, 150g 34tk,48tk

 Place:
Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. has a huge distribution channel for LUX all over the country as its
sales reach more than 10 million pieces a year. The company has six huge warehouses, one in
each division of Bangladesh, where the product goes after they are manufactured at Kalurghat
factory. Table shows the location of its six warehouses in Bangladesh.

Division Location of Warehouse

Dhaka Dhaka City
 Chittagong Kalurghat Heavy I/A
Sylhet Sylhet City
Rajshahi Rajshahi City
Khulna Khulna City
Barisal Barisal City

Location of Unilever Bangladesh Ltd’s Divisional

The company does not use its own fleet of transport for distributing its product. However, it has
outsourced its distribution process to various third party distributors, exclusively dedicated to
Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. These distributors then supply the product all over Bangladesh to a
huge number of retailers. Even though LUX targets the urban and sub urban middle and upper
middle class people they are distributing their products all over Bangladesh because of a recent
increase in demand of its product to all segments of the population.
 Promotion:
Unilever Bangladesh undertakes huge promotional activities to promote LUX which has topped
the beauty soap industry of Bangladesh. It spends almost 20% to 25% of its Net Proceeds from
Sales (NPC) of LUX for promotional activities for LUX 1
It’s certain annual promotional campaigns like LUX Channel i Superstar and LUX Channel i
Annual Cinema Awards has made the product a part of the glamour world. Since the 1930s, over
400 of the world’s most stunning and sensuous women have been proudly associated with Lux
advertisements.
Unilever Bangladesh Ltd spends a huge amount of money for promoting LUX through TV
commercials, newspaper advertisements and billboards. Moreover it also undertakes small
promotional campaigns at different schools, colleges, universities and recreational parks with
winners of its Zonal Beauty Contests.

Competitor analysis

Internal competitors
Lifebuoy:

Born: 1895

History: Owned by Unilever Plc., the parent company of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

Status: Has 18% market share in the bathing soaps category, worth Rs6,000 crore

Lifebuoy landed on Indian shores in 1895, when the country was in the grip of a plague epidemic.
With its positioning as a powerful germicidal and disinfectant, and with a strong carbolic smell, it
was what the nation was looking for. But the health advantage waned over time as competitors
came out with soaps that promised both health and beauty.

It was around 2002 that the product moved from being a hard soap to a mild soap that delivered a
significantly superior bathing experience. The new soap had a refreshing fragrance and its overall
positioning changed, painting its promise of health in softer, more versatile and responsible hues—
for the entire family. The packaging was also changed: The rugged looking packs were soon
replaced with a softer pinkish cover. This was followed by a series of ads highlighting the soap’s
germ-fighting benefits.

Lifebuoy had become a family soap with hygiene as its core promise. Right from the early days,
the brand has preferred effective communication to celebrities. An exception is its recent, limited
exposure campaign with cricketer Sakib Al Hasan.

Dove: Dove is a personal care brand owned by Unilever originating in the United Kingdom. Dove
products are manufactured in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, India,
Indonesia, Israel, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, South
Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and United States.

 Divided into beauty soap

 Dove Pink. Rosa Beauty Bar Soap
 Dove Gentle Exfoliating
 Dove Pure and Sensitive Bar
  Some other varieties are-
 Dove Go Fresh Touch
 Dove Beauty Bar White
 Dove Beauty Cream Bar White

External Competitors

a. Meril:
Blending the ancient imperial luxury of milk baths with its 6 times more moisturizing
power, Meril Milk Soap will give afresh and soft skin by removing skin roughness and
protecting against it. It is a soap of Square-Toiletries Ltd.
There are different types-

 Natural Milk
 Milk and kiwi soap
 Milk and pomegranate
 Milk And blackberry
 Milk and beli
 milk and honey
 Some other varieties of Meril Splash beauty soaps are-
 fresh turmeric
 fresh cucumber
 fresh melon
 fresh peach

b. Tibet:
Tibet is a brand of Kohinoor Chemical Co. it’s a high-
quality bath soap made from 100% vegetable fat.
Some variants of Tibet soaps are-

