At the Company level:
Skin lightening technology – Hindustan Unilever Limited is thefirst company which introduced a fairness cream – Fair andLovely - with the special skin lightening technology in India. Thisgave HUL first mover benefit.
Research centre – HUL s research centre is amongst the largestresearch establishments in India’s private sector industry. Thisenables it to speed up its research activities and developtechnologies based on latest market requirements.
Strong distribution channel- HUL products are manufactured in80 factories. The operations involve over 2000 suppliers and associates. HUL s distribution network, comprising about 7,000redistribution stockists, directly covers the entire urbanpopulation, and about 250 million rural consumers.
Company image- No one knows India or Indian consumers betterthat HUL. Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest fastmoving consumer goods company, with leadership in Home &Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. HUL s brands,spread across 20 distinct consumer categories, touch the lives of two out of three Indians.
Wide range of products –HUL has time and again come out withnumerous products to cater to large segment of the society suchas fair and lovely anti-marks cream, fair and lovely oil controlfairness gel, fair and lovely facial face wash, fair and lovely undereye cream, fair and lovely body lotion, fair and lovely fairnesssoap etc. Recently it has come out with – Perfect Radiance – ithas a complete range of 12 premium skincare solutions.
At the Product level:
Large number of Product variants- To cater to the different needsof its customers Fair and Lovely has come out with numerousvariants of its fairness cream such as ayurvedic Fair and Lovelyfairness cream, Fair and Lovely multi-vitamin fairness cream, Fairand Lovely anti-marks & blemish fairness cream, Fair and Lovelyskin clarity anti-marks fairness cream etc
Added advantage of UV protection- Fair & Lovely is formulatedwith optimum levels of UV sunscreens and Niacin amide thatprovide wide spectrum protection against UV rays of the sun.Specifically, this patented formulation offers a high UVAprotection, which is more relevant to Asian skin than plain SPFprotection creams sold in the West. Fair & Lovely Fairness Creamcontains no harmful ingredients or bleach, making it safe for allskin types.
Market share – Fairness industry accounts or 60% of sales,bringing nearly $140 million every year. Out of which share of fair and lovely is 50-70%. It is the largest selling whiteness creamin the world.
Overseas penetration – Fair and Lovely has great marketpenetration even abroad. It markets its products to 38 countriesworldwide.
Packaging – In order to serve the needs of the lower middle classpeople in terms of making the product affordable for them, fairand lovely came out with pouches of different sizes. This differential packaging helped it become popular among the newbuyers.
Easy availability – Due to HUL s strong distribution network thereis easy availability of all its products.
Fair and Lovely Foundation – The Fair and Lovely foundation hasbeen started by HUL with the view to empower women in India tochange their destinies through Education, Career guidance andskill training. It has undertaken various projects and initiativesthat bring to life its vision for the Indian woman.
WEAKNESSES
Product Lacks Natural Ingredients- In today’s world chemical isout and natural is in. Since consumers are becoming more healthconscious, there is an increased demand of products with naturalingredients. Where as Fair and Lovely contains only two naturalingredients- milk and vitamin B3. Rest all the ingredients arechemical based.
Variants’ range is incomplete - There are now variants to suitevery “skin type” and every need – fairness creams are nowavailable for dry skin, for normal to oily skin, for winter use, foruse during the day, for use at night etc. There is even a fairnesscream for elbows. Not denying the fact that Fair and Lovelyfairness cream has wide range of variants but still the range isnot complete to satisfy all kinds of consumers.
Poor advertising concept – The advertising campaign of fairand lovely time and again invited loud public criticism. Therationale behind its advertising concept was based on the factthat still a major social stigma is attached to darker girls in theIndian society. However it did not fell in the right place as HULfailed to realise that broadcasting such advertisements can hurtthe sentiments of the people, which is what actually happened.
OPPORTUNITIES
Increasing use of cosmetic products – In today’s world women isbecoming more passionate for beauty. Young girls want to bebeautiful as they get influenced by star casts, beauty contests etc.Gone are the times when beauty was considered a god given thing.It is now of topmost priority.
