MARKETING MANAGEMENT 2

PROJECT
Submitted to:

Prof. Nirmalya Bandyopadhyay

Prepared by: Group 1

Aashi Jain - 143001

Abhay Kundlia - 143002
Abhinav Tagore - 143003
Aditya Sawhney - 143004
Divam Arora - 143005
Akarsh Kumar Pandey - 143006

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1) During COVID-19 scenario how the organization strategized to
combat the challenging business scenario

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 Company introduction

Asian Paints Limited is India's largest paint company and third largest paint company in Asia,
currently headquartered in Mumbai. The company along with its subsidiaries is operating in 22
countries globally and has 27 paint manufacturing facilities servicing consumers in 65 countries
through Berger International SCIB Paints Apco Coatings and Taubmans. Asian Paints produces a
wide scope of paints for decorative and industrial use. Those products include ancilliaries
automotive decorative paints and industrial paints.

Asian Paints has manufacturing plants in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
Tamil Nadu and Haryana. In Decorative paints the company is present in all the four segments
namely Interior Wall Finishes, Exterior Wall Finishes, Enamels and Wood Finishes. They have
additionally presented many innovative concepts in the Indian paint industry like Colour Worlds
(Dealer Tinting Systems) Home Solutions (painting solutions Service) Kids World (painting
solutions for kid's room) Colour Next (Prediction of Colour Trends through in-depth research) and
Royale Play Special Effect Paints, just to name a few.

Type: Public

Industry: Chemicals/Paints

Founded: 1 February 1942

Founders: Champaklal Choksey, Chimanlal Choksi, Suryakant Dani, Arvind Vakil

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Vision

We want to be an innovative, agile, and responsive world class research and technology
organization that’s aligned to future customer needs and catalyzes the growth of the company
across existing and future businesses.

Mission

“To provide paints as per market demand, ensuring desired level and quality of customer
(dealer) service, continued availability of the right product mix of right quality at the right
time.”

New Initiatives

As an organization, they're continually looking to re-design our contributions, stay on top of things,
and offer well-informed dècor answers for our clients. The critical concentration at their R&T
office is contemplating the risks of unstable sweet-smelling mixes, their commitment towards air
and water contamination, and searching for eco-friendly, maintainable arrangements. Up until this
point, the group has been effective in executing various energy saving cycles.

• Cycle time reduction

• Reusing wash water
• Sustainable product solutions for interior and exterior applications with restricted amounts
of VOCs
• Creation of energy saving, heat-management coatings
• Successful removal of lead and heavy toxic materials from decorative products
• Formulation of Green Assure labelled products without toxic substances like CMR, HAPs,
heavy metals, APEO, HAPs, VACs, Formaldehyde, phthalates etc.
• Royale Aspira, a premium interior product, was certified with the Green Seal, USA for its
compliance to GS 11 standards of paints.
• Going forward, they will continue to develop sustainable products in an effort to reduce
their carbon footprint, increase product service life and improve the hygiene standards for
our products.
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 Macro-Economic Scenario
The Indian economy continued with its slow growth trend, with quarterly growth rates trending
downwards through the year of 2019-20. The decline was led by a slowdown in the construction
sector which was a major blow to Asian Paints, a restricted real estate activity due to the pandemic
and persistent downturn in the automotive sector. The fourth quarter witnessed a growth rate of
3%, which is the lowest in almost a decade. This aptly highlighted the worry of deceleration in the
domestic economy even before the effect of COVID-19 hit the industry. FY 2020-21 started on an
unexpected note with the complete lockdown being implemented in India as well as lockdowns /
business restrictions of varying extent across the world, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite further problems caused by the rising costs in raw materials like chemicals and crude oil,
Asian Paints remained profitable for the year, due to their innovative and need of the hour products.

Asian Paints’ response

To combat the pandemic and ensure further growth, Asian Paints started ‘San Assure’ service
through which people can get their interiors and exteriors sanitized. They have also launched an
anti-bacterial paint named ‘Royal Health Shield’.

San Assure offers a mechanized and totally contactless sanitization service with a quick
turnaround time. It is conducted by a team of experts with the help of high-quality machines to
offer a smooth professional service. To avail the sanitization service, customers can reach out to
one of Asian Paints’ San Assure dealers across the country by calling their helpline or update the
lead on the Asian Paints website. The central leads will then be passed to the respective dealers,
who in turn execute this service.

While San Assure caters to the sanitization needs of private as well as business spaces, there is
also ‘San Assure Pro’ – consisting of a team of experts that offers this service exclusively to B2B
spaces, which includes large spaces and corporates.

