GROUP 7B: PEARS
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR PROJECT

GROUP MEMBERS
Gaurav Jain (B10079)
Kapil Dhanania (B10083)
Riddhi Mazumdar (B10104)
Sahil Ahuja (B10105)
Souvik Halder (B10112)
Sulabh Govila (B10113)
Contents

PEARS BRAND HISTORY 3 Change in 2009: 4 OBJECTIVE 4 PEARS POSITIONING: A MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE 5 Pears Brand Manager: Insights from Interview 6 NEED RECOGNITION: 8 Insights from customer interactions: 8 Company Recommendations 9 INFORMATION SEARCH: 10 Insights from customer interactions: 10 Recommendations for company: 10 EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES: 12 Insights from customer interactions: 12 Recommendations for company: 13 PRODUCT CHOICE 15 Insights from customer interaction: 15 Company Recommendations 16 APPENDIX 18

PEARS BRAND HISTORY
Pears transparent soap is a brand of soap first produced and sold in 1789 by Andrew Pears at a factory just off Oxford Street in London, England. It was the world's first transparent soap. According to Unilever records, Pears Soap was the world's first registered brand and is therefore the world's oldest brand.
Launched in India in 1902, Pears exuberates a long heritage of purity and pristine. Pears soap is now made in India by Hindustan Lever a company in which Unilever controls a fifty-two percent stake.
Pears Pure & Gentle: It is enriched with pure glycerine and natural oils that gently moisturize skin to keep it smooth while its mild fragrance and soft lather ensure that your skin gets the pampering it deserves.
Pears Germshield: Enriched with Mint Extract, it is clinically proven to fight germs without being harsh on skin or without upsetting the delicate oil-water balance, leaving skin feeling soft and supple.
Pears Oil Clear: Its special ‘oil-clear’ formula contains Lemon Flower Extracts known to have natural astringent properties. It helps to clean away the excess oil from your skin.
Change in 2009:
In October 2009 the formula for the transparent amber soap was altered from the original formula to become 'Gentle Care' wrapped in an inner cellophane covering. The new soap was slightly softer in texture and lasts half as long; the most noticeable difference was the scent. The aroma of the classic transparent amber bar, which used to be characterized by a mild, spicy herbal fragrance, was altered to a stronger aromatic scent. The "Hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic" claim was dropped due to the new ingredient additions.
HUL, with its plethora of products offerings, has a very strong presence in almost all product categories in India. HUL has been looking at opportunities to expand into sub-categories under the skin cleansing category, wherein they can tap nascent sub-categories and open up product expansion avenues. In this context, HUL has attempted to identify variants wherein the Pears brand can expand, while maintaining brand salience. HUL has attempted to achieve this by encouraging a keen sense of consumer centricity in its operations and instituted a comprehensive mechanism to feel the pulse of the consumer. With a number of competitors in every product space, and an evolving consumer base, an accurate understanding of consumer needs and probable solutions, without contravening the basic tenets of the brand, is essential.
OBJECTIVE
* To analyze consumer behavior with regards to the scope of offerings under Pears * To identify brand awareness and perception of Pears * To discover how decision making process unfolds leading up to purchase decision in this product category via in depth interviews * On the basis of aforesaid needs, perform further analysis to come out with specific recommendations for Pears * Analyze advertisements of Pears over the past 10 years and analyse the advertising tactics used for Pears
PEARS POSITIONING: A MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE
Over the years Pears has come up with various brand extensions. The brand extended itself to kid's category with the launch of Pears Junior and also into personal care segment with products like face wash. Pears also launched variants like Mint, Aloe Vera, Oil control etc. during this period. Although the brand launched these variants, the core positioning of the brand remained the same for the original soap.
The brand is very consistent about the positioning strategy. Pears is built on the wonderful relationship between the Mother and Child. All Pears ads captured this emotion quite perfectly. The brand focused on its “Transparency" and is positioned as a " Pure and Gentle Soap”.
However now, Pears has come up with a tagline – Masoom in its new marketing campaign. Masoom translates to Innocence. So Pears now celebrates a new brand value - Innocence. Masoom concept works very well for Pears. The concept of innocence fits with the “transparency” and Pure & Gentle positioning. Pears is one of those brands which did not have a tagline. Without the help of the tagline, the brand was able to communicate its core positioning. The core brand values of Pears was communicated through visual cues earlier but now with the new tag line in place the company is making a conscious effort to woo customers by highlighting the cognitive factors too instead on just positioning itself on the emotive feelings that a mother and daughter share.

