Marketing mix project

The marketing mix deals with the way in which a business uses price, product, distribution and
promotion to market and sell its product.

The marketing mix is often referred to as the "Four P's" - since the most important elements of
marketing are concerned with:

 Product - the product (or service) that the customer obtains

 Price - how much the customer pays for the product
 Place – how the product is distributed to the customer
 Promotion - how the customer is found and persuaded to buy the product

It is known as a "mix" because each ingredient affects the other and the mix must overall be suitable to
the target customer.

What Is SWOT Analysis?

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework
used to evaluate a company's competitive position and to develop strategic planning.
SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future
potential.

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the

strengths and weaknesses of an organization, its initiatives, or an industry. The
organization needs to keep the analysis accurate by avoiding pre-conceived beliefs or
gray areas and instead focusing on real-life contexts. Companies should use it as a
guide and not necessarily as a prescription.

Surf excel

Product-

Product:
The product strategy and mix in Surf Excel marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
Surf Excel is a leading detergent & soap brand which is synonymous with cleaning clothes & apparel. Surf Excel
categorises its product offerings as a part of its marketing mix into Hand wash and Machine wash sub segments. The
hand wash category is targeted at mid-rise population who cannot afford to have washing machine or because of
preferences. Surf Excel products in the category include Surf Excel liquid detergent, Surf Excel bar and detergent
powders such as Surf Excel Quick Wash and Surf Excel Easy Wash. For machine wash, Surf Excel has launched its
product under the sub-brand name of Matic. Matic line of products are specially manufactured for the front load and
top load washing machines. Its products include Surf Excel Matic Liquid front load, Surf Excel Matic Liquid top
load, Surf Excel Matic front load detergent powder and Surf Excel Matic top load detergent powder.

Price –
Surf Excel targets premium and mid-tier consumer with maximum market share pricing strategy. All its products are
priced lower than the rival P&G brand Ariel. This is due to price sensitivity of Indian consumers across the market
segment. Surf Excel deploys product line pricing by pricing its products line targeting premium segment higher than
the price of products targeting mid-rise segment. The company sells its product in different packet sizes based on
weight to capture the customers who want to spend less in one time. Surf Excel follows product-bundling price
strategy for the selected line of products which it wants to promote. Surf excel offers periodic price discounts and
revises its prices quite often in response to market changes. The discounts offered are broadly of two types, one is
quantity discount available on bulk purchase as it wants to inculcate the habit of bulk purchase in Indian consumers
to achieve efficiency in its operations and second it gives seasonal discounts.

Place:
Following is the distribution strategy of Surf Excel:
Surf Excel line of products are available in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Major portion of brand’s
revenue comes from India. The product line similar to Surf Excel is marketed by Unilever globally under different
brand names like Ala in Brazil & Argentina, Omo in Bolivia, and Persil in United Kingdom. HUL had country wide
distribution network as a part of its marketing mix in all these countries. In India, the brand was available mostly
through traditional channels of distributors and wholesalers. As on 2014 data the Surf Excel had the direct coverage
in over 1 million retail outlets and had a network of 7000 stockists and more than 2000 suppliers and associates.
HUL though sales Surf Excel also in rural markets with smaller pack size through rural retailers but its focus is
largely on selling Surf Excel in Urban markets.

Promotion

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Surf Excel marketing strategy is as follows:
Surf Excel adopts 360-degree promotion for its products. The company has based all its campaign on the baseline of
“Dirt is Good”. HUL has adopted both above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) promotion strategy for the
brand. In ATL, the company focuses heavily on effective TV advertisements. To establish emotional connect with
the customers, Surf Excel has featured children in its ad campaign using various themes. The company has used
various TV and movie celebrities for its ad campaigns. The company has also used billboards, posters, print media
such as newspaper, magazines, and major radio channels. In its BTL campaigns the company has organised various
competitions like hand painting competition. It has launched initiatives like “Surf Excel and You” to suggest
mothers to inculcate the habit of active learning in their children. On this forum, mothers can share their pride stories
and special moments with their children. Surf Excel has also used social media platform like Facebook and Twitter
to build the community relationship. Hence this concludes the marketing mix of Surf Excel.

