Marketing Plan of Dove (micro and macro )

Marketing Plan will provide the broad overview about Unilever Group and Dove. The Micro and Macro environment sections will analyze the internal and external effects that make impact on the development of Dove shampoos. In addition, the current situation of Dove shampoos will be mentioned in detail in SWOT Analysis section, including four parts of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. STP section will discuss about main segments and the current target customers (young adult) of Dove shampoos. It also provides the detailed information about targeting strategy (segmented marketing) as well as the positioning strategy applying to Dove shampoos more for more. In the Marketing Mix Strategy section, the characteristics of convenience products like Dove shampoos will be mentioned specifically and how they mix with price, promotion and distribution. This section also discusses about the close relation between the quality of products and the current price.

DOVE Contents

A Analysis 4

I Introduction 4

II Situation Analysis 4

1 Company Description – Unilever Group 4

2 Product Description – Dove shampoo 5

III Marketing environment 5

1 Micro-environment 5

2 Macro-environment 9

IV SWOT Analysis 11

V Segmentation, Targeting, Differentiation, Positioning 14

1 Segmentation 14

2 Targeting 16

3 Differentiation 17

4 Positioning 17

VI MARKETING MIX STRATEGIES 20

1 Product 20

2 Price 23

3 Place 26

4 Promotion 28

B Objectives 30

C Recommendations 31

I Marketing strategies 31

1 Target markets 31

2 Differentiation and Positioning 31

II SWOT Matrix 32

III Marketing Mix Strategies 33

1 Product 33

E Appendix

V Control 41

D References 42

Executive Summary

The beauty care industry is considered to be a fertile ground for business of many corporations toexploit and expand their competitive position Being an important part of this industry, shampoo itemsalso create huge profits for company with numerous brands for many different markets segmentation.Foreseeing this trend, Unilever, one of two outstanding international corporations achieving the greatsuccess in Vietnamese market with many popular brands such as Lipton and Omo, decides to enterthis potential market with Dove for middle class Dove shampoos were introduced to Vietnameseconsumer for the first time in 2000 In the past 10 years, Dove has launched into market successfullyfour main collections for women, namely Dove Nutritive Therapy Nourishing Oil Care, DoveDamage Therapy Intensive Repair, Dove Straight And Silky, and Dove Hair Fall Rescue AlthoughDove brand belongs to one of the most famous corporations about personal care products, and Doveshampoos has many strengths about features of products, advertising campaign and distribution aswell as customer segment, Dove seems to not achieve high level of market share as expected This can

be explained by the tough competition with other strong brands Therefore, this marketing plan wereprepared for Dove shampoos with the purpose of increasing sales revenue, improving customerawareness as well as profits of company and maintaining competitive position of Dove shampoos incurrent market It also outlines specific strategies with full details and logical structure to building anew image for Dove shampoos and open up the new and developed period for Dove shampoos for thenext one year - from the beginning of June 2013 to the end of May 2014.The first part of theMarketing Plan will provide the broad overview about Unilever Group and Dove The Micro andMacro environment sections will analyze the internal and external effects that make impact on thedevelopment of Dove shampoos In addition, the current situation of Dove shampoos will bementioned in detail in SWOT Analysis section, including four parts of strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats STP section will discuss about main segments and the current targetcustomers (young adult) of Dove shampoos It also provides the detailed information about targetingstrategy (segmented marketing) as well as the positioning strategy applying to Dove shampoos -

"more for more" In the Marketing Mix Strategy section, the characteristics of convenience productslike Dove shampoos will be mentioned specifically and how they mix with price, promotion anddistribution This section also discusses about the close relation between the quality of products and

through the generating overall strategies in SWOT matrix section Besides, some new advises related

to product, price and promotion strategy will be mentioned in this part as well to satisfy new targetsegments, improve reputation and continue to create profits

In addition, the action programs table will be prepared to show how Dove shampoos sets up theplan with the specific budget along with the Control program to track the progress of plan

A Analysis

I Introduction

Due to higher demand from Vietnamese consumers, many foreign products have been produced inVietnam and for Vietnam market only Anglo Dutch Unilever Corporation is one of two outstandinginternational companies which have a range of brands made in Vietnam that can afford to everycustomer in all different classes One of these brands is Dove, which focuses on taking care ofwomen's beauty However, Dove seems to be in a lower market share compared to Pantene andSunsilk, two main shampoo brand competitors coming from P&G Company and Unilever Group Atthe moment, Vietnamese customers become more worried about Dove shampoo’s quality because

of containing toxics leading to cancer Moreover, the high discount in Dove’s products also raises thesuspicions of customers about fake products from Dove shampoo The aim of this report is toanalyze the current situation of Dove shampoo in Vietnam market and give some recommendations

to solve problems and help Dove shampoo stay No.1 in Vietnam hair care market share

II Situation Analysis

1 Company Description – Unilever Group

With the successful slogan – helping people to look good, feel good and get more out of life –Unilever has become one of the world leaders in health and wellbeing aspects The company alsoshows how important of focusing on understanding of 21st century customers and their lives with

more than 400 brands (Unilever 2013)

“Unilever was founded on 1 January 1930 by Antonius JohannesJurgens, Samuel van den Bergh and William Hulme Lever, 2nd ViscountLeverhulme” (Unilever 2013)