Pears Brand Manager: Insights from Interview

To better understand the view point of the company – Hindustan Unilever Limited an in-depth interview was conducted with the Brand Manager – Skin Cleansing Business Unit. The key insights developed from the interaction were:-
Pears is one of the oldest soap brands in the world. Launched in India in 1902, the brand commands a unique position in the mind of the people. There is still virtually no competition for the brand in its segment. Pears is unique from other ordinary soaps in that the glycerine is retained in the soap. Pears is famous for the transparency and company shows it as the sign of purity. The soap is mellowed under controlled condition and is individually polished and packed in cartons. The traditional Pears is amber coloured and there are two variants. However the cause of concern for HUL is that even though Pears is the market leader in its segment or category, the bottom line is the niche segment as such is limited in size, it accounts for 4-5 % of the market share in the premium soap category. What is most alarming is that Pears just forms 1% in the overall soap market. The company now faced the following challenges/ concerns and we as a group used the Consumer Behaviour principles studied in class to provide suggestions and recommendations for the same.

1. Expansion in sub category under the skin cleansing category :

HUL, with its plethora of products offerings, has a very strong presence in almost all product categories in India. HUL has been looking at opportunities to expand into sub-categories under the skin cleansing category, wherein they can tap nascent sub-categories and open up product expansion avenues. In this context, the company has attempted to identify variants wherein the Pears brand can expand, while maintaining brand salience. HUL has attempted to achieve this by encouraging a keen sense of consumer centricity in its operations and instituted a comprehensive mechanism to feel the pulse of the consumer. With a number of competitors in every product space, and an evolving consumer base, an accurate understanding of consumer needs and probable solutions, without contravening the basic tenets of the brand, is essential.

2. Positioning of Pears

Mr XYZ revealed that there were internal conflicts going on whether to re position Pears (by launching variants) to gain market traction. Earlier the adverts played on the emotive factors between a mother and a young daughter but now lot of cognitive factors like presence of glycerine, moisturizer and Innocent on skin (“Masson Twacha”) were explicitly showcased. We plan to analyse this change in advertising tactics and check for relevancy of message communication with visual cues or verbal ones.

Company Action:
To strive for a better share than its current share of a mere 1 % in the overall soap category, HUL decided to strengthen the brand with two variants: Blue for Germ fighting and Green for Oil Control. These are already launched in the Indian market and according to the brand manager the performance is as per expectation.
NEED RECOGNITION:
Insights from customer interactions:
Among the people we interviewed, there was a distinct inclination towards a need for a personal hygiene product that they wanted to indulge in. A soap or a shampoo, for e.g., was no longer considered to be a very low involvement product that you purchase just right out of the shelf. They were also looking at things like the look and feel of the product- the aesthetic values attached and the convenience of its usage.
The customers in this segment saw themselves as hard-working and hence ready to indulge in luxury. Also they felt that since they would be travelling a lot, a product which would provide better storage and convenience of use would be ideal for them.
So we felt that there was a need to bridge the gap customers were feeling in between their ideal self-concept and the existing product image for Pears.

Consumers were asked to rate 15 different attributes on a seven point semantic differential scale to measure their self-concept, ideal self concept, image of Pears soap, and image of a Pears body wash (refer to snake chart in appendix). It was noticed that the score of image of Pears soap enhances self concept for 3 attributes, degrades self concept for 4 attributes, and falls between self and ideal concept for 8 attributes. However, out of the 8 attributes it falls in between, its score was closer to self concept for 6 of the attributes rather than being closer to ideal-self concept. Whereas, for Pears body wash, the score of its image enhances self concept for 6 attributes, degrades for 2 attributes, and falls in between for 7 attributes. Moreover, out of the 7 attributes that falls in between, its score was closer to self concept for 3 attributes and closer to ideal self concept for the rest 4 attributes. This exercise highlighted that there is a need gap for the target consumer segment which can be fulfilled by introducing a Pears body wash.
Company Recommendations
It is important to highlight the fact that the results of this survey is based on interviews conducted with people that belong to SEC-A. Hence, this need gap might not be present in the mass segment, but it does exist for our target segment.
The scores on the self concept brought to our notice the attributes important for our target segment and the positioning of the product would be based on these attributes. These are the attributes on which the score of the image of body wash was closer to ideal self concept. The attributes that should be of utmost importance are delicate, comfortable, pleasant, emotional, simple and colourful. It makes sense for the company to focus on these while positioning the product as this is what the target segment is looking for. For instance, the emotional component has always been the focus of Pears soap and it fits better with the body wash as well, so this can be tapped in advertisements as well.