Knorr –

Product:
The product strategy and mix in Knorr marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
Knorr is a leading packaged food & beverage brand based out of Germany. Knorr offers a huge variety of products
in its marketing mix in the ready to cook and frozen food segment, the major categories being- soups, noodles and
other ready-to-cook frozen products like rolls fillings, broth cubes etc. Knorr soups are made of 100% natural
vegetables with no added preservatives and available in 18 different flavours which are further divided into 2
categories- classic flavours and international flavours. Classic flavours include Thick Tomato, Hot & Sour
Vegetable, Sweet Corn Vegetable, Mixed Vegetable, Sweet Corn Chicken and Chicken Delite, while international
flavours consist of Thai Vegetable, Italian Mushroom, Shanghai Hot & Sour Chicken, Hong Kong Manchow
Noodle and Mexican Tomato Corn. All these soups are also available in cup-a-soup packaging. In noodles category,
the varieties offered by Knorr include Schezwan noodles, Hot and Spicy noodles and Soupy noodles which is a mix
of soup and noodles. Apart from this, Knorr also tries to come up with localised taste as a part of its product
strategy. For example, in India, it has ventured into spices segment with its Knorr Masala offerings. The company
has launched 8 masalas including Sambhar Masala, Chicken Masala, Chana Masala, Pav Bhaji Masala and Biryani
Masala. Knorr has also launched ready-to-cook local cuisines like Dal Makhni, Punjabi Chicken Curry etc. along
with wrap and roll fillings such as Tawa Chatpata, Chinese Chow and Chicken Masaledar.

Price:
Below is the pricing strategy in Knorr marketing strategy:
Knorr’s products are priced a little bit lower than the competitors as it follows a penetration pricing strategy. The
company has huge competition with existing food brands such as the Nestle owned Maggi especially in Asian
markets like India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia where it holds more than 50% of market share. Many local
players such as Maggi, Patanjali, Yippie etc also undercut Knorr’s already secondary market share in these
countries. These considerations keep Knorr to keep its price lower and provide a differentiating factor to the
customers by providing value for money products. The Knorr instant noodles come in 70 gm packs of Rs.15 each in
India. For ready to cook category, it charges Rs.50 per pack. The same amount is charges for Rolls mixes. The soup
packets which have 4 people comes for Rs.60 per each, while the small cup-a-soup instant soups offer just 1 serving
and cost around Rs.10. As compared to the competitors in the country, Knorr’s prices are comparable and even
lesser in some categories.

Place:
Following is the distribution strategy of Knorr:
Knorr is sold in over 78 countries around the world. It uses the existing channel of Unilever in each country for
distribution and delivery as it is a sub brand under the FMCG giant’s umbrella. In India, Knorr is a subsidiary of
Hindustan Unilever and has a network of 4000 redistribution stockists which reach approximately 6.3 million retail
stores. Knorr products are available in almost all retail stores- both organised and unorganised. Knorr’s strategy
involves being present at all possible sale points. It is present in almost all the urban outlets and about 250 million
rural customers as well. It is also present on the online grocery stores, again taking an Indian example of Big basket,
which sells all the products manufactured under the Knorr brand. Knorr as a brand is very active on social media as
well with more than 21 million likes on its Facebook page.

Promotion:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Knorr marketing strategy is as follows:
Knorr follows aggressive marketing and promotion strategy in its marketing mix for its products. Most of its
advertisements are still via the television commercial channel. Each new product launch is followed by heavily
promoted ad campaigns on TV and local newspapers. It also does celebrity endorsements for its products, be it the
famous Indian movie actress Kajol in India or Omotola Jalade Ekeinde in Africa. Most of its advertisements are
focused on the bonds between a mother and her child. For promoting its Knorr Masala product line or other ready to
cook products, it uses famous chefs to endorse them and increase credibility factor. Knorr also involves in point of
sale promotions with attractive store layouts for its products and separate shelves in super markets. The point of
purchase promotions helps it to get involved directly with the buyers at touch points and is a big motivator for sales.
In recent years Knorr has also been very active on social media with live pages, launching new products through
Facebook and YouTube videos and creating a lot of buzz via its #LoveAtFirstTaste campaign. Hence this completes
the Knorr marketing mix.