Unilever's products have touched the lives of more than two billions ofpeople around the world everyday, from body lotions for women andchildren to cups of tea for old men With the Unilever's mission: "To work

to create a better future every day”, the company also helps people “feel good,look good and get more out of life” (Unilever 2013) with brands and services that are good forcustomers Furthermore, Unilever inspires people to take small actions daily that can contribute tomake a huge difference for the world It will create new ways of doing business that aim to doublecompany size while limiting their influences on environment

2 Product Description – Dove shampoo

Being beautiful is an important demand of women nowadays because when they look morebeautiful, they will feel happier and more confident Understanding that, Dove has created a widerange of care products that help women to take care of their real beauty from head to toe (UnileverVietnam 2013) Being an expert in care products is one of the reasons why Dove stays in globalmarket for more than 50 years (Unilever Vietnam 2013) With considerable experience in hair care,Dove wants to provide Vietnamese women many kinds of shampoo that meet the needs of differenttypes of hair and solve different hair problems (Unilever Vietnam 2013) Dove shampoo has fourmain collections in current Vietnam market

Dove Nutritive Therapy Nourishing Oil Care Shampoo is a specific shampoo

for dry, damaged and rough hair It contains ‘Nutri-oils’, which is a unique

blend of almond oil, coconut and sunflower These essential nutrients can be

absorbed rapidly in order to nourish hair deeply In addition, this preeminent

formula makes hair smooth and shiny without causing greasy hair (Dove

Vietnam 2013) | Price: 95.400 VND (950ml)

Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair Shampoo is a specific shampoo for

strong damaged hair: split ends, breakage, weak and tangled hair With a

double influential technology, Micro Moisture Serum encloses outside hair

cuticles and nourishes hair from root to tip Moreover, Fiber Active helps to

reconstruct and strengthen hair from the inside This kind of shampoo is

proven to reduce split ends up to 95% (Dove Vietnam 2013)

Price: 96.300 VND (950ml)

Dove Straight And Silky Shampoo is a specific shampoo for slightly vulnerable

hair which is in a rough and tangled condition This kind of shampoo is

formulated with Micro Moisture Serum, which helps to nourish and restore

damaged hair epidermises This shampoo also aligns hair fiber and leaves

hair soft, smooth and silky (Dove Vietnam 2013) | Price: 91.500 VND (950ml)

Dove Hair Fall Rescue Shampoo contains Tricazole active element that helps

to nourish hair from root to tip in order to reduce hair fall As a result, hair

will be stronger and people do not have to worry about their hair fall

condition (Dove Vietnam 2013) | Price: 90.000 VND (950ml)

III Marketing environment

1 Micro-environment

Figure 1: The distribution channel firms of Dove shampoo

department has their own accountability The chairman of Unilever Vietnam is JV Raman (Unilever2013) There are both Vietnamese and foreigners controlling each department such as Adam Balarin,the Vice President of Supply Chain, Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development is Dao TuyetMai (Unilever 2013) Rob Rijnders is Vice President- Customer Development, and Tran Vu Hoai isVice President- Corporate Relations Manager (Unilever 2013)

b) Research and development

By the mission to “make Vietnamese lives better”, Unilever has given a wide brand of high qualityproducts with affordable prices such as products in Personal Care brands to Oral Cares products Italso costs more than USD 300 million from Unilever to invest in Vietnam market (Unilever 2013) As

a result, according to Unilever 2013, most products from Unilever Group including Dove shampooare well known products to Vietnamese customers

c) Manufacturing

Unilever has already had five factories in Vietnam in Hanoi, Cu Chi, Thu Duc district in Ho Chi Minhcity and Bien Hoa To expand more, it is opening another factory in Cu Chi (Unilever 2013)

1.2 Suppliers

Vietnam National Chemical Group ( Vinachem) was created in 1995 by Decision No 2180/TTg signed

by Prime Ministry of Vietnam concerning restructuring and rearrangement Vietnam NationalChemical Corporation The group was change into Limited Company in 2010 and located in Hanoi,Vietnam One of the keys trading of the group was providing raw materials for chemical intrustry(Vinachem) Vinachem became a chemical provider to Unilever in September, 2010 AlthoughUnilever purchased the main materials of Vinachem, the company had to import other materials toproduce approximately $100,000,000/ year Therefore, both companies decided that they willcooperate to make needed chemical materials (Vietnamplus 2010) The cooperation broughtsignificant benefits to Unilever The most vital benefit was reducing the costs of raw materials.Therefore, Unilever can save some funds for other departments

Marketing intermediaries

a) Resellers - Retailers

With 350 large distributors and 150,000 small retailers in 80 countries (Unilever 2013), Dove is one

of the shampoo brands focusing on Vietnam market Most supermarkets in Vietnam such asLottermart, Fivimart, Maximax or Coopmart are retailers for Dove shampoo Apart from these largesupermarkets, Dove’s shampoo products are also sold in other small markets including:

 Song Da Industry Trade Joint Stock Company: a company has good reputations in Vietnammarket It located in Ha Noi, Vietnam Since 1996, the company has focused on productssuch as washing detergent, shampoo, hair conditioner, shower gel, bath gel and more(Sodamart 2013)

 Sovina Company Limited: is an

oversea trading company It was

found in 1998 by Mr Michihiro

Yamakawa, who is the support of

Chairman of Sunny Ocean Group

The company offers Dove hair

Supermarkets Lottemart, Maximax orCoopmart

Small markets Sodamart, Sovina, orBinh Minh Food

shampoo,Sunsilk hair shampoo, coca cola, OMO, and others (Sovina 2012).

