Case Study Pepsodent Rural Marketing

Case Study

Promoting Oral Health in Rural India: The Case of Pepsodent

Shubhra Bahal1 A. Sahay2

Abstract

Toothpaste was not an accepted product in the rural market since people in rural areas preferred conventional method of cleaning their teeth such as neem twigs, salt, etc. Pepsodent was one amongst the most powerful brand of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) that was promoted through 1500 den-tists in the rural areas. They targeted the product to the male member of the family. HUL promoted the product (Pepsodent) very aggressively in the rural market by organizing free samples of Pepsodent to the prospective customers. It offered discount coupons to the customers in order to push sales. In order to sustain and survive in the rural market, the companies have to build a strong brand image in the rural market. Providing the value proposition is the key to success to sustain in the rural mar-ket. Sales promotion along with demonstration of the product helps in selling the product to the rural consumer. Having said this, HUL really has to pull hard in order to beat the No.1 player in the tooth-paste category in the rural markets. The new strategies have to be formulated in order to increase consumer’s trust in the brand. Finally, how Pepsodent reaches the level of customer trust and generic branding has to be seen in times to come.

Keywords

Rural market, rural marketing, rural marketing strategies, oral care market

Introduction

Harish Manwani, the Chairman of Hindustan Uniliver Limited (HUL)1, in his speech in the 79th Annual General Meeting held on 23 July 2012, focussed on rural India. The Directors Report, while giving category-wise details, stated that Pepsodent stepped up its play in the Advanced Care segment with the launch of the Expert Protection range. This had helped in the premiumization2 of the brand. But in reality, Pepsodent’s market share had hardly increased from 18.8 per cent in the year 2011 to 19.4 per cent

Global Business Review16(3) 524–536

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1 Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute of Professional Studies, New Delhi.2 Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Corresponding author:Shubhra Bahal, Assistant Professor, Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute of Professional Studies, Sector 11, Dwarka, New Delhi 110075. E-mail: [email protected]

at JAIPURIA INST MGMT on July 21, 2015gbr.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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in the year 2012. Colgate continued to cook the roost (Table 1). The challenge before HUL was to repeat the Wheel detergent story in rural India with its oral care product Pepsodent. Furthermore, the management was fervent to upsurge to the numero uno position in the rural market in the toothpaste segment. The brand manager had to work out the strategy for this.

Oral Care Industry in India

The greatest driving force for the oral care segment had been product innovation, promotion and distribution. The Indian Oral Care market was worth ` 4200 crore. The toothpaste accounted for approximately 70 per cent of the total Oral Market (Figure 1). Colgate was the market leader in 2012 accounting for a value share of 46 per cent. HUL held the second position with a 19 per cent share of value sales followed by Dabur India with a share of 11 per cent. The reason behind Colgate-Palmolive’s leadership was its strong product mix and the brand equity it had gained over the years (Euromonitor International, 2012).

Indian Toothpaste Market

The toothpaste-producing companies were facing the toughest competition ever. All the companies were involved in winning customers and outperforming competition. Indian toothpaste industry was one of the country’s largest markets. India was far behind in the per capita consumption of toothpaste as compared to other countries in the world. The per capita consumption of toothpaste in India stood at 70 g as compared to the market average of 362 g. The reason for low per capita consumption was primarily the lack of awareness about personal health and hygiene in the rural areas that actually constituted approximately 70 per cent of the Indian population. This was further evident from the fact that only 200 out of 740 million Indian rural populations consumed oral care products—toothpaste. One of the biggest competitors of Pepsodent was Colgate. The other competitors, who fought for their share in the competitive industry, were Aquafresh, Dabur, Promise, Vicco and Anchor.

Figure 1. Oral Market (` 4200 Cr.) FY 2010–11

Source: MART (2011).



526 Global Business Review 16(3)

Rural Market

India was one of the largest emerging markets, with a population of over 1 billion. Out of which, 68.84 per cent were living in rural areas (Table 2). The level of urbanization reported in 2011 Census was 31.16 per cent, which has increased drastically from 2001 Census—27.81 per cent. In order to be successful in the rural market, companies devised innovative marketing strategies to meet the requirements of the rural consumers. They localized their offering in order to penetrate the rural market. According to ORG value share (2011), the overall market share of HUL toothpaste accounted for 34.9 per cent. Furthermore, the article also highlighted the increase in Pepsodent market share from 16.4 per cent to 17.3 per cent in the year 2011.

