Marketing Plan

Lifebuoy Gold

Marketing Plan on-

LIFEBUOY GOLD

Course Title: Marketing Management

Course Code: MKT-201

Submitted to:
Nigar sultana
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing
Faculty of Business Studies
Jahangirnagar University

Submitted by:
Group Nexus
Department of Marketing
BBA 2nd Batch
Jahangirnagar University

Date of Submission: January 19, 2012

Nexus
Name

Id

Ashik Abdullah (G L)

678

S. M. Riazul Islam

659

Sabakun Naher Shetu

642

Md. Touhidul Islam

2118

Md. Billal Hossain

681

Contact number: 01710398158, 01920066278, 01677820205

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
2

January19, 2012
Nigar Sultana
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing
Faculty of Business Studies
Jahangirnagar University
Subject: Submission of marketing plan

Dear Madam,
It is an immense pleasure for us to submit Marketing Plan of Lifebuoy Gold which is
prepared as a partial requirement of the course named Marketing Management (MKT201).
We have tried to follow your guideline in every aspects of preparing this report. We have
concentrated on the most relevant and logical areas to make our report coherent as well as
practical.
We hope this report will entice your kind appreciation.
Sincerely,

________________
Ashik Abdullah
(On behalf of the group members)
Roll- 678
2nd Batch, 2nd year, 1st semester
Department of Marketing
Jahangirnagar University

1. Executive summery

Page
no.
6

2. Situation analysis

2.1 Customer

Title

Market share
2.2 Competitors

2.3 Company Summary

SWOT Analysis
Profit and Growth Rate
About Lifebuoy gold
Main characteristics

8-10

3. Opportunities and issues

4. Objectives

10
11-13

Keys to Success
Business analysis:
Break even analysis
Sales Forecast:
5. Marketing Strategy

13

6. Target market of Lifebuoy soap

Positioning Against Competitor
Positioning In Relation To Product Attribute
Positioning by price and quality
7. Positioning

13

8. Marketing Mix
Products
Price

15-17

14

Place
Promotion
4

People
Process
Physical evidence

17

9. Review and control

List of illustration
Title
Market share

Page
no.
7

Profit and Growth Rate

Break even analysis

12

Sales Forecast

13

1. Executive summery
This marketing plan is for a fiscal year. Lifebuoy gold is offering Lifebuoy Gold with the
specialty of high germy check power. It is going to enhance the value of Lifebuoy Gold.
We are targeting lower and middle class of soap market especially hard working people
and conscious households who concern about healthy living. Our slogan is lifebuoy gold
your perfect germ protector.
We want to get the soap medically certified and patronage of doctors to take over the
competitors. There is lots of opportunity in hygiene sector in Bangladesh as people is
getting concern about their health more; environment is becoming more contaminated,
less competition etc. As lifebuoy gold is doing well in this sector, our aim is promoting
the brand, increasing market share, retaining existing customers and to communicate
customer lifetime value. We are taking cost leadership strategy with operational
efficiency. Our aim is to satisfy customer by providing proper value and for that we want
to communicate with them intimately, as much as we can. We want to get feedback from
our conscious customer, we also intending to make customer aware of communicating
their evaluation and recommendation regarding our product to keep our total quality
management up to date.
We want to get the belief of customer that we are taking care of their health. Our mission
is to make the lifebuoy gold popular across the country. Our current market share is 42%
and our target is to grasp 50% market share within this fiscal year. We are putting much
importance on customer retention because 42% share is handsome and it is challenging to
maintain. To retain customer we have several steps to follow such as maintaining TQM
strictly, reviewing customer feedback on regular basis, adding new value, running
frequent promotional activities etc. We are facing few direct competitors in this sector. So
there is a threat of new entrance. In promotion we are using two new tools, medical
certification and health campaign.
We intended to use penetration pricing strategy as we are targeting middle and low class
people. We want to intensify TQM by giving special importance on manufacturing
process. For this a special expert team at our manufacturing sector has been recruited. We
are introducing lifebuoy outlets in several mainstream of geographical area. Outlets will
be well decorated to attract our customer. It will also help us to promote our brand. People
satisfaction is always our top priority.