 Sunrise Foodstuff Joint Stock Company was established in 2009 The company is located in

185 Giang Vo Str Room 903, 9 FL, Giang Vo Street, Cat Linh Ward, Dong Da District, Hanoi,Vietnam Main products and services are grocery, cooking oil, health & beauty andhousehold care It is received the certificate of HACCP, ISO 9001:2000, ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001: 2004 (Binh Minh Food)

b) Physical distribution firms

Unilever has mainly worked in Vietnam market with Lever Viso, Lever Haso since 1995 They becamejoint venture in specializing production and distribution of home and personal care withinternational quality (Baomoi 2010) The active distribution strategy of Dove and Unilever’s productscan be recognized clearly in utilizing any transportation They are motors, containers, trucks or even

a motor with a case behind The company wants to ensure that their products can be delivered tosmall shops in rural areas and the customers in everywhere in Vietnam

c) Marketing service agencies

Although Unilever has their own Marketing department, they still cooperate with Ogilvy and MatherVietnam in Advertising and Marketing section Ogilvy and Mather is one of the largest marketingcompanies in worldwide The firm provides activities such as advertising, promotion, relationshipmarketing, digital marketing and so on (Ogilvy & Mather 2010)

1.3 Customers

With the development of media, the definition of beauty is too confined that “only the young, blondand tall are beautiful” (Datamonitor 2005) Understanding that, Dove’s products have focused onreal beauty of women which means beauty not only comes from youth and slimness but also everyage and every skin color in all over the world (Datamonitor 2005) Therefore, unlike other brandnames, Dove and its shampoo products are targeting to women who are between 25 and 40(ebrandium.com n.d)

1.4 Competitors

a) Main competitors

Competitors in the below table cause a large impact on Dove products including losingsegmentation, pushing more effort and budgets on advertising and promotion, and being aware oflosing the powerful position in Vietnamese shampoo market

Pantene is a brand of Procter & Gamble entering Vietnam in 1995.Realizing the importance of having a healthy hair, Pantene and itsshampoo products provided a good looking and healthy hair for all

Sunsilk entered Vietnam market in 1995 With carefully steps, Sunsilk hasbecome one of the popular brand names among Vietnamese consumer.Sunsilk also shares 13% in shampoo market aimed at women and stays intop 3 Hair care brand and top 2 Hair conditioner brand in Vietnam(Unilever Vietnam 2013).

b) Minor competitors

CLEAR is a branch of Unilever group Including technology solutions inorder to wash away dandruff and other scalp problems, CLEAR startedstep-by-step into Vietnam market and gained success to stay the No.1shampoo in Vietnam (Unilever Vietnam 2013) CLEAR is used by bothmen and women to remove dandruff and prevent it from returning forproviding a smooth and healthy hair

Double rich coming from LG company is suitable with various hairconditions such as thick hair, damages hair or fine hair Its aim is keepinghair healthy and smooth In Vietnam, Double rich has five main productsfor hair care including Double rich Soft & Smooth, Double richRevitalizing, Double rich Breakage control, Double rich Nutri & Smooth,and Double rich Anti-dandruff (Double rich)

1.5 Publics

a) General public

After the announcement of the U.S Department of Health and Human Services about the amount offormaldehyde or also called 1.4 dioxane in some types of shampoo from Johnson & Johnson orL’Oreal is too high and causes cancers to people, Vietnamese consumers are aware of usingshampoo and prefer shampoo from outside Vietnam market instead of domestic products (Bach &Nam 2009) It also leads to the stop of selling shampoos from some large supermarkets such as Big-

C, Coop mart or Martximart until the official conclusions on product quality from Health agencies arepassed (Bach & Nam 2009) This announcement causes the negative awareness of customers onusing shampoo Dove, as one of the largest shampoo productions in the world, is also affectednegatively by it

b) Media public

Dove is very well-known in Vietnamese shampoo market, so many online and printed newspapershave advertised for this brand including Thanh Nien newspaper, Dantri.com.vn, Vnexpress.net, etc.These articles are about how to make good use of Dove to have a smooth and strong hair, or somearticles are written just because of giving a great reputation on Dove shampoo’s quality.Furthermore, with the rapid development of the Internet, Dove is also popular in some socialnetworking sites such as Twitter or Facebook

2 Macro-environment

2.1 Demographic

a) Population and Age structure

According to General Statistical Office (GSO) (Vietnam Online 2011), Vietnam population was85,789,573 in 2009 Until the year 2012, it has increased to 91,519,289 and ranked thirteenth in theworld (CIA 2012) Furthermore, the age group from 15 to 64 years accounts for 69.7% in totalVietnam population (CIA 2012) It can be asserted that Vietnam has a young population and largelabour force Therefore, Vietnam is a potential market to invest and do business

b) Generational marketing

Currently, Vietnam has a young population and they tend to use Internet frequently to update manyuseful information Therefore, online marketing campaign is a new way to approach this potentialmarket Understanding this situation, Dove decided to penetrate this market by doing an advertisingvideo about ‘The Real Beauty’ and uploading it to YouTube (Digital Dream Design 2011) Dove hascreated a breakthrough when this advertising video received 3 million views just only within 3months because of an interesting content (Digital Dream Design 2011) Eventually, Dove has created

a successful marketing campaign through the attractive video online and has been one of the 10strongest brands through the selection of Lander Associates (Digital Dream Design 2011)

