SUNSILK GANG OF GIRLS: CRAFTING A BRAND POSITIONING WITH REFERENCE GROUPS

Consumer Behavior

GROUP MEMBERS

Pachi Tyagi

Priyanka Mansukh

Rahul Kumar

Rajas Sawardekar

Ronak Dangi

Rostum Irani

Ruchi Parekh

Saheel Dedhia

SUNSILK

Sunsilk is a hair care brand, primarily aimed at women.

Sunsilk was launched in the UK in 1954, and by 1959 it was available in 18 different countries worldwide.

Produced by the Unilever group

Today, it is considered the world's leading company and brand in hair conditioning and the second largest in shampoo.

Sunsilk is Unilever’s leading hair care brand, and ranks as one of the “billion dollar brands".

Sunsilk shampoos, conditioners and other hair care products are sold in 69 countries worldwide.

CASE SUMMARY

: -PURPOSE

• To build brand awareness, the customer base and to penetrate untapped markets.

: -OUTCOME

• Target market became from isolated to connected, unaware to informed and passive to active.

: -FUTURE

• Expected to become 5th largest consumer market by 2025 with 559 million people with 20 – 44 age group.

CASE ANALYSIS

Conventional advertising is old and ineffective, consumers are more wise

Addictive and self-propagating content by using social media

Responsible Marketing

Word of Mouth Marketing

CASE OBJECTIVES

Analyzing the reasons for shift in product promotion methods by marketers from conventional advertising to

online social community networks.

Understanding the role and influence of reference groups on consumer behavior.

Understanding how opinion leaders can influence the consumer buying process.

INNOVATING MARKETING STRATEGY

Rapid growth to internet in the new millennium emerged as a new platform for FMCG to study consumer needs and aspirations.

Paved the way for a more dynamic and liberated ecosystem, eliminating the need of:

Paper-based questionnaire

Door-to-door surveys

Dependency on retailer-based feedback reports

It had brought in the most basic change being the shift in the role of the consumer.

The fear among women about the use of shampoo waned-out with this initiative.

Sunsilk Successfully established its first online presence by showcasing its Miss India Pageant show.

By early 2006, the entire product portfolio of Sunsilk was re-launched by identifying and connecting uniquely with its target group.

Redesigning of its existing sunsilknaturals.com to a more community-led website, as sunsilkgangofgirls.com.

Brand used for creating a social networking website targeting women in the age group of 16-24 years.

It provided means of communication to discuss issues od common interest.

sunsilkgangofgirls.com focused on the convergence of media sources which Sharat Jain (CEO, Dentsu Media Pallette called ‘Media Meshing’.

Responsible marketing is the key to success for multinational brands.

Hair Care

Fashion

Beauty

Health

FamilyDreams

and Goals

Entertainment

Education and Career

INFLUENCE OF REFERENCE GROUPS

Consumers are doing their best to skip television commercials and messages.

Marketers need to search for other alternatives like:

Viral marketing,

Buzz marketing,

Word of Mouth market, and

Stealth marketing.

Indian marketers are increasingly targeting younger population who are potential buyers and influencers in consumer markets.

Use of skills of online community managers to nudge the conversation, seed chat forums with threads, recruit others to take a lead in topics.

The influence of reference groups is not similar for all types of products and consumer activities.

TYPES OF INFLUENCE

Value Expressive Influence

Utilitarian Influence

Information Influence

TYPES OF REFERENCE GROUPS

Primary

Direct

Aspirational

Normative

Formal

Secondary

Indirect

Avoidance

Comparative

Informal

Friendship Group

OPINION LEADERS

RO

LESSelf Involvement

Product Involvement

Social Involvement

Message Involvement

OPINION LEADERS IN BRAND PROMOTION

Groups like joint families prefer common products like price-sensitive healthcare soaps or branded oils that are enough for the entire family.

Consumers or decision-makers in business generally tend to allow their attitudes or perceptions to be molded by third party to avoid risk.

It roped in renowned celebrity, famous Bollywood star, former Miss World Priyanka Chopra to anchor the brand and the website.

The celebrities did not promote product sales on blogs, they successfully engaged the ‘gang of girls’ in conversations and made them ‘brand re-callers’.

The success of this portal triggered industrial leaders and opinion leaders to publish their opinions through articles.

Sunsilk tried to create an environment relevant to its brand positioning.

The company forecasts that India’s FMCG market has a huge Scope for penetration largely due to its untapped market.

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