2. Situation analysis
We have analyzed the situation using three parameters consumers, competitors and company.

2.1 Customer
Lifebuoy Gold is an established brand of health care soap sector in Bangladesh. It belongs to
the most flourishing company Unilever Bangladesh Ltd. It maintains a high quality
management to ensure customer satisfaction. As we are doing business in Bangladesh, we
have to consider the normal income level of Bangladeshi people. Moreover we take cost
leadership strategy so we should also consider competitors pricing policy. We intend to grab
the middle-middle and lower middle classes of markets. We have 42% share of market tt is
top shareholder in this sector. Percentage of share in this sector of different brand is given
bellow

2.1(a) Market share

Company

Number of customer (app)

Market share (app)

Lifebuoy

210000

42%

Savlon Soap

120000

24%

Dettol

170000

34%

(Copyright@ lifebuoy annual report 2008: internal survey report on 500000 users)

Pie Chart of Market share:

Lifebouy

Savlon Soap

Detol

(Copyright@ lifebuoy annual report 2008)

2.2 Competitors
We will consider our direct competitor at germ killing bar soap sector. So there are a few
number of bar soaps in this sector. They are Savalon and Dettol,
Bactrol. We have analyzed the past data regarding these
brands. When we concern about indirect competitors we will
find other soap like beauty soap lux, keye, Tibet, Aromatic,
Camelia, Sandralina, Dove, Fair & lovely, Pears etc. Our
existing competitors are concern about the differentiation
strategy we also threatened about their upcoming strategy that
may affect our market share. As this sector is getting lucrative
with the rise of population awareness regarding their health. we
are
threatened of facing new competitors in near future.

2.3 Company Summary

In 1894, William Hesketh Lever launched Lifebuoy in the UK as the Royal Disinfectant
Soap. Lever grew up in industrialized Bolton, Lancashire, which was a typical English city of
the Industrial Revolution era, with thousands of people living in slums where disease ran
rampant. Epidemics of typhoid, dysentery and yellow fever were common and infant
mortality was exceptionally high. Lever was actively seeking the perfect formula for a soap
product that could combat germs and still be affordable to everyone. In what could be termed
as a major scientific breakthrough of the era, he found just that in carbolic acid. The brand
went global in 1911 and began distributing to countries such as the United States, Germany,
Switzerland, Canada, India, etc.

2.3(a) our main characteristics are..

Health based themes--The company focus on themes that have mass appeal.
Mass retail management--The Company is using this tool to reach root level of
customer. It will help us to get customer loyalty.
Quality goods we are providing quality product and it is one of our main
characteristics. Our product is medical certification.
Quality insurance --In order to maintain its unique image the Company provides
attentive and friendly service with a high ratio of service personnel to customers and
also invests in the training and supervision of its employees.
8

2.3(b) About Lifebuoy gold

Logo

Unilever Bangladesh ltd.

Parent Company
FMCG
Sector
Tagline/ Slogan

Lifebuoy provides 100% better protection from

germs as compared to ordinary soaps

2.3(c) Profit and Growth Rate

Company

Profit (f.y. 2007)

Profit (f.y.2008)

Growth Rate

Lifebouy

12270000

15120000

23.22%

Savalon

7090000

8640000

21.86%

Dettol

10720000

12240000

14.17%

Bar Chart of Growth rate from 2007 to 2008:

Growth Rate
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%

Lifebouy

Savlon

Detol

2.3(d) SWOT Analysis

Strength
1. First soap to use carbolic acid, which gave it a red color and strong, medicinal
scent
2. High consumer awareness for the brand of Lifebuoy
3. Most popular soap brand specially in the rural market
4. Excellent brand visibility and extensive distribution
Weakness
1. Lower market penetration in urban areas as compared to rural areas
2. Initially positioned as a masculine soap, which was eventually turned as a family
soap.
3. Not been perceived as a beauty soap, and is mainly used just for hand washing
Opportunity
1. The Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana programme uses adirect consumer contact
methodology, and touches the lives of 70 million people in 18,000villages
2. Imparting education about importance of hand washing to prevent spread of germs
3. Using global epidemics like swine flu to further promote products for better
hygiene and protection
Threats
1. Competitor brands offering similar levels of protection
10

2. Considered to be a low-end product, and may find it difficult to move up in the

segment

3. Opportunities and issues

Most of the people of our country are not aware of
proper health-care. Every year a lot of people are dying
of diarrhea. This unexpected mortality rate is very high
among lower and middle class people. For those people,
we are trying to ensure good health with our product. If
we can grow awareness among those people they will
accept our product without any hesitation. We will be
able to grasp a high market share within a short time.
We have lots of opportunity to increase our market share
by capturing new use and user. We now want to increase
our market share using this tool.

4. Objectives
Lifebuoy Gold has the objective to launch its product profitably with new version and new
experience. It will mainly focus on new use as well as new users. Its main objects are Using new aromatic flavor that will attract new customers/users who give more
emphasize on aromatic flavor.
Promoting new uses such as its main slogan will be use Lifebuoy Anti-Germ soap
five times in a day.
Giving germ check assurance of its users.
Covering more than 45% market share within the year
Ensuring low cost of health and hygienic soap and meeting expectation rate
Selecting target market and give them more health and other facilities than
competitors do.