c) Geographic Shifts in Population

Vietnam is undergoing a rapid urbanization recently According to General Statistics Office ofVietnam (n.d.), the average population in urban increases from 24.12% in 2000 to 31.75% in 2011.People tend to migrate to major cities such as Ho Chi Minh City (5,976 million) and Ha Noi (2,668million) (CIA 2009) in order to find good jobs and improve their living standard

d) Changes in the workforce

Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2012) states that ‘Vietnamese women account for50.52 percent of the population and 48 percent of the workforce’ British Council (n.d.) also pointsout that ‘Vietnam ranked 11th out of 134 countries on female labour force participation in the2009/10 Global Competitiveness Report’ Moreover, according to UNESCO (cited in Indexmundin.d.), the literacy rate of adult female in Vietnam increased from 86.92% in 1999 to 90.5% in 2009,which is an optimistic number Nowadays, more and more women are participating in the workforceand be well educated Therefore, they have their own stable income and tend to take care ofthemselves more than in the past This is a positive sign for Dove shampoo because Dove’s targetcustomers are women In addition, A recent survey of Dove (cited in Sai Gon Online 2009) indicatesthat 95% Vietnamese women think that a beauty hair make them feel more confident Therefore,Dove will have a chance to widen their market share by providing more types of hair care shampoo

the forty-second in all over the world (CIA 2012) It means that the living standard of Vietnamesetoday is higher than in the past, and people will care more about the quality of their daily lives Inaddition, the inflation rate in Vietnam has gone down from 18.7 % in 2011 to 9.2% in 2012 (CIA2012) This is a considerable decrease because the inflation rate declines approximately two timesjust only within 1 years It is a very good sign because it helps to maintain the stability of theeconomy and the purchasing power of consumers.

b) Changes in income

Figure 2: Income distribution in Vietnam from 1999 to 2008 (Reproduced from: Matthaes 2008)

There is a significant change in income distribution in Vietnam recently As Figure 2 shows, thepercentage of upper class consumers enhances dramatically from 14% in 2003 to 37% in 2008.Meanwhile, the percentage of middle class consumers also rises rapidly from 36% in 2003 to 55% in

2008 Furthermore, the Labor Ministry (cited in Thanh Nien news 2012) noted that ‘the averagemonthly wage in Vietnam increased 19.6 percent to VND3.84 million (US$185) last year’ It provesthat the living standard in Vietnam is improving considerably and obviously, people can afford moreproducts, especially shampoo, to take care of themselves

2.3 Natural

a) Packaging & animal testing

The usage of environmentally packaging design is important objectives of Unilever that affect thebenefits of the company and determine the success in many aspects of business There are twotypes of packaging of Dove shampoo designing for Vietnamese market: Sample and plastic bottle.Both types of packaging are made from plastic containing low density polyethylence (LDPE), which isidentified by code 4 The LDPE#4 signal can be found at the back of the Dove shampoo bottle easily.According to Wilcox (2010), this kind of plastic are considered as one of the safe kinds of plastic forproducts packaging and can recycle easily

Besides that, after the accusations about animal – testing in Lipton tea from PETA as well as Dove belisted on the list of companies that test on animal (PETA, 2013), Unilever now treat this problemmore seriously According to Unilever 2013, they undertake to eliminate the animal testing for theirall products unless it is necessary to protect human health and safety as well as the environment.This process is subject to strict policies and placed under government’s control (Unilever, 2013)

b) Decreased pollution

According to Thai Hang (2010), Nguyen Vinh Long, the deputy chairman of Unilever Vietnam said

that Unilever Vietnam's objective is to improve people life without sacrificing environment benefits

Unilever Vietnam has invested more than 300.000 USD for modern waste processing system with

the capacity of 300 cubic meters per day Chemicals will be collected and burn in the high

temperature to decrease the negative effect to the environment Additionally, Unilever have Safety,

Health and Environment Department to take care of law policies related to environmental

protection and research about the potential risks (Thai Hang, 2010)

c) Sustainable strategies

Unilever recognizes the importance of being positive to the environment as the key to increase their

reputation and customer satisfaction In 2012, Unilever Vietnam foundation carried out many

successful projects for health and hygiene For example: Unilever Vietnam spend 300 VND million to

provide clean water supply system for people in Tam Quang commune and spend 250 VND million to

carried out the 3R project (Unilever 2012)

2.4 Technological

According to TalkingRetail 2010, Dove has held three patented technologies: Fibre Active, Micro

Moisture serum and Trichazole Actives technology for different hair care purposes Furthermore,

Dove introduced hair damage meter to the customers The strength of this meter is to show the

similar result as in the laboratory and can measure anywhere as well as showing the result to

customers in short time ( Hanh Phan, 2011) Dove also is one of the brands that have achieved

success in using Web 2.0 for interaction to their customer such as Facebook and Youtube

( Vietnambranding 2007) Dove also created multiple language website to introduce their

products and contact with their customer

2.5 Political

Due to the appearance of various foreign brands in Vietnam, especially in fast-moving consumer

products, Vietnamese government has propagandized several legislation and programs to encourage

patriotism of Vietnamese people through buying Vietnamese products like "Vietnamese people use