Rural Marketing

According to Pradeep Kashyap, CEO MART 3:

Rural Marketing can be defined as a function that manages all activities involved in assessing, stimulating, and converting the purchasing power of rural consumers into an effective demand for specific products and services and moving these products and services to the people in rural areas to create satisfaction and a better standard of living and thereby achieving organizational goals.

Gopalaswamy (2005) conceptualized and defined rural marketing as ‘a two-way marketing process concerned with the flow of goods and services from urban to rural, rural to urban and rural to rural area’. Kashyap and Raut (2009) listed three distinct phases in the evolution of rural marketing during which the term changed its meaning and connotation. In the first phase, pre-1960s, rural marketing was synonymous with agriculture marketing. In the second phase, from 1960s to 1990, the marketing of agricultural inputs and non-farm rural produce was considered as rural marketing.

Rural Consumers’ Profile

Rural consumers were different from their urban counterparts and were more inclined towards the value offerings (Figures 2 and 3). As compared to the urban counterparts, who were ambitious and achievement oriented, the rural consumers were high on emotional instincts and preferred those products which gelled well with their emotional feelings.

The marketers not only educated the rural consumers about the product attributes and usage but also provided free demonstration of the product to explain the utility/purpose served by the product. The vast difference in customer’s attitude and buying behaviour had forced the marketers to rework on their marketing strategies for the rural market. The key aspect considered by the marketers to sell their product in the rural areas was to provide value offering to the rural consumers. Differentiation was an important aspect to be successful in the rural market.

Pepsodent for the Rural Consumers

HUL aggressively pushed oral care brand Pepsodent in rural India in 2002, though before that it had the nominal presence. It targeted selected villages in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Since the traditional products, such as salt, ashes and neem twigs, were used by the



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Figure 2. Income-Expenditure Profile—2011 vs. 2010

Source: MART-Edelweiss survey 2010, NCAER-IRDA Survey 2011, MKC estimates.

Figure 3. FMCG-Consumer Insight

Source: MKC Primary Research, 2012.




rural consumers for the purpose of cleaning teeth, thus, the penetration of the toothpaste was low in the rural parts of the country.

The promotion of Pepsodent toothpaste was done via young dentists in the rural markets. 1500 dentists were involved in the promotion process, which targeted the male members of the household. The company offered free dental check-ups and organized health camps to promote the product. Sales promotion was done very aggressively, as free samples of the Pepsodent toothpaste were distributed to the potential consumers along with discount schemes.

Challenges Faced by HUL—Toothpaste Category

• Prevalence of traditional products used for oral hygiene in the rural market. • The purchase of the toothpaste was a costly proposition for the rural consumers. • Colgate was the major competitor with the maximum market share in the rural market • Rural consumers were price sensitive and value seekers.

Opportunities for Penetration in Rural Market

The rural market was the powerhouse of opportunities, and thus HUL envisaged a tremendous potential to grow in the rural market. It leveraged the following facts to penetrate in the rural market.

1. The income and the spending level of the consumers was rising (Figure 4). 2. The awareness about the personal hygiene was spreading amongst the rural masses because

of the increase in the literacy level.

Figure 4. Increase in Spending—2011 over 2010 (%HHs)

Source: Primary Research (MKC).



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3. The media reach was increasing in the rural area, which made it possible to promote the products to the consumers in the best possible way.

4. Since the consumers in the rural markets were price sensitive, the bottom of the pyramid approach was the best suited strategic option available to the marketers for the product penetration.

Consumer Buying Behaviour

Rural consumers exhibited a contrasting buying behaviour as compared to their urban counterparts. Consumers believed in the trial of the product before the actual purchase. Culture and social groups also played a vital role in influencing the buying behaviour of the rural consumers. The enticing factors influencing their purchase decision were price, promotional offers, colour scheme used in the packaging and the availability of the particular brand. Retailers acted as the key influencers and the ongoing promotional schemes helped to push the brand to the consumers. It has been noticed that dentist’s recommendation on the ongoing promotional schemes of the toothpaste brand helped to sell the brand in the better way, as they valued their recommendations and finally landed up purchasing the brand. Consumer behaviour of the rural consumers has to be studied well by the organizations in order to grab a stand in the market. There are lot of opportunities bestowed for retailers in the rural markets as the result of increasing purchasing power of the consumers (Figure 5). Consumer preference has shifted from toothpowder towards the toothpaste, and now they prefer national/international brands as compared to local brands. Companies are adopting the 4 As Model (Affordability, Awareness, Availability, Acceptability) in order to be successful in the rural market.

