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AY 2011-12

Term IV

Marketing for FMCG


Fairever Case Analysis

Submitted By
Section B, Group 3
Manu | Swapnil | Suraj | Santosh
Soumya | Supreeth | Himanshu | Yogesh | Saurabh Sahu

27-07-2011

Case Background
The case describes the birth and growth phase of the brand Fairever in fairness creams category. It also
outlines the communication strategy of Fair & Lovely against that of Fairever. The underlying problem of
Fairever is that the sales have been consistently dropping for the past few years, thus affecting overall
market share of Fairever. Mr. Soumik Chakraborty, who is the brand manager of Fairever, faces the
challenge of reviving the Fairever brand with respect to brand growth in future as well as reversing the
sales trend.

Fairness Cream Category Analysis

The fairness cream category is valued at whooping 17 billion rupees in India, with volume
growth of CAGR 5% over 2005-08.
Geographically, the market is uniformly divided with South and North India accounting for
marginally higher market size than other parts of the country.
Importantly, the penetration level in the category is merely 22%. Hence, there is huge untapped
potential in this industry. HUL is the market leader with around 79% share followed by
CavinKares Fairever (~6%).

Sales Growth Analysis


Fairness
Cream
Category
North
South
West
East
Total

2002(cr)

173
245
166
137
720

2008(cr)

24%
34%
23%
19%

501
449
415
345
1727

CAGR

29%
26%
20%
24%

19.39%
10.6%
16.5%
16.64%
15.7%

Geographically, North India has been growing well above the Industry growth rate while the growth in
South India has dropped much below.

Competitive Landscape
After the successful launch of Fairever taking 12% market share, Fair & Lovely was compelled to change
their business strategy to impede Fairevers growth. Fair & Lovely adopted guerilla strategy launching
number of flanker variants to kill Fairever brand.

Communications Strategy
The differences in advertising between Fair & Lovely and Fairever are highlighted below.

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Year

Fairever

1998
19992002
200305

Functional Benefit
Fairness
Complete Fainess,
Triple Sun Cream
100% Natural, Mantra
more ingredients,
Kashmiri Saffron

200607
2008

Fair & Lovely


Emotional Benefit
Changes Fortunes
Builds Confidence,
focus on achievement

Functional Benefit
Nikhaar
Ayurvedic

Emotional Benefit
Attracting Men
Mariage, Better Career
Prospects
Women
Empowerment,
Celebrity Status

Career Oriented

Extra Fairness,
MultiVitamin

100% Natural

Attracting men,
Marriage

Variants Sun Block,


Anti-marks, Menz
Active

Self actualization,
Celebrity Status

Fairness, Sun
Protection

Self Content

Fairness guarantee

Empowerment

The Highlights of communication strategy are as follows:


Fair & Lovely

Fairever

Inferences:
1. Fair & Lovely had a very focussed approach. Initially started with targeting Mariage and
gradually focussed young college going girls, focus on career growth, and women
empowerment.
2. Fairever on the other hand, started with achievement oriented advertisements which enabled
them to grab 12% market share. However, they could not sustain is advantage and ad
campaigns kept on changing over time.
3. Fairever had Asin as the celebrity endorser whereas Fair & Lovely showed young models in their
ads.

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4. Fair & Lovely made different ads for rural and urban people thus, using different media
channels. Zee TV and Sony featured ads meant for urban while DD featured rural ones.
5. Fairever ads were problem-oriented giving simple message whereas Fair & Lovely ads were in
versatile settings and focuused on its variants.

Sensible Brand Extensions


Fair & Lovely successfully introduced brand stretched products or flankers repeatedly where catering to
specific customer segments like anti sun-block, mens cream, cream for oily skin, etc. Their line
extensions were able to connect well with the parent brand and were not cannibalizing market share of
other line extensions or parent brand as such. This was also to raise entry barriers of other competitors
into any cream segment. Fairever launched Mantra to take on Fair & Lovely Ayurveda which ultimately
led to cannibalizing its own parent brand.

Channel Strategy
HUL being the largest FMCG player has an extensive distribution network with wide reach. CavinKare on
the other hand, had relatively smaller coverage. CavinKare, being a Chennai based firm, has considerably
good coverage in South India.