Vietnamese goods" programs These legislations have a huge impact to the way costumers choosing

products Based on vov.vn (2011), nearly 60 percent of Vietnamese people would choose internal

goods rather than external ones Therefore, foreign brands like Dove have to face difficulty in

managing and expanding their business in Vietnam

2.6 Cultural

For hundred of years, Vietnamese women had use soapberry as a

way to wash their hair Through generations to generations, this

habit has grown strongly As a result, many company have put

soapberry flavor into their shampoos in which attract Vietnamese costumers Moreover, some

people used to think that shampoos contain a lot of chemical and using chemical for hair could

damage it These factors could influence their profit as well as their market growth in Vietnam

and one of the main brands for personal

care of Unilever (Vnbrand 2009) Unilever

has given a wide range of high quality

products and Dove shampoo is a famous

product to Vietnamese customers

 Being an expert in care products is one of

the reasons why Dove stays in global

market for more than 50 years

 Dove diversified its products by providing

4 main shampoo collections in order to

meet different needs

 Unilever has already had five factories in

Vietnam in Hanoi, Cu Chi, Thu Duc district

in Ho Chi Minh City and Bien Hoa and is

opening another factory in Cu Chi in order

to produce enough products to satisfy the

market

 Most supermarkets in Vietnam such as Big

C, Lottermart, Fivimart, Maximax or

Coopmart are retailers for Dove shampoo

Apart from these large supermarkets,

Dove’s shampoo products are also sold in

other small markets and grocery stores

throughout the country

 Dove is cooperating with Ogilvy and

Mather, which is one of the largest

marketing companies worldwide

 Dove has created a successful online

marketing campaign named ‘Real Beauty’

through the attractive video and has been

one of the 10 strongest brands through

the selection of Lander Associates

 Dove shampoo packages are made from

safe plastic which can be recycled easily

 Unilever recognizes the importance of

being positive to the environment as the

key to increase their reputation and

customer satisfaction so that it invests to

the modern waste processing system in

order to decrease the negative effects to

the environment

 Dove has 3 modern technologies which are

Fibre Active, Micro Moisture serum and

Trichazole Actives for different hair care

purposes to satisfy different needs of the

customers

Pantene (10.8%), Sunsilk (14%) (TNS Infosys &Nielsen 2006, (cited in TƯ V Ấ N QU Ả N L Ý 2011)

 Although Unilever purchases main materialsfrom Vinachem, the company still has to importother materials Thus, the company is chargedmore costs due to transportation, tax and othermiscellaneous expenses

 The prices of Unilever products are slightly highfor rural customers to afford, especially for whohas low income (Caia 2012)

 In Vietnam, Dove targets the female segmentonly

 Unilever first came to Vietnam in 1995

which is the beginning period of Vietnam

market (Baomoi 2011) After this year, the

company has delivered many kinds of

products and Dove is one of them It

became the familiar brand in the shampoo

industry and attracted many women’s

customers particularly The early coming

 Proctor & Gamble (P&G) is a giant competitor toUnilever in the Vietnam market Both of themcame to Vietnam simultaneously in 1995 andoffer many products in two industries includingfood and health care According to theCNNmoney in (2011), P&G ranked 80th with12,736 million dollars in profit while theUnilever’s profit is 5,621 million dollars withhas brought an advantage to the company 136th Moreover, P&G has just invested in thethat can compete with the other factory in Binh Duong with 80 million dollars

 The tradition and culture of women in P&G may impact on the sales of the Unilever.Vietnam is to have long black hair Now, The reason is that all the products of boththe new trend of Western countries with companies are convenient products Therefore,short and color hair is becoming more the products of P&G with highly distribution andfashionable Moreover, a short hair may large market share will benefit more comparingmake people feel more active and does to the Unilever

not need waste much time for nourishing  The increasing or decreasing in inflation andVietnamese women accept this type of unemployment rate can affect the businesses.hair because of its characteristics The new The reason is that they can influence to thetrend help the company can enter to the purchasing power of customers In Vietnam, the

 The development of mass media creates to 205.8 between 2011 and 2012 (Vietnammany opportunities to the firms in the report) This shows that people purchase lessadvertising industry Bill boards, panels, than the year before As a consequence, thetelevisions, newspapers and internet are Unilever’s sales may be reduced

the best tools to introduce a product to  Besides the competitors inside the country, Dovethe customers Particularly, Internet is a faces the other shampoo brand names frommost important factor Although the foreign countries People tend to refer the bestInternet using has become popular in quality product Therefore, they do not hesitaterecent years in Vietnam, the usage rate to choose the foreign products with highlywill increase rapidly in the future effectiveness It leads to the loose of potentialAccording to the Ministry of information and loyal consumers The production of Unileverand communication in Vietnam, there are may decrease

31,304,211 Internet users in 2012

accounting for 35.58% Internet users per

capita comparing to 3,261,950 users in

2004 and 14,683,783 users in 2006 As a

result, the company can gain more

customers in various classes

 The increasing standard of living leads to

the demand for many products that serve

health and beauty It creates more

opportunities for the company to increase

the production

 In recent months, Dove has a scandal that theproduct contains formaldehyde which can createcancer for the users (Dantri 2012) Theinformation spreads quickly by the media As aresult, Dove’s image is damaged in the market

V Segmentation, Targeting, Differentiation, Positioning.

_ Appearance is one of the top concerns ofteenagers

_ Teenagers often spend their time to watch TV,access to the Internet and then easily beattracted to the cool advertising

_ University students also care about how theirappearance looks like, but they may be moreactive to select and classify the information

They also have many opportunities toparticipate in societal activities as well as bemore aware of the world they live in, so theywill care about the effect of chemical products

to the e nv ironm ent YOU N G A D U L TS (T a r g et s e g mentati on )

P s y c ho gr aphi c Lifestyle

_ They may spend much time and budget forimproving their appearance

_ The luxurious and elegant design of productmay get their satisfaction

_ Th e y o ft e n d y e c o l o r and cu r l their h a ir

Behavioral Age: 15 to 25

Gender: Female

Income: Most of customers in this segment are at

school ages so that they still depend on their

parents and do not have income The remains may

be independent in finance

Occupation: Students

Loyalty: teenager might pay attention to the new

things but their taste may change quickly Theirview can be affected by family, friends, celebrityand education

Occasion: daily uses Usage rate: quite high rate

2.