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Asian Paints launched a new paint series, the ‘Royale Health Shield’ during the pandemic in order
a establish a more safe and healthy aspect to its brand image. The paint is claimed to kill 99% of
bacteria on the wall.

Asian Paints announced its entry into the hand sanitizer market with the launch of the Viroprotek
range of Hand and Surface Sanitizers. Asian Paints has ventured into this category in order to
support the Government in its efforts towards COVID-19 relief and address the huge need of hand
and surface sanitization during the early stages of the pandemic. The product is being
manufactured at the Company's existing plant at Ankleshwar, Gujarat.

Asian paints also started its Safe Painting service. They now follow the following protocols during
their painting service:

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 • Site evaluation and product consultation
• Complete adherence to safety protocol by team
• Complete masking and covering of furniture and valuables
• Dust-free mechanized painting
• Trained applicators
• Regular site supervision
• Free home sanitization following project completion

Campaigns
In response to covid-19 Asian paints launched few campaigns like Stay-at-home, LiveFromHome
and a concert associated with Kinnect looking out for associates and they aimed to build largest
solidarity platform. Creating digital advertisements to ensure the reach of our new protocols to
target customers.

Stay at home campaigns: They conceptualized campaigns to re-establish their connect with
Indian homes in the contemporary context. One of their latest ad films during the pandemic
promotes a key message - #StayHomeStaySafe and captures Indians in their own space, engaged
in myriad tasks or spending time with their near and dear ones during the nationwide lockdown.
The TVC explores the negotiations each of us has had, adjusting to a new way of living. 200+
Eminent Indian Singers 100+ Platforms for release 14 Regional renditions of the anthem.

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LiveFromHome: shows a way to utilize the internet to stay engaged and communicate. The
campaign featured popular artists performing live from their homes, in association with Kinnect.
The first act was performed by Shaan, before which audiences were asked to submit their song
requests to him on our social media platforms.

Building the largest Indian solidarity platform: As part of the support, they pledged to the PM
CARES Fund, Asian Paints was among the key sponsors of the anthem dedicated to frontline
warriors, battling the virus. The initiative, One Nation One Voice launched on May 17, 2020 with
a song titled ‘Jayatu Jayatu Bharatam, Vasudev Kutumbakkam’ saw the coming together of
members from Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA). The song has multiple regional
renditions and was released across TV, radio, social media, apps, OTT, VOD, ISP, DTH and
CRBT, with over 100 broadcast, social, amplification and tech campaigns promoting the launch.
Each artist recorded their part from home during the lockdown with absence of professional
recording equipment posing several challenges. Some of the legendary personalities who came
onboard were Asha Bhosle, Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam, Anup Jalota, Alka Yagnik,
Hariharan, Kailash Kher, Kavita Krishnamurthy and so on. For us, it is more than an anthem. It is
a movement that reflects the collective and personal emotions of people in these trying times. They
aimed to inspire and unite our country to emerge mightier from this crisis. Some highlights of the
event were 200+ eminent singers, 100 platforms of release

Looking out for our associates: They have joined forces with several NGO’s to provide food,
masks and sanitizers to our applicators, contractors and painters, such that their safety is ensured.
At this hour of need, they stood by their team comprising contractors, painters, among others, who
mostly work as daily wagers. By April this year, they established the Direct Bank Transfer (DBT)
drive through which we were able to transfer money to their bank accounts. Additionally, they
were offering free sanitization services at their dealer outlets and extending insurance for the outlet
employees.
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 Differentiation Strategy

During the pandemic Asian paints has tried to differentiate itself from its competitors by focusing
on safety and making it the number one priority of the company. They have launched various
products and services that focus on safety that have been explained above.

Asian paints have focused on health and sanitization of the customers building while providing its
painting services. Through this they have aimed to generate a value to the customers and ensure
their loyalty in return. This ensured that Asian Paints remained profitable during the COVID-19
pandemic.

Through their various campaigns during the campaign, they stood by their stakeholders and
ensured their safety and happiness during the tough times. Their CSR activities have helped
generate additional value to the brand of Asian Paints. They have positioned themselves as a
company for the nation of India.

Through their various efforts, Asian paints has successfully differentiated its products and services
from its competitors during the pandemic.

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 2) Marketing plan of hypothetical company

Company Introduction
Diamond Mobiles is an Indian electronic developer and manufacturer headquartered in New Delhi,
India. It is best known for its smartphones which offer most of the high-end features but are very
competitively priced. Apart from smartphones, they also manufacture accessories of smartphone
such as chargers, headphones, power bank, tripod stands etc.

Type: public

Industry: Consumer electronics

Country of origin: India

Headquarter: New Delhi, India

Vision

The vision of Diamond Mobiles is to pursue excellence, or in other words, never settle.