Figure 5. Share of Wallet – Rural

Source: Tiger Roars’ –BCG, 2012.Note: Others include Personal care, Ceremonies and leisure travel




HUL—Pepsodent Distribution Initiatives

HUL was known for its strong distribution network and it leveraged the same for the penetration of the toothpaste to the rural customer segment. In order to meet the customer’s ever-changing needs and grab the market share, HUL developed the competence of product availability of all its products in all the outlets at all the times. The company maintained favourable relationship with the intermediaries, provided incentives to the retailers and worked towards increasing the customer demand for toothpaste in the rural areas. In this context, various operations/projects were conceptualized and initiated by HUL. They were:

Project Bharat

It focused on direct marketing and personal selling along with sales promotion at a very large scale. Each household was provided a box for only ̀ 15 that comprised of small sachet of clinic shampoo, Pepsodent toothpaste, Fair and Lovely cream and Pond’s Dream flower talc (all of them being HUL brand). They also provided information about the usage and the consumption of the above-mentioned products with the help of educational leaflets, audio-visual demonstration and film songs. The total cost of this operation came around to ` 13 crores that included the operational cost of running 160 vans across villages along with the salesperson/promoter of the HUL products. The vans were equipped with television and VCRs for the audio-video promotion of the products.

Project Streamline

The other project conceptualized by HUL was Project Streamline to extend the distribution network. Under this, the following chain of operations followed:

The star sellers were the end retailers who sold all the products to the end consumer. Project Streamline extended the market coverage for HUL and was a huge success, as it doubled the company’s reach in rural India in less than two years. Therefore, the distribution network covered 60 per cent of the villages having population greater than 2000. Furthermore, to enhance its reach and coverage in the remaining 30,000 villages, HUL evolved a three-phase distribution system.

Phase-I

In the first phase, the distribution network comprised of wholesalers and large retailers. They placed bulk order of personal product to HUL.

Phase-II

The second phase was more customer centric, as the efforts were routed to provide best quality product to the end customers. In this, there was one registered wholesaler in each market who warehoused the product and was considered the stock point of the products in that particular market. The registered wholesaler was provided 1 per cent margin by the company in order to cover the cost of warehousing and stock maintaining. The products were redistributed from them to the smaller intermediaries who in turn sold to the end consumers. This helped in increasing the market coverage to a great extent.



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Phase-III

The third phase brought in the concept of Redistribution Stockiest (RS). They took over the registered wholesalers. The RS provided the products to the company’s salesmen who in turn were involved in personal selling and direct marketing. The RS warehoused the product and kept adequate stock of the products at his/her end. He/She was much involved in pushing the product’s sale in the market. This eventually helped the company to eliminate and minimize stock-out situations. The cost was reduced at company’s end, and the bulk-breaking activity helped in maintaining the stocks and forwarding the same to the company’s salesman.

HUL Promotion

Since conventional media did not reach the rural masses, thus, the product knowledge and awareness were very much confined and limited. Thus, in order to enhance the communication in the rural market, HUL initiated Operation Harvest. Under this operation, the HUL vans and its distributors approached 30,000 villages and offered promotional packs to the consumers. In order to enhance the media coverage, they showed HUL’s ad of toothpaste product along with others with the help of television and VCR installed in their vans.

Another approach to enhance the coverage was the conceptualization of Cinema Van Operation that was funded by the RS. These cinema vans covered various untapped markets/ territory of the rural areas. They showed small films, songs, dance, etc., from the movie, which had HUL advertisements in between. Thus, the awareness about the HUL products increased to a great extent. The cinema van also provided services to the retailers.

Packaging for the Bottom of the Pyramid

HUL worked on the approach of lower price product to get to the bottom of the pyramid. It launched 40 g Pepsodent toothpaste for ` 10, specially targeting the rural consumers compared to the 200 and 100 g packs that were priced at ` 60 and ` 30, respectively, for the urban counterparts. Along with that HUL launched a low-priced toothpaste brand Aim targeting at rural customers only, which was withdrawn from the market just two years later in order to promote Pepsodent, which is the toughest competitor to Colgate in the urban market (Table 3).

Strategic Moves of Pepsodent

HUL understood the consumer’s psychology before invading the rural market in the toothpaste segment with its brand Pepsodent. It positioned its brand differently by involving the dentists to promote the oral care and hygiene through the well-designed oral care awareness programme.

