Consumer Behavior

Q1. What are the consumers' beliefs regarding benefits from the different brands of shampoos? Do users and nonusers differ in their cognitive and affective beliefs?

Clinic Plus Prevents dandruff

Smell Fresh Healthy and Strong Fragrance Brand For Family Trust Looks Beautiful Correlation to Ad Refreshed and Revived

Cognitive 3.8
3.9 4.0 3.9 3.6 3.7 4.1 3.5 3.5

Affective

Head and Shoulders Prevents dandruff 3.9

Cognitive

Affective

Smell Fresh
Healthy and Strong Fragrance

3.9
3.8 3.9

Recommendation 3.8 Hair Experts

CHIK Soft Smooth Fresh Fragrance Untangled and Smooth 3.9 3.8 3.9 3.8 3.8 Healthy & Strong 3.8

Cognitive

Affective

Q2. Compare consumers' involvement levels for shampoos and toothpastes (Refer to Himalaya Case)? Applying feel-do-learn hierarchy explain the differences.

From Exhibit 9, the following points appear on the high agree side:

Try out shampoo recommended by friend or relative Shampoo cleans hair better than soap Shampoo makes my hair look beautiful Shampoo is used when I wash oil

Shampoo bought in sachets

Shampoo makes hair strong and healthy

Shampoo is not as such used by the users for all the functionalities mentioned above, since most of the respondents use soap (37%) and shikakai (67%) already and shampoo is used only by 24% users

Answer#2 contd.

Moreover, shampoo is perceived with a functional benefit such as washing oil off the hair. This shows that shampoo is a low involvement product with affective (feeling) uses. However, if we look for Himalaya toothpaste, in terms of Niche Problem solving as per exhibit 6, it is 92% in cognitive aspects and 72% for affective aspects (Table 3). Also, as per table 5, 89% are low involvement and high attitude consumers. Therefore, even though it is low involvement, it is relatively higher involvement than shampoos. Also, the functional benefits of toothpaste are more than that of shampoo. Therefore, toothpaste would appear in the third quadrant of feel do learn hierarchy whereas shampoo in rural and semi urban would appear in the fourth quadrant.

The price of shampoo is substantially low. 99 % users use sachets which have a cost as low as INR 0.5-3. This also shows that shampoo is a low involvement product. Similarly the price of toothpaste is more and thus has relatively higher involvement levels. The usage of toothpastes is on a daily basis which is perceived somewhat essential. However, the same is not applicable for shampoos.

There is difference in involvement levels of shampoo (slightly lesser) to toothpastes (slightly more).
On mapping both products on the feel-learn-do hierarchy, toothpaste would appear on the third quadrant (Do-LearnFeel) whereas shampoo would appear on the fourth quadrant (Do-Feel-Learn).

Q3. What is the influence of shampoo advertisements (Stimulus properties) on cognitive and affective evaluations of consumers? Why are these differences important for Super Shampoo?

In the Clinic plus advertisement we find that the mother daughter storyline sends the message that clinic plus keeps the hair healthy and strong and lets the protagonist be more confident and uninhibited.

In the Chik advertisement the protagonist is a young woman who demonstrates that the hair remains smooth and tangle free after usage of Chik shampoo and it makes her confident.
The head and shoulder advertisement focusses more on the rationale thinking process of the consumer by providing lot of technical product features that helps in solving the dandruff problem. The same is reflected in the answers to the questionnaire where all the top ranking answers are cognitive response rather than affective. This influence of advertisement on cognitive and affective decision making in the mind of the consumer is important for super shampoo as it shows which stimulus in the ad is more strong and helps the consumer in its purchase decision .As 93% consumer recall the clinic plus ad unaided, super shampoos brand communication should have a mixture of both affective and cognitive stimulus.

Q4. Does perceptual threshold play any role in defining attention related factors for shampoo category?

Yes it does play a significant role.

The key attention related factors in advertisements:

1. Usage of influencers -mother, celebrity (increases trust factor for the brand) as a influencer
2. Making the product aspirational by making the protagonist more confident after product usage. 3. Cognitive aspects like using product features strong, beautiful and healthy hair, removal of dandruff etc. There are 3-4 brands available in the target market for Super Shampoo. So the brand communication has to provide enough stimuli to create a j.nd compared to the other brands. Clinic plus is using a mother daughter combination, where the mother acts as a influencer. From the case we find that clinic plus ads have the highest % of unaided brand recall at 93% .So super shampoo must create a advertisement so that a differential threshold is created between its advertisement and that of clinic plus

Q5. Marketing Strategy for Super Shampoo

Product: cosmetic, with shine, health and anti-breakage properties; available in small bottles of 25-100 ml and sachets Price: Sachets: between 50p to Rs2 Place: Rural Karnataka Promotion: As Super would not have a big budget, promotion can be done through radio, local cable channels and advertisements in local newspapers. As women are the chief users of shampoo, and they buy the groceries and personal care products for the entire family, the promotional activities should be directed towards them.

Segmentation: Lower economic strata of consumers, present in rural areas, who aspire to have a lifestyle like those of urban people someday.
Targeting: Mainly women, between the age of 25-40 years old Positioning: The brand should be positioned as a medium quality, low price brand to capture the aspiring segment of the market. They want to try new and better products but they have only a limited budget to do so. As Super Shampoo would be a cosmetic shampoo, it would be priced competitively with other cosmetic shampoos such as Clinic Plus and Chik shampoo.

Marketing Strategy of Himalaya

Product: Himalaya Dental Cream, with natural ingredients like neem, extracts of toothache tree wtc Place: Urban and semi-urban areas all over the country. Promotion: As it is a product in the overall oral health segment, its promotional activities should focus on depicting the benefits of Himalaya Dental Cream, with a focus on the ayurvedic ingredients. It should have print ads in relevant newspapers and magazines which are preferred by its target segment for maximum visibility. Segmentation: Young males and females, between the age of 20-35, living in tier I and tier II cities Targeting: Educated youth, who understand the medical benefits of Himalaya toothpaste and choose it for that reason