Age: 25 to 40

Gender: Female

Income: Almost customers in this segment are

independent in finance and have middle-high

income

Occupation: Every occupation

Loyalty: prefer products that express a good quality

and then they can be faithful users

 Company have to spend much time and effort to gain this group of customer

Occasion: daily users, gift for Valentine Day and

holiday

P s y c ho gr aphi c Lifestyle

_ Female are over age 50 often worry abouthair loss ( Sian 2013)

_ They are independent in finance and careabout their appearance ( Phuong Trinh, cited inFTA research 2012)

_ They are often the person who buy food,personal care product for their families as well

as themselves

 The person who often decides how

to spend money to satisfy theirfamily need (Phuong Trinh, cited inFTA research 2012)

_ They are interested in products that are goodfor their health and their family health

_ They have experience in product usage andmight have good analytical skill(Bachkhoatrithuc 2013)

Usage rate: heavy rate

3.

Behavioral Age: over 40

Gender: Female

Income: middle-high income

Occupation: Every Occupation

Loyalty: want to economize their time and budget

to choose the product that offers the mostsatisfaction

Benefits sought: Tricazole actives of Dove treat hair

loss, affordable prices, available in supermarketand stores in the whole countries

Occasion: gift, daily uses Usage rate: low rate

cosmetic or hair care companies to attract more

indiv mar

Differentiated mented) marketing

Undifferentiated s) marketing

Figure 4: Targeting strategy of Dove shampoo in Vietnam (Adapted from 29secrets.com

2012, and makeupandbeauty.com)

Dove shampoo is focusing on differentiated marketing that they can provide many types of shampoo

matching with many types of hair problems To specific, there are four main kinds of shampooproduced in Vietnam including:

 Dove Nutritive Therapy Nourishing Oil Care Shampoo which is used by women who have athick, heavy, frizzy or dry hair (29secrets.com, 2012)

 Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair Shampoo helps to prevent hair breakage

 Women having rough and tangled hair can also use Dove Straight And Silky Shampoo as agood treatment to make hair less frizzy and smoother (makeupandbeauty.com)

 To solve hair fall condition, Dove has produced a type of shampoo called Dove Hair FallRescue Shampoo in order to provide moisture and make hair thicker

By introducing four main types of shampoo in Vietnam market, Dove is using differentiated marketing (segmented marketing) to achieve higher sales and market share.

2.2 Target markets

Dove’s products used to target every woman at different ages, but now the main targeting market iswomen from 25 to 40, and there are several reasons for this

choice

First, women usually want healthy, youth and active lifestyle last

longer (cosmeticsdesign.com) As a young age, women may be

too busy to take care of family or to have promotion in their

career, so they may not pay attention much to their appearance

However, when they get older, they may start to realize their

beauty just stay with them temporarily, so it is an opportunity for

Besides, hair is one of parts that make a woman look differently to others (hair2stay.co.uk) Thismeans hair is more important to women (Arizona State University sociologist Rose), but it is changed

a lot when women are over 30 (hairfinder.com) it can be thinner, drier or even more brittle thanbefore (hairfinder.com) Therefore, Dove‘s main targeting market is to attract more women throughdifferent kinds of Dove shampoo for different hair’s problems, especially to supply nutrition tovarious types of hair

Finally, according to dantri.com.vn, the standard of living of Vietnam was only 140 USD, but it hasincreased to 1.600 USD since 2012 This is to say, customers’ income has increased nearly 12 times(dantri.com.vn) As a result, most Vietnamese women between 25 and 40 can afford to buy manyDove products than in the past

3 Differentiation

The competitive advantage is the advantage the company has that gained over the competitors byoffering differentiations There are five differentiations that a company can attain They are product,service, channel, people and image differentiations The Unilever offered product and imagedifferentiations that make its product differ from its competitors

a) Product differentiation:

Innovation plays a vital role in Dove shampoo In the past, people referred the shampoo with themain purpose that having a strong hair However, the beauty needs are more than having a stronghair Dove recognizes these demands in the early and offers different kinds of shampoo Seven types

of shampoos’ Dove are sold in the United State market and four of them appear in the Vietnamesemarket They are nourishing oil care, revival, intensive repair and daily moisture shampoos Thecreativity in shampoo brings the differences in each one and match to the customers’ needs Forexample, Nourishing oil care shampoo are made of mineral oil and natural almond Both twoelements provide the important nutrients that help users’ hair is smooth, shine and soft (Dove).Intensive repair shampoo helps rebuilding hair and preventing from breakage with MicromoistureSerum formula (Dove)

4 Positioning

4.1 Positioning maps

Figure 5.1: Positioning map with quality and price

Based on the positioning map, Dove provides high quality product in a reasonable price compared toPantene, which offers the best quality but having a higher price Although Dove brings many types ofshampoo with a suitable price to all customers, it should improve the quality to match the needs ofhigher class people Moreover, in a long-term, Dove should be careful with Double Rich and Clearwhich are also competitors in hair care market Although Double Rich and Clear are cheaper thanDove, they offer suitable quality products with a good price (around 60,000 VND) that satisfy theconsumer needs, and they could also develop their shampoo in the future in order to have a highermarket share