 Tibet deluxe beauty soap

 Creamy with fragrance
 Extra creamy enriched
 White pink green

c. Fa:
Fa is an international brand for personal care
products. It is a subsidiary of German company
Henkel AG. Varieties are-
 Fa Honey Crème
 Sensual Golden Iris Scent and
Honey Extracts
 Mystic moments

 Mild cleansing and moisturizing

 Intensively caring Shea butter
 Fascinating fragrance of the passion flower
d. Sandalina Sandal Soap:
SANDALINA offers a world class Grade-1 soap enriched with a unique blend of Sandal
Wood Extract. It’s soap of Kohinoor group.

e. Aci Sandal soap:

ACI Limited is one of the leading conglomerates of the country. ACI Consumer Brands
is stepping into beauty soap category with its Sandalwood soap “ACI Sandal Soap”. ACI
Sandal soap is formulated as a Grade-1 soap containing the highest quality of sandalwood
oil, cocoa butter, and an invigorating fragrance. The soap is infused with sandal oil which
acts as a natural moisturizer and helps to create a glowing effect to skin. It contains cocoa
butter which provides balanced moisture, thereby preventing dryness and giving a smooth
& supple effect. Its fragrance contains lilac extract that captivates the mind and gives
prolonged freshness.
 f. Keya:
Tibet is a brand of Keya Cosmetics Ltd. it’s a
high-quality bath soap made from 100% vegetable
fat. Some variants of Tibet soaps are-

 Lifeguard
 Keya Soap
 Keya Lemon Soap
 Keya Mini Soap

After analyzing every internal competitor as well as external competitor we get some opportunities
and threats as well for lux. Here they are :

Opportunities:

1. Lux is set to benefit from the increasing consumer spending on personal care products,
considering its strong distribution across the globe

2. Liquid body wash is currently in growth stage – Lux should come out with more variants in this
segment

3. Lux should introduce more sales and trade promotional schemes into the market in order to
maintain its leading position in the market.

4. Lux has got the great potential to capture the rural markets of Bangladesh. Lux needs to penetrate
the product more into the rural markets and develop communication strategy in order to capture
the rural market.

Threats:

1. Lux, being a product from Unilever also competes with in-house products like Pears and Dove.
Although all the products are positioned differently still they are cannibalizing each other’s market.
2. The preference of consumers around the world is changing and thus brands are also supposed
to align with the changing preferences. Lux is too concentrated on being a beauty soap and hence
changing preferences can affect Lux’s market.

3. There already exists high competition from local and multinational brands in the personal care
industry. The competition is increasing rapidly in the recent years which is affecting Lux’s market
share. For example, entry of Sandalina in Bangladesh and some other imported soaps are affecting
the personal care market heavily.

This research analyses the soap industry in the FMCG sector in Dhaka with a special emphasis on
two brands Dove and Lux, which are among the trusted and leading soap brands from the same
parent company “Unilever”. Unilever is a multinational corporation that owns more than 400
brands in the FMCG sector.

For better comprehension of Unilever Bangladesh, its marketing strategy, product quality,
positioning and placement, we present here a comparative analysis of its competitors. This part
of the report illustrates the market share of different companies in the beauty soap industry.

Market Segmentation
“One cannot be everything to everyone, but can be everything to a selected few”. This is the basis
for segmentation. The definition of segmentation is “market segmentation is a process of dividing
a heterogeneous market into homogeneous sub units. Market segmentation is the identification of
portions of the market that are different from one another. Segmentation allows the firm to better
satisfy the needs of its potential customers.

A good market segmentation will result in segment members that are internally homogenous and
externally heterogeneous; that is, as similar as possible within the segment, and as different as
possible between segments.

Market segmentation of Lux

As mentioned above, market segmentation is done so as to satisfy the customers more efficiently.
For a brand like Lux, which has a broad customer base, this factor becomes absolutely critical.