The campaign strategy of HUL for Pepsodent toothpaste named ‘Khushiyon ki Doli’ was a grand success. This campaign not only helped in creating brand awareness but also facilitated in product demonstrations to the rural masses. Four set of dolis (Palanquin) having LCD TVs, DVD player and a small generator were moved around the village with the purpose of showing the commercials of the toothpaste brand to the rural masses. In order to make the process more interesting, games were organized




after playing the commercial. The winners were offered discounts on the products or given free samples of the product as the prize. The campaign constituted a three-step process. Creating awareness about the company, its product and oral hygiene among the rural consumers constituted the first step of the process. Thus, a team was constituted to create brand awareness among the rural consumers by organizing events in local language. The team members prompted the masses to meet at the common point termed as ‘Mohallas’ (an area of a town or village; a community). It was during the meeting that the villagers were informed about the brands, their benefits and details about oral hygiene with the help of the commercials played on the LCD/TV. In the next step, the team members visited the individual household and promoted the product by offering free trails and demonstrations. The third stage focussed on ensuring the availability of the brand with the local retailers.

‘Khushiyon Ki Doli’ literally signifies the palanquin (Doli); it is used for promoting the toothpaste brand through TV commercials. The commercials are played using the audio–video devices, which are carried in palanquin from one village to another in order to spread awareness about the brand and connect with the masses in an effective manner. It was launched in 2010 in three states—Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra—and was a grand success. Through this initiative, more than 1 crore (10 million) consumers were contacted directly in more than 28,000 villages across these three states in 2010. Through this initiative, about 170,000 retailers were also contacted in these villages in 2010. In 2011, HUL extended this initiative to five states—West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh—thereby covering around 70000 villages, 25 million consumers and 4 lakh retailers.

According to HUL chairman Harish Manwani, ‘Rural markets are a scattered lot and their connectivity to the urban centres is poor, creating access and distribution challenges. Through its various rural initiatives and brand-specific activities, HUL is not just trying to create long-term goodwill but also establishing a new rural strategy’. The promotion strategy of the competitors is given below:

Colgate Dabur

• The strategy adopted by Colgate was value for money proposition for the consumers.

• Colgate believed that effective communication strategy has to be laid out to build its brand in the rural market. Thus, ‘Operation Jagruti’ was launched in 2001 in order to promote oral hygiene and educate the rural masses about the conventional methods of brushing teeth.

• Colgate entrusted free samples of the toothpaste and promoted free trials in order to generate awareness about the brand.

• It believed in customized communication strategy and also adopted regional dialects in its advertisements and changed its product name in order to meet regional differences. Dabur’s Lal Dant Manjan was renamed as Dabur Sivappu Pal Podi (meaning red tooth powder in English.)

• **They had bottom of the pyramid strategy understanding the fact that the rural consumers are primarily daily wage earners. Its small packages and sachets concept was a success in the rural market.

Pepsodent ventured into the partnership with Indian Dental Association (IDA) with a motive of increasing awareness about oral care. The prima focus of the partnership was to promote oral health through free dental check-ups, audio-visual demonstrations and distribution of the educational materials. It involved the school teachers and the rural self-help groups to educate children about the benefits of rural hygiene. In the words of Priya Nair, Oral Care, Category Head, Hindustan Unilever:

We’re very excited about working with our partner, the IDA. Both the organisations are committed to making a sustainable difference in communities all across India. We’ve already had some fantastic successes in a number of oral health projects that have been running for several years.



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Thus, in order to overcome the distribution problems and penetrate the rural market, HUL came up with Project Shakti in 2001. Project Shakti empowered the rural women from the self- help group and also helped the organization to expand its distribution reach.

The Colgate Way!!

Colgate believed in working on their unique selling proposition, which was converting the non-users into users. Colgate promoted its product aggressively in the rural market by spending approximately ` 4 crore per year. It used promotional vans to cover villages. Promotional films were used to create brand awareness. It took up sales promotion very aggressively by offering a free toothbrush with the Colgate toothpaste and used an integrated communication mix to enhance their reach in the rural market.

Understanding the market needs and tapping them at the right time helped Colgate to have the highest market penetration of 62% . This in turn led Colgate to be No. 1 player in the rural market for the oral care segment (Figure 6). It was the first in the category to launch the white toothpowder that hit as a huge success in the rural market. It had a first mover’s advantage in the rural areas, as it was focused on enhancing the reach of its product by reaching the bottom of the pyramid. Thus, they launched the sachets of both toothpaste and toothpowder at a very low price, that is, ` 2 for 15 g, ` 1.25 for 10 g and 30 g tube was priced at ` 9, which came along with a free toothbrush. Its customer-centric approach led

Figure 6. Market Penetration (%)

Source: MART (2011).




to its success in the rural market. The company believed that the marketing approach for selling the toothpaste to the rural consumer was unique, as toothpaste could not be sold in the same way as any other FMCG product.