Product and Packaging Strategy

Product: From the launch , Fairever was clear about its positioning and differentiation. The
brand was positioned on the basis of its main ingredients Saffron and Milk. Fairever faced some
legal issues with Fair & Lovely regarding patent formulation violation. This led to change in
product formulation as a result of which Fairever lost to Fair & Lovely in a blind product test,
leading to sales growth stagnation.
Modern
Fair &
Lovely
Everyday /
Frequent
Usage

Fairever
Special
Occasion /
Low Usage

Fairever
Fair &
Lovely
Traditional

As a brand, Fair & Lovely has consistently moved from Traditional-Special Occasion brand to
Modern-Everyday brand. Fairever was launched as a Modern brand, and was supposed to move

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into Modern Everyday quadrant. However, the advertisements focus changed to traditional
approach thus deviating from the product placement.
SKU: After 2002, Rs. 5/- SKUs were launched by Fair & Lovely and Fairever and Fairever gained
advantage in this product SKU segment. For Fair & Lovely, sales were driven by higher priced
SKUs, which again increased profitability of Fair & Lovely.
Packaging: The packaging of Fairever was much inferior to Fair & Lovely. Fair & Lovely
consistently put the picture of a womans darker and brighter face as a visible effect of using Fair
& Lovely. The purpose of using the product was well understood from the package. But in case
of Fairever, it is difficult to make out from the packaging what the product is meant for.

Recommendations
Short Term

Packaging: Fairever should modify the product packaging in order to convey functional benefit
in more persuasive way. Consumer should be able to understand the utility of the product used
just by looking at the pack.
Copy Strategy Focus on Rural consumers: As per AC Nielson press release, 40% of the fairness
creams are sold in rural India and the category is growing at 40% over the last 3 years. Thus,
Fairever should modify its copy strategy to target the rural audience.
Copy Strategy to focus on Modern-Everyday Positioning: Since the communication strategy is
not in sync with product positioning, Fairever should modify copy strategy to reinstate the
expected product positioning.
New Target Group: Mens Fairness Cream occupies the total category share of 25%. Fairever
should tap this segment by understanding consumer behavior and insights.
o Targeted Sampling to tap this segment
Increase Trials through Consumer Promotions:
o Broad Scale Sampling will enable Fairever to increase household penetration
o Refund offers, Trial Size packs, Near-pack offers will also induce trials
Increase Distribution and Coverage:
o Fairever can use alternate avenues to influence and distribute its products like Salons
especially in rural India
o Fairever should increase coverage initially in the North India and gradually increasing
penetration levels in other regions

Long Term
Being a market challenger Fairever has two strategy options:
1. To challenge Market Leader which is a High Risk High Payoff strategy. However, Fairever has
already suffered sales decline by using frontal attack strategy in the past.
2. To take out other small players and grab their share of market.

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Following are the long term strategies:

New Product Development: Since mens fairness cream category account for 25% usage,
Fairever can enter this segment and compete head on against Emami Fair & Handsome. The
other new product options are:
o Separate body fairness creams and lotions: This will differentiate Fairever from Fair &
Lovely by diversifying from facial to body creams
o Cream for different problems: skin eruptions, cold, dry patches, etc.
Product Improvisation: The product is inferior as per the blind test. Hence, Fairever should work
on R&D to alter the product formulation. It should include new ingredients like turmeric,
kumkumaditailam, herbs, etc. to differentiate itself from the competitor brands.
Marketing Strategy: The brand future growth depends on factors like awareness (push) and
acceptability (pull) from the consumers. So apart from advertising and consumer promotions,
Fairever should concentrate on alternate marketing strategy discussed below:
o Causative Marketing: Associating Fairever with a social cause will multiple the
awareness levels among the consumers. For example, Tata Teas Jaago Re campaign
was highly successful in creating desired brand perceptions and reinstate its brand
value.
Since primary target group is girls or women, Fairever can relate itself with social causes
like gender discrimination, eve-teasing, female foeticide, etc.
Association with cause should be in coherence to Brand Image of Fairever.
o Digital Marketing: Fairever can use social networking to spread its causative marketing.
This will help in sustainable sales growth in future.

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