Figure 5.2: Positioning map with consumer awareness and most often used

The second positioning map illustrates the connection between the brand awareness of Vietnameseconsumers and the frequency of using these shampoos According to the map, Clear is the mostawareness brand (96.5%) and used by a majority of customers (27.6%) Although Dove has a highbrand awareness percentage (88.8%), only around 12% of Vietnamese customers chose Dove astheir daily shampoos Compared to Dove, Pantene are being used by more consumers than Dove inspite of their low brand awareness Thus it means that even though Dove has spent a vast amount ofmoney for promoting their products, the sale volumes are seemed to outweigh the advantage ofhigh customer awareness This issue should be analyzed and discussed carefully to come up thecauses as well as recommendation

Based on the two maps, Dove has proved that they are a strong brand in which offer to theconsumers high quality products and have a top customer awareness in the industry However, Dovehas to consider some problems about unreasonable prices and their low sale volumes if they want to

be the market leader in shampoo field

4.2 Value proposition

Figure 6: Dove Shampoo overall strategy (Adapted from Table 1b)

To compete with other competitors such as Sunsilk or CLEAR, Dove is using “More for more” strategy

in order to attract customers caring about hair conditions In addition, Dove shampoo always has ahigher price than other brand names, except for Pantene The price of Double Rich and CLEARshampoo is around 60,000 VND per 350g(Table 1b) Meanwhile, Sunsilk has the lowest price compared to other competitors which is at50,000VND However, with 65,000 VND, Dove can provide many benefits to customers such as manytypes of shampoo or beautiful designs

4.3 Positioning statement

Dove chooses to target women at the ages from 25 to 40 years old with the brand concept is “to

because it makes women feel more confident in their appearance.Therefore, to prove that thecompany is understanding customers’ thought, Dove has established a campaign for Real Beautywhich is also called “Real Beauty for Women” (Unilever 2013) The aim is to support women “toembrace their own real beauty” (Unilever 2013) At the same time, this campaign also emphasizedthat Dove has tried to build a friendly relationship with its customers (tukhoa.vn) A successfulstatement has attracted more customers to use Dove shampoo and has made them understand howthey really feel about what real beauty is (Baomoi, 2009)

VI MARKETING MIX STRATEGIES

1 Product

1.1 Product classification

Familiar with other shampoo brands, Dove is classified as convenience products because customerscould purchase them easily and promptly in many places, including supermarkets, markets andconvenience stores without paying much attention to the prices Taking advantages of Unilever'ssupply chains, Dove has spread their products to the majority of cities and towns in Vietnam.Although Dove shampoo is a convenience product, the performance of it through many years ofselling in Vietnam has taken the mind of Vietnamese consumers In 2011, Dove became the first $3billion personal care brand of Unilever (Unilever, 2011)

b) Actual products

Brand

Dove has started since 1957 in the US, and now, it is one of the mostfamous brands of Unilever for personal health care (Unilever 2013).Dove’s iconic Beauty Bar is not only the outstanding product of Dovebut also is known as the “#1 Dermatologist Recommended brand in US,Canada and France” (Unilever 2013) Moreover, according to Unilever

2013, Dove’s market- oriented is to produce products that help toenhance “the condition of skin or hair and give a pleasurableexperience of care”

Dove logo has its own story Unilever first developed Dove for the

need of the Navy in order to solve skin and hair problems coming

from sand exposure and sea water (logoorange 2013) Then in 1957,

Dove is turned into a commercial brand that everyone can see it

everywhere (logoorange 2013) To remember its original purpose,

Dove has used a pigeon to represent peace as well as “inner beauty

and not just superficial elements” (logoguru 2010) Therefore, Dove

is easily recognized relying on the peace pigeon

c) Augmented products

Features

Dove products utilize many new technologies to protect hair includingVibrant Color Lock technology and UV Complex which help to protectcolor of hair all day, and keep it shine and vibrant (Dove US 2013).Moreover, with New Color Care Daily Treatment Conditioner, Doveshampoo can protect the health of hair by sealing cuticles to keepnutrients (Dove US 2013)

Dove’s website provides the information about the updated products, recommendations and themaking hair beauty’s approaches (Dove) It is very useful for women who work in the office all day.They will have knowledge about the products without wasting time in various products in thesupermarkets Moreover, the website has videos, games and quizzes that help the customers havemore experiment in utilizing Dove’s shampoo (Dove) Finally, the Dove’s site is web 2.0 Therefore,customers can present their feedback and share their experiment to the other users (Dove) The site

is very convenient and brings the consumers to the brand quickly

1.3 Brand development strategies

Dove is an outstanding case study in applying the Brand Extension strategy to expand their impact.