Mission

Our Mission is to share best technology-built hand-in-hand with you.

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 Product Strategy

The core of business is always about creating good products and providing them to users, creating
customer value. Without a good product, you can never achieve more than short-term success.

It will never be their goal to create products to satisfy a certain price point. Diamond Mobiles’ idea
is to create the best possible product, period. Diamond Mobiles will never pursue specs that only
look good on paper, nor will design useless features that add little value to daily life. Instead,
Diamond Mobiles chose to focus on the smartphone only, They constantly work on designing new
products that will be a more upgraded version of the current devices. This is how Diamond Mobiles
return to customer value.

Here is the Marketing Mix of Diamond Mobiles

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 Android 11

Rs. 27,000 - 37,000

Change in Product Strategy due to COVID 19 Pandemic

As a result of the pandemic, customers are holding back on discretionary purchases. In the light of
evolving market conditions. Diamond Mobiles also observed that mid-premium is driving
maximum handset volumes. So they are shifting their focus back to affordable handsets. They are
soon planning to launch one device in the mid-premium segment. They are rigorously advertising
for this device and the market seems quite responsive.

Long Term Strategy

The optimistic scenario is that Diamond Mobiles is going to develop into a company selling not
just smartphones, but digital lifestyle solutions. The way to shape the market for the company is
to create a new business model in which the device itself is as cheap as possible and users are able
to decide what they really need.

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For example, somebody wants to change wallpaper themes, download useful applications from
Diamond Mobiles’ store, add customized cases and unique services, they can pay extra for it. With
this kind of business model in the future Diamond Mobiles might be able to shift the industry in a
direction where not necessarily the electric industry will be based on services rather than
manufacturing.

According to the pessimistic scenario, Diamond Mobiles is not going to be able to keep the pace
with the fast-changing environment and cannot come up with new ideas shaping the future. In this
case, Diamond Mobiles should do whatever they are the best at the moment and what their core
competencies are. This means creating a high-end smartphone every year for a price, which is
significantly lower than their competitors’ and create profit by selling add-ons.

Pricing Strategy
The strategy of pricing the phone at an affordable low price will be used by Diamond Mobiles
because they did not aim to have high margins of profit by selling the phone. The company would
sell the first model at cost and also it is to be noted that they didn’t spend money on advertising
but instead would focus on influencer marketing which is very effective in the Indian market. Also,
by releasing a limited number of models initially, there is a buzz created by exclusivity.

Penetrative pricing:

During the introduction phase Diamond Mobiles tries to target the youth population by giving
them all the features of a premium smartphone at a fraction of the price of its competitors. To
achieve this objective, they would keep the profit margin per sell very low. This was intended to
penetrate into many markets as soon as possible. They were quite successful in their intense in as
well. within a year of its introduction Diamond Mobiles would be competing with Industry leaders
such as Samsung and LG. With a low pricing they were able to make a grand entry into Indian
Market. However, this strategy must change to value-based Strategy after a few years of
introduction to accommodate the changing market scenario.

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With the coming of pandemic in 2020 the economic condition went from bad to worst which only
decreased the purchasing power of masses and thus the demand of unessential commodities like
smartphone was expected to decrease. In order to sustain the shock of pandemic and survive in the
market, Diamond Mobiles has come up with mid cost smartphones which was in line with the
strategy of Apple Inc.

Promotional pricing:

The company would also utilize promotional offers during festive periods to entice maximum
number of customers through the discounted prices. This is done through e-commerce websites
like Amazon and Flipkart.

SALES AND DISTRIBUTION

Diamond Mobiles will stand for “the higher performance with affordability”. With features and
experience of a high performance, flagship level smartphone but coming with a great value, this
is expected to hit the sweet spot among the consumers in the market.

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The value addition and value preposition offering from the Diamond Mobiles to the market will
be like as shown in the following step chart,

At the center of the Diamond marketing plan will be the strategic decision of proceeding with
simply online deals. Amazon, Flipkart and own ecommerce portal will be the sole and select
eCommerce stage from where the clients buy their smartphones.

Furthermore, Diamond utilizing the framework and online store, had the option to appropriately
deal with its stock and not produce unreasonably. This is a decent strategic move for an item that
is simply beginning in another country.

In future, as Diamond will gain considerable brand and market recognition and presence, both in
terms of sales and visibility, it could expand to the phase of having connected retail locations, as
it will be at a solid situation on the lookout and to grasp available.

It can be in the form of,

• Diamond Premium Experience Centres and Stores

• Leading branded retail chains
• Authorised/designated standalone retail outlets

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