The segmentations are done basically on the basis of factors like:

Lux soap concentrates in the beauty soap category. A brief description of the various factors Lux
considers are:

Gender :

Lux has been, since its introduction seen as a soap for women. Lux as a brand symbolises beauty.
The Lux ads has hosted a bevy of film stars such as from Suborna, Sakila, Nipa, Mousumi,
Bipasha, Opi to Mim all endorsing the goodness of Lux over generations. This was done in order
to attract women who wanted to look and feel like the stars they idolized.

Age:

Lux is seen to mainly attract customers that fall within the age group of 16 to 35. In order to cater
them, Lux comes up with new and interesting variants. One of the latest entrants, Lux Crystal
Shine is mainly targeted at the youth. So is the Black Provocateur which symbolizes boldness.
Another example is the chocolate variant lux which was a novel idea. All these are introduced to
catch the attention of the youth.

Income:

One of the essential characteristic of an FMCG product is an affordable price which is very
important for its fast sales. It’s the meeting point of demand for a product and its price that decide
whether the product will sell or not. And the demand for a product is highly dependent on the
income of the customer. Lux is not a very costly toilet soap. Its price varies from tk.15 to
tk.35.Therefore its target market starts from the middle income group.

Positioning

Lux—derived from the word luxury— was launched in 1899 as a laundry soap in the UK. In 1925,
the brand was extended to the toilet soap category. It was positioned as a beauty soap in India, and
HUL has since used successful film actors of the time—such as Bobita, Chompa, Mousumi and
Mim—to endorse the product.

Lux’s secret of longevity has been its consistent evolution—be it the soap colour, packaging or
new variants, the brand has banked on innovation to keep its youthful image intact. Extending the
soap cake to a range of shower gels, liquid soaps and moisturizing bars has helped the brand keep
consumers excited and the competition at bay.

What has not changed is the consistency in its communication and its positioning. Its tag lines—
if it’s good enough for a film star, then it’s good for you too to Play with beauty—have conveyed
the same message over the years. It taps into an emotion very close to humanity’s basic need—
social interaction. The brand has always hired celebrities when they have reached a certain height
rather than using them at the start of their careers. This has helped the customers to relate to their
idols on screen.

From being a soap for the stars, Lux has recently started positioning itself in such a way that the
ordinary woman can relate to the brand. The advertisements show not the star, but the actress in
the character of an ordinary girl or woman, which any woman can identify with. This positioning
has helped the brand in striking a chord with the target consumers.
BCG Matrix

BCG matrix method is a portfolio management tool developed by Boston Consulting Group .It is
a method based on the product life cycle theory that can be used to know what priorities should be
given in the product portfolio of a business unit. To ensure value creation, a company should have
a portfolio of products that contains both high growth products in need of cash inputs and low
growth products that generate a lot of cash. There are 2 dimensions: market share and market
growth. Placing products in the BCG matrix results in four categories in a portfolio of a company:

Star: High market growth and high market share

Cash cows: Low market growth and high market share

Question marks: High market growth and low market share

Dogs: Low market growth and low market share

Innovation seems to be the main theme of the Indian soap industry in 2008. With the entry of ITC,
the stage is all set for a major tussle between the new entrant and existing players in the Rs 6,500-
crore branded toilet soaps sector in India. The soap industry is seen to have a market growth rate
of about 10%. This shows that industry has a high growth rate. HUL is a market leader in the
industry and its soap Lux enjoys a market share of 17 % in India. So according to the concept of
BCG matrix any product which has high market growth and market share is classified as STARS.
The major objective of products coming in Stars is to maintain their high market share. HUL comes
up with various variants in LUX quite frequently in order to maintain their position.
 STARS QUESTION MARKS
LIFEBOUY SANDELINA
LUX

growth Rate
Market

CASH COWS DOGS

DETTOL COSCO

Relative Market Share