Beside producing and selling shampoos, Dove is also the brand of a wide range of fast-consumingproducts focusing on personal beauty consist of hair care, skin care and deodorant with 21 products

in Vietnam This strategy has brought many benefits for Dove It could increase the brand image ofDove they bring to the market high quality products Moreover, Dove could reduce the expense ofintroductory and follow up marketing program for brand recognition, and it brings more choices to

customers However, using Brand Extension strategy could be a threat for Dove if new products

generate implications that damage the brand image

Figure 8 Brand Development

Also, Dove has applied Line Extension strategy for its shampoo product category Dove extends its

shampoo into four main collections in current Vietnam market for different hair types such as DoveNutritive Therapy Nourishing Oil Care Shampoo, Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair Shampoo,Dove Straight And Silky Shampoo and Dove Hair Fall Rescue Shampoo (Dove Vietnam 2013).Moreover, Dove shampoos have different sizes (170g, 340g, and 650g for bottle and 7g for travelpack) and different colors (gold, blue, pink and green) Thus, consumers can choose the shampoobased on the functions as well as their usage rate

Line extension strategy can bring many benefits to the company such as helping the company to

meet the variety of consumers’ needs Furthermore, the company can lower the cost of promotionwhen it wants to introduce new products and can occupy more shelf space in the supermarkets tocreate brand’s awareness in customers’ mind

1.4 Product Life-cycle Management

The recession of the world’s economy have made the huge impact on many different business'sactivities However, the beauty care

industry does not have a downtrend of

performance In facts, this industry has a

rapid increase in sales with the

estimative profits achieving 382 billion

dollar per year (Songmoi 2012)

Therefore, many brands can still

maintain their performance and have

many opportunities to develop their

brand value, including Dove

Dove is placed at Growth stage Owing to

effective of marketing as well as

developing strategies, dove products get

the significant increase in their sale

Figure: Product life cycle of Dove (Adapted from

Pauroblog, 2013)

revenue as well as their brand value placing in the to p ten of favorite personal care brands in 2010,according to Nielsen Besides, in the current survey about shampoo market in Vietnam in 2012launched by Vinaresearch, Dove get the quite high awareness of Vietnamese consumers, withaccounting for 88.8% as well as being the second brand in awareness of woman group

In shampoo market of Vietnam, Dove products are facing with many others competitive brand such

as Pantene, Rejoice, Enchanteur etc A strength of Dove shampoo is to focus on damaged hairtreatment and hair loss rescue, which may having less competitors than dandruff-specializedproducts However, in that area, Dove meets the difficult situation when they have to face Pantene

of P&G, which is known as “a global brand” In addition, it seems that the advertising of Doveshampoo do not create the strong impression to the customers as others did ( W&S research team2013)

However, according to W&S research team (2013), there is about 97 percent that have the idea ofchanging to another shampoo brands Furthermore, it is the negative trend that the classicaladvertising through media does not show the highly effective as in the past (Ecd 2013) Therefore,Dove still has the chance to attract the consumers through the advertising campaigns and the way ofdistribution in order to improve their awareness and loyalty

In order to improve their growth, Dove needs to improve their quality of the products, care aboutthe packaging of products and invest more for the attractive advertising campaign

in order to increase market share, Dove has attached special importance to provide a wide range ofproducts to satisfy the different needs and wants of consumers (Unilever Vietnam 2013) Anotherobjective is that Dove should try to outdistance its competitors by developing the quality of theirproducts in the future to meet the needs of consumers from higher class

Realizing that almost people live in rural area have low income, Unilever Vietnam has proposed aprice strategy in order to bring a good price to the consumers Unilever has cooperated with manylocal middle and small businesses to have raw materials right away instead of importing them It is

b) External factors

1 Types of market:

To set the price, the marketers need to analysis the different characteristics of each market In purecompetition market, no firm is large enough to control the whole market as well as setting the pricesindependently without depending on the market prices (Economiconline 2013) However, according

to Larry (2005), the pure competition market only exist in stringent conditions such as the quantityand size of each firm is similarity, only applying to homogeneous products and the products canbeing replaced to each other easily If all of those fail to occur simultaneously, the imperfectcompetition market will happen (Larry 2005) In the case of Dove shampoo, the marketers can makeprice decisions based on their knowledge about imperfect competition market To be more accurate,Dove shampoo is in monopolistic competition market, which including many firms produce theproducts having different features, design or style (Saga 2009) The shampoo market in Vietnam isquite diversified with numerous brands from different firms such as Clear and Dove of Unilever,Pantene and Head& Shoulder of P&G, Enchanteur from Wipro Unza etc However, because of thedifferentiated products of each firm, they are more active in making price decisions According toHoang Trung (2013), the company may have ability to set the higher price depending on theproducts value in order to capture maximum profit in return without worrying about losing all theircustomers However, the company also should care about the price of the competitors to set thesuitable price for their products

Dove shampoo is the product for the customer objects of middle class Dove shampoo has many strengths such as holding 3 patented technologies( TalkingRetail 2010), the impressive marketing campaigns about “real beauty of women” and focusing on damaged hair care segment (Unilever 2013), which it still has limited amount of competitors Therefore, the price of Dove shampoo is slightly higher than others, which the price of Dove has nearly 2 times higher than Sunsilk for lower class and 3 times higher than Head & Shoulder( Vietlinkgroup 2012).

2 The demand:

Figure 9: Equilibrium Price (Adapted from Tradingcharts 2013)

The company needs to consider the relationship between the demand and the price In the commoncircumstance, the higher the price is, the lower the demand is and vice versa ( Tradingcharts 2013).The increase in prices may lead to the consumer restrain their expenses In this case, the companymay decide to decrease the price to meet the demand of consumers If the decrease of price canresult in the increase of demand, it means there has the elasticity of demand According to DNA

2013, low elasticity of demand means the decrease in price that leading to the sales volume do notincrease significantly, which result in the profit declining On the contrary, high elasticity of demandmeans the price decrease that lead to the increase in sales volume as well as the profits (DNA 2013)