Understanding the nature of the industry and sentiments of the rural consumers would make the companies more successful in the rural market. The marketers are required to be more customer centric in their approach of selling the products to the end consumers. The offering should be utility driven and should be compatible with the emotional aspirations of the rural consumers.

In fact, HUL really had to pull hard in order to beat the No.1 player in the toothpaste category in the rural markets. The new strategies had to be formulated in order to increase consumer’s trust in the brand. HLL category head, Pradeep Banerjee, was burning midnight oil to develop a marketing strategy to fulfil the dream of his Chairman. He was wondering which marketing mix is likely to give the desired result!

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal for their extremely useful suggestions to improve the quality of the article.

Annexures

Table 1. Oral Care NBO Company Shares by Value 2008–2012

% Retail Value of Respective Company 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Colgate-Palmolive India Ltd 44.0 45.9 46.1 45.8 46.2Hindustan Unilever Ltd 20.6 20.0 19.2 18.8 19.4 Dabur India Ltd 10.6 10.3 10.7 10.8 10.8 Gillette India Ltd 3.0 3.6 4.2 4.7 5.1 Amway India Enterprises Pvt Ltd 2.9 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Anchor Health & Beauty Care Pvt Ltd 2.8 2.9 3.0 3.1 3.2 Johnson & Johnson (India) Ltd 0.3 0.8 1.1 1.4 1.6 GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd – – – 0.7 0.8 Elder Health Care Ltd 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 Hindustan Lever Ltd – – – – – Pfizer Ltd – – – – – Balsara Hygiene Products Ltd – – – – – Others 15.8 13.4 12.5 11.3 9.5 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: Euromonitor International (from official statistics, trade associations, trade press, company research, store checks, trade interviews, trade sources).

Table 2. Population Distribution in India

Rural–Urban Urban Rural

Population 2011 377.1 million 833.1million% of total population 31.16% 68.84%

Source: Census 2011.



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Table 3. On the Retail Shelves

Brands SKU Range (g) MRP (In `)

ToothpasteColgate Dental Cream 100, 150, 200 & 300 28, 42, 54 & 82Colgate Cibaca 200 g 27Colgate Total 12 75 & 150 33 & 62Colgate Sensitive 50 & 100 35 & 58Colgate Active Salt 100 & 200 29 & 54Colgate Advanced Whitening 75 & 150 26 & 50Colgate Herbal 100 & 200 30 & 55Colgate Fresh Energy Gel 80, 150 & 200 30, 50 & 63Colgate Max 80 & 150 29 & 50Colgate Kids Pink, Blue 40 24, 22Promise (90 + 90) 28Dabur Red 100 & 200 29 & 54Meswak 100 & 200 30 & 56Babool, Babool Neem (190 + 190), 185 46 & 35Neem Active 100 & 200 28 & 49Neem Active Whitening 150 40Pepsodent Center Fresh 150 52Pepsodent 2 in 1 80 & 150 30 & 50Pepsodent Complete 80, 175 & 255 25, 53 & 69Pepsodent G 150 60Pepsodent Decay Protection 40, 80 & 175 12, 23 & 46Pepsodent Sensitive 100 55Pepsodent Whitening 80 &175 30 & 50Pepsodent Superman 80 45Pepsodent Barbie 80 45Pepsodent Tom & Jerry 80 45Close Up Lemon Mint, Red 150 50, 53Close Up Tingly Red 80 32Close Up Milk Calcium 80 & 150 32 & 57Close Up Menthol Chill 150 53 Close Up Luscious Lychee 150 58Close Up Tangerina Burst 150 58Himalaya Dental Cream 40, 100 & 200 15, 40 & 70Anchor White 200 35

Source: Company, Edelweiss research 2011. Note: *At the time of collecting data, it was understood that Oral-B of Proctor & Gamble was planning to enter Indian Market.

Notes

1. Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is the subsidiary of Unilever, known for its quality Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) in over 100 countries. It is the largest FMCG company in India having its presence for 80 years. It has 35 brands in its kitty, spread across various categories/segments, namely, shampoo, skincare, tea, coffee, packaged food, etc.

2. The premiumization concept originated almost 5 years ago in the drinks industry. The concept signifies the introduction or the repositioning of the existing brand in the premium segment. In this, the brand is pushed high in quality and price to enhance customer experience. Murray Ben, June 17, 2013, Branding Is




3. MART, a leading knowledge-based consulting firm, was started in 1993 with a focus of providing wide range of services in the area of research, consultancy, strategy implementation and innovation. It covered different industries including agriculture, consumer goods, technology, etc., primarily catering to the emerging markets.

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Case Study Pepsodent Rural Marketing