4.1 Keys to Success

The keys to success in achieving our goals are:

Product quality: Not only great health and hygienic soap but great inexpensive
compared to competitors product.

Managing finances to actualize targeted plan.

11

Controlling costs at all times without exception.

Instituting management controls to insure perfect operations over multiple sectors.

This applies equally to product control and to financial control.

4.2 Business analysis:

Bangladesh is an over populated country with 150 million people. Approximately 80 or 90
million people belong to hard working middle class segment. If we assume the standard
family member of a family is 5, then this segment of people will belong to approximately 16
million families.
Total number of people

Number of family= ---------------------------Standard family

member

= 80000000/ 5
= 16000000 families
From this huge number of family we will target 8 million families. As one of the parts of our
advertising is motivating users using our soap five times in a day, every family will use
approximately three soaps to protect health and ensure good health. So our production target
will be

Production target= 80,00,000* 3

= 2,40,00,000 pieces

4.3 Break even analysis:

12

1.
2.
3.
4.

Revenue/piec
Variable Cost/piec
Net Income/piec
Fixed Cost

5. Break Even Volume

BDT 18
BDT 16
BDT 2
BDT 10 million

BDT 10
=-------------------------million
BDT 2 /piec
=50,00,000 pieces

6. Break-Even volume will cover 20.83% of the total

targeted volume.

4.4 Sales Forecast

Months

Sales (pieces)

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th

12000000
14000000
17000000
20000000
22000000
24000000

Increasing Sales Total Income

Rate
(2tk/piec)
initiate
24mn
16.66%
28mn
17.64%
34mn
15%
40mn
10%
44mn
9.09%
48mn
Total= 218mn

Net Income
(t.i f.i.)
14mn
18mn
24mn
30mn
34mn
38mn
Total= 158mn

5. Marketing Strategy

13

As we are delivering fast moving consumer goods and our target markets are lower and
middle class people, quantity of our customer will be so high. As Lifebuoy is fast moving
consumer goods, we will follow cost leadership strategy with operational efficiency.

6. Target market
Lifebuoy is mainly targeted hardworking people as well as middle and lower class people
those who relatively earn less money but give more labor. For example I can say village
people. Lifebuoy with its distinct perfume and catchy jingle is associated with health and
well-being, making it the countrys largest selling soap brand. Its ads carried the
message that Lifebuoy washed away germs and kept one protected and healthy.
Now a days lifebuoy came up with new color and new
flavor
for the different target market but the main
target
m a r k e t i s s t i l l s a m e , l o w e r middle class people.
Lifebuoy is now an entirely new mix with a superior
formulation, fragrance, lather profile and a modern
shape. It offers an improved bathing experience and
skin feel.
The new Lifebuoy is targeted at todays smart housewives
who seek
family health protection. It made a thoughtful shift in
positioning from being a male soap, champ of health
to
a
family soap with a more reliable health protection against
germs for
the entire family.

7. Positioning
Lifebuoy goal is to provide affordable and accessible hygiene and
health solutions.
We want to establish lifebuoy gold as exchange of value with customer. We will provide them
value and will get money in return. We want to categorize this strategy as following

7.1 Positioning Against Competitor

Lifebuoy gold is positioned as a premium brand which
providing perfect germ checking and relatively low price.
Children of a family are the focal point for positioning
Lifebuoy compared to Savlon and Dettol Soap which focus on
mothers. We focus children because nowadays children insist
mother to do favor of them. We are also providing trustworthy
information to mother to communicate our specialty. We want to take
satisfaction at reasonable paying positioning statement for lifebuoy
gold.

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7.2 Positioning In Relation To Product Attribute

The primary positioning in product attribute is that lifebuoy gold is number one germ killing
soap brand in the world trusted by families everywhere for over a century which its
competitors do not have. Hence, it is considered a premium brand in the anti-bacterial soap
segment.

7.3 Positioning by price and quality

We want to increase our market share so we will take the market penetration pricing strategy
that means we will use more for same overall value proposition. As lifebuoy is an
established brand, it will be easy for us to face the competitors. Being loyal brand we never
compromise in quality. Because of targeting low and middle segment we have to keep the
price affordable.

8. Marketing Mix:
8.1 Products
The weight of Lifebuoy gold will be 90gm and it will be easily useable. We also provide a
lifebuoy gold mini pack of 45gm. We are giving a special shape of this soap as if it doesnt
slip out from hand. We want to provide several colors to attract customers. To keep the
customer relation managed we will change the design of level every time of new production.

