CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

CASE SUBMISSION 1

ETHNIC CONSULTING

Group 9 Members – Akshita Garg (PGP/23/375), Praraj Ranka (PGP/23/284), Shubham

Manuja (PGP/23/233), Vaishali Sharma (PGP/23/122), Vishwanth (PGP/23/)

1) What is the evolving cultural landscape in India? How are values and lifestyles
changing? Substantiate your answer with data from the case. You can refer to other
data sources as well