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Fairness fad – In India where the majority of the people havewheatish complexion, there is a constant desire in general toenhance their complexion. This paved the way for Fair and Lovely to dominate the market withits pioneer fairness technology.
Customer psyche - Across our country millions of girls as soon asthey are born are judged, not only for a fact that they are girls, butfor how fair or dark they are.
“
Mubarak ho aap KO ladki Hui hai,chaand SA rang paya hai aapki beti ne!!!”
It is the generalpsyche of the people that fairer girls are preferred in all spheres of life as compared to darker girls. This fact is very evident from thevarious matrimonial advertisements that we come across.
Social mindset – In the Indian society such is the mindset of thepeople that they are always hunting for fairer brides for their sons.Here in India people are always found advising, the so called ‘SAVLI’girls to make constant efforts to improve their complexion and whatcould be an easier way out for them than the application of just afairness cream to fulfil their dreams.
Women Empowerment – The increasing stress that is being placedon empowering the women in all strata of life makes the women thenew decision maker at home and at work She decides the way shewants to spend her life and money.
THREATS
Health conscious customers – Awareness of the fact that whitenessproducts are harmful for the skin is growing fast among the masses,making it difficult for fair and lovely to promote its products.
Home-made remedies – Promotion of home-made remedies bydermatologists are posing great threat to fairness creams. Peoplehave started relying more on these remedies as they are naturaland have no side effects.
Dermatologist’s reviews – Most of the dermatologists are verysceptical about the efficacy of fairness creams. They are acting ascritics to such products claiming them to be drugs and henceharmful for the skin. They also say that such products aremisguiding the society under the name of cosmetics.
Increasing competition – Since the time HUL launched fair andlovely, many companies such as AVON, L’OREAL, LANCOME, YVESSAINT LAURENT, CLINIQUE, REVLON, GARNIER, SHEHNAZ, SYNERGY,AVIANCE, ORIFLAME, LAKME, HIMALAYA etc. have come out withsimilar range of fairness productsReaction to advertisements- There was a year-long campaign led bythe All India Democratic Women's Association against fair and lovelyadvertisements as they discriminated on the basis of the colour of the skin which was an affront to a woman’s dignity. This ultimatelyled to the discontinuance of two of its ads.
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One of them showed that some parents were unable to find agroom for their daughter, because she was DARK and in theend they got her married to a middle aged man.
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The other one showed greater job success for fairer girls. Thead showed a dark girl got rejected for the post of cricketcommentator and later after using fair and lovely got selected.
Inferior brand perception – Due to Fair and Lovely’s relatively lowerpriced products, it is perceived as a lower end brand. People have aperception that lower priced products are inferior in quality and thisperception of theirs acts as a disadvantage to the company.
Negative word of mouth publicity – Fair and Lovely has receivedquite a few negative reviews from the public stating theineffectiveness and/or harmful effects of using the product.
INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and theprocesses they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services,experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes haveon the consumer and society To study and analyse the behaviour of consumers with respect to the productFair and Lovely fairness creams for women, we adopted the methodology of taking market survey in the form of printed questionnaire.
The key objective of our survey is to study and analyze the behaviour of consumers of fairness creams with respect to:
Mind share
Market share
Buying roles/behaviour.
Factors affecting purchase decisions
Purchase behaviourWe approached women of all ages from varied backgrounds in terms of occupation and marital status. To be specific, out of the sample survey of 40-76.3% were in the age group of 18-30, 13.2% between 30-40, 7.9% were 18 orbelow and 2.6% were 40 and above. The demographics of the sample surveyed is given below in the graphs.
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ANALYSIS OF THE SURVEY CONDUCTED The analysis of the survey shows that the demand for fairness creams is quitereasonable. 36% of the people surveyed were already using fairness creams andout of those who were not using any fairness creams 33.3% were willing to tryone.
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