8.2 Price
Lifebuoy has comparatively a high market share in germ killing shop segment, competitors
pressure has forced customer sensitivity to price to be fairly high, sales volume is of course
15

high relative to competitors and profit margin is fairly low as the lifebuoy is fast moving
consumer goods and we are using market penetration pricing. It points to penetration strategy.
This can only be done where demand for the product is believed to be highly flexible,
basically demand is price-sensitive and either new consumer will be attracted, or existing
consumers will buy more of the product because of a low price. A good penetration strategy
may lead to large amount of sales and large market shares.
The strategy may also promote complimentary products. The main product may be priced
low to attract customers.

8.3 Place
As we use mass retail management that means we want to rich at every retail shop in the
country. Moreover we want to open some out let in main stream of locality and gathering
place of people like village hat.it will also help us to get customer
feedback and maintaining CRM. We will also provide some
dealer at some favorable places like remote villages where
competitors usually never think to go.

8.4 Promotion
Opinion leader: We will select some opinion leader at different sub-culture of our
country, such as celebrities, teachers, doctors etc.
Public relations: Building good relationships with the companys various publics by
obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good "corporate image", and handling or
heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.

16

 Intimate communication: Intimate communication

with carefully targeted consumers to obtain an
immediate response and cultivate lasting customer
relationships.
Specialist preference: we want to make such a
brand image that doctors will recommend lifebuoy
gold for germ killer as mediplus is for teeth. For
this we want to get lifebuoy gold certified from
medical point of view and to disseminate this
specialty to the market. We want to take it as one of
our opportunity to ahead the market share.
Health campaign: we want campaigning health awareness program to make people
know about the benefit of being health conscious. It will help to make the rural and
little educated as well as illiterate people aware about our brand.

8.4(a) Selecting Advertising media

As Lifebuoy gold targets low and middle class of the society so we have to take available
media for advertisement like TV, radio, newspapers, billboard etc. The emphasis of
advertising would be on TV advertising. We will also use company website and social video
sites such as YouTube. The advertisement should gain fad position and in theory the target
market will virally spread the advertisement to friends in the same market. Consumers are
highly responsive to videos they have chosen to watch on the TV. It is easy to communicate
people from every class by telecasting video advertisement in a public media.

8.5 People
Lifebuoy gold will use its people as partners so that they can serve the
customer intimately. First we want make a team consisting producer,
intermediaries, retailers and other members to work under same
principle that will help us to satisfy and communicate the
customers. Our people will be cent on cent customer friendly. We
want to intensify our evaluation of people and give them recognition
our partner.

as

8.6 Physical evidence

Lifebuoy gold is concern about its physical evidence. We want to give complete satisfaction
to our customers. So we keep sharp look toward our plant management, quality management,
waste management, customer management, transportation, supply chain, and other including
factors those affect the outsiders view toward our company. For instance, we want to keep a
dress code for our people. We want to make our outlets festive and charming to attract
customers.
17

8.7 Process
We are using continuous process to make core product. We want to make the process safe and
healthy for the employees who work at that sector. A team of engineers will be appointed to
watch the total process of production. We will ensure better quality in processing soap.

9. Review and control

The purpose of Lifebuoy gold marketing plan is to serve as a guide for the organization in
their pursuit to generate brand awareness, increase sales, and build a strong network of
dealers. We will have quarterly report focusing the following areas that will be monitored to
gauge performance:
Revenue: monthly and annual, performance compared to planned sales projections.
This is the key variable to measure because we are to make profit to survive.
Expenses: monthly and annual, compared to planned expenses. As we are taking cost
leadership strategy for the plan, we must cost effective. For this we want to keep
sharp look at our cost with an intention to minimize possible costs.
Research and Development: as a percentage of revenue. We believe that to retain
customers we must bring new value to our
product on a continuous basis. For this we should depend on R&D
department. Here we will use internal marketing to make a bridge of
information between marketing department and
R&D department.
Customer Satisfaction: to result in repeat
purchases and generating active customer
referrals. Our main aim is to make profit by
satisfying customers. For this we want to
depend on two things product value and
promotion.

Appendix
CLV- Customer lifetime value
CRM- Customer Relationship Management
TQM- Total Quality Management
FMCG- Fast Moving Consumer Goods
18

CPV- Customer Perceived Value

SWOT- Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat
BSTI- Bangladesh Standard Testing Institution
FY- Fiscal Year

Bibliography

Kotler, Keller, Koshy, Jha Marketing management, 13ed South Asian

Perspective
Kotler& Armstrong, Principles of Marketing,13ed, South Asian Perspective
www.google.com
www.wikipedia.org
www.unilever.bd.com/lifebuoy
www.facebook.com
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www.prothom-alo.com.

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