INFORMATION SEARCH:
Insights from customer interactions:
From the data accrued from the in-depth interviews conducted, we could derive the following insights, it can be seen that men and women differed in the avenues they resorted for finding out suitable products that fit their need. While men went primarily on advertisements, women involved their peers to a much greater degree for information. This could be attributed to the fact that women are a lot more careful about the skincare products that they use, and a have a much wider range of evaluative criteria for selecting their products.
While advertisements serve to increase the awareness of the product, the opinion of friends and close ones is a highly decisive factor in influencing their opinions. It can also be seen that beauticians are also referred to for creating the awareness set, from which the consideration set and the evoked set subsequently follow. Also, the survey results denote a greater preference for Pears among women, who in turn would refer the product to others if satisfied.
Wider range of evaluative criteria for women vis-à-vis men
Channel importance:
Men – Advertisements
Women – Peer review Recommendations for company:
Hence, consumer satisfaction is an important parameter that the company should be focusing on so as to encourage positive word-of-mouth. This would help to garner a greater share of potential customers by positioning Pears as a possible viable solution. This could be done by way of testimonial advertisements, a.k.a. Dove, wherein the positive aspects of the product could be talked about. This would be in addition to the affective advertising strategy already being followed.

EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES:
Insights from customer interactions:
It has been seen that while the product does have considerable brand recall, fewer people remembered the brand message, and even fewer people included it in their consideration set [refer Questionnaire].
The alternatives in the awareness set were evaluated primarily on the following basis: 1. Need and Value Proposition Fit: A person looking for a cleanser would not associate with the beauty proposition of a Lux. 2. Product attribute and Consumption Pattern Fit: A heavy soap user who uses mainly for cleansing doesn’t favour a soap that forms less lather and doesn’t last long. 3. Post purchase behaviour / Peer review / Past experience: Being an administered product, most people are reluctant to become the early adopters. Also negative WOM has a very high dissuading effect on purchase intention. Respondent No. | Need & Value proposition Fit | Product Attribute & Consumption Pattern fit | Experience and Peer Review | Respondent 1 | | X | X | Respondent 2 | | X | X | Respondent 3 | X | X | X | Respondent 4 | X | | X | Respondent 5 | | | X | Respondent 6 | X | X | | Respondent 7 | | X | |
Problems with Pears:
Awareness: High, but low recall of brand message
Evaluative criteria: * Used only in winters * Does not generate lather * Does not moisturize * Not as good as others in terms of fragrance

Consideration set: Low inclusion rates in consideration set

From the graphic shown above [refer In-depth interviews for performance on Evaluative Criteria, and Questionnaires for Brand Awareness & Purchase Consideration], we can identify the reasons why Pears does not form a part of the consideration set for many customers.
Recommendations for company:
The consumer behaviour in the soap category is mainly governed by two need sets: 1. Attribute based Need 2. Aspiration Based Need

Based on our insights from customer interactions, the company should aim to favourably influence the customers by incorporating the following framework in their decisions:

Type of need | Alternatives evaluation | Post purchase behaviour & repurchase intention | Marketing Implication | Attribute Based Need | Lexicographic, disjunctive, compensatory | * Repurchase highly affected by consumption experience | Advertising: Include alternative comparison to reduce complexity of decision making.Promotion: Maintenance strategy in order to be present in consideration set. | Aspiration Based Need | Conjunctive | * Repurchase loosely dependant on experience on a short run. * WOM has a marked effect. | Advertising: Build aspiration by imageryPromotion: Try WOM activities (Sunsilk GOG). Make a premium product proposition in order to portray aspiration. |

Positioning: Pears has been positioned in the market as a “Pure” and “Gentle” soap. The transparency of the soap provides a visual cue for purity and the glycerine content as the sign for gentleness. Pears commercials have been highlighting the virtue of the soap using Mother and Child as the central theme. Soap being a low involvement product, the marketers have focussed more on the affective rather than cognitive components.
Pears India commercial – The Pears Mother
However since the pricing of Pears soap is on the relatively higher and premium side, the advertisements need be such so as to make the customer believe that even though the product is expensive, it still is value for money. One way of doing that is by trying to project Pears as a soap which lasts long and thus its effective price would not work out to be expensive. However this has to be put across in a very subtle and indirect manner.
Also, as we found out from our in depth interviews, the soap is perceived as a seasonal soap which is used mostly in winters as a remedy for dry skin. To change this belief, advertisements could also show pears as a soap which is refreshing at the same time soft on skin.
PRODUCT CHOICE
Insights from customer interaction:
In order to understand the buying behaviour of customers as long as purchase of personal hygiene products is considered, we tried to map their attitude towards Pears brand into three categories: * Affective Component: The analysis of the product concept vis-à-vis the ideal and self- concept would give us an idea about which attributes the consumer would be looking at while making the purchase. As evident from the ‘snake diagrams’ (Refer to Appendix) the consumers want a product which is comfortable, delicate and pleasant. So, their product choice is also based on striving to reach their ideal self-concept and thus the company can position accordingly. * Cognitive Component: Basis the questionnaire administered, we tried to find out the broad product attributes that the customer looks for while buying the product. We started out with 14 such factors for our analysis, and post a factor-analysis we arrived at 3 broad product attributes that customers look for while buying a personal hygiene brand ( Refer to appendix for factor analysis report): * Aesthetics: Demonstrated mainly through look and shape of the product * Health & Hygiene: Demonstrated mainly through its ability to kill germs * Value for money: Demonstrated primarily by the price point and longevity of the product * Conative Component: In our depth interviews we also asked the interviewees as to whether they would be ready to pay a slight premium in order to use a product which would be better in terms of the affective component of attitude. We achieved a mixed response in this regard, which helped us emerge with income-demographics as a moderating variable for purchase intention.

Company Recommendations
Disclaimer: The analysis shown below has been done on a pool of 7 respondents, 5 females and 2 males. Owing to the small size of the sample, extrapolation of analysis for the entire population is a grey area, and should be discounted accordingly. | | | Gender | * Distinction in the kinds of attributes desired. * Females looked for skin treatment solution, which would be soft, mild and good for their skin * Males looked at soap as more of a necessity, used for cleansing purposes. | * The 5 female respondents brought up skin care as criteria every time. It also figured as elimination criteria for all. * The male respondents were not very particular about the product attributes as long as it fulfilled its primary objective of cleansing. | Marketing implication:Segmentation: Pears should have a strong female focus, as for them, a soap is a high involvement productAdvertizing: Mildness and good-to-skin attributes of Pears could be displayed more prominently | Higher order need | * Underlying higher order need from laddering exercises was revealed to be enhancement of self-esteem | * Respondents typically varied according to gender in the product attributes they desired the most, which fulfilled a particular expectation. This formed the 2nd level of laddering. However, when probed deeper, it was revealed to be a self-esteem issue motivating people. * The associative maps provided a better understanding of the same. | Marketing implication:Advertizing strategy: The importance of Pears for consumers to “feel good” should be focused on | Cognitive factors: | * Main factors searched for in a personal hygiene product were:Aesthetics; Hygiene & Value.According to consumers the shape, ability to kill germs and longevity acted as surrogate variables for such factors. | Advertising: Include alternative comparison (if required) to reduce complexity of decision making. Product design should take care so as to provide the customer value on the factors identified. | |

APPENDIX
Red: Self Blue: Soap Green: Ideal

Red: Self Blue : Body Wash Green: Ideal

Product Choice : SPSS Results

Associative Map for Pears

Light
Smell
PEARS

Clear & Transparent

Exercise
Healthy
Soft on Skin
Fountain
Flowing
Thirst
Feather
Dove
Thirsty
Blue
Glass
Orange
Fresh

Pure

Vibrant
Pleasant

Mountain Dew
Sprite
Juice
Water
Food

Bath

Limca

Birds

Lime

Name: Neena Jain | Age: 46 years | Occupation: Home maker | Need recognition | * Needed a soap which is soft on skin and doesn’t contain harmful chemicals. | Information search | * Choice of soap based on advertisements which showed prevalence of moisturizer which is good for skin. * Also took her beauticians advice on the choice of such soap. | Evaluation of alternatives | Pears | * Rejected because pears soap does not moisturize. | | Lux | * Rejected because of past experience of being harsh on skin. | | Vivel | * Didn’t buy because her friend told her negative things about the soap. She later started using Dove and was so satisfied that has not found the need to try any other soap. | Product choice | Final choice was Dove * Most important: Soft on skin and doesn’t have harmful chemicals which can cause skin damage. * Lasts longer. * Really trusts the brand and the adverts that the product has high levels of moisturizer in it which prevents face from becoming dry and rough. | Post-purchase evaluation | * Happy with the product choice. * Would intend on continuing using Dove even though it is expensive than other soaps like Lux, Pears etc. | Miscellaneous | * A soap which is soft on skin is the top post priority and price is not even in the consideration set. |
Sample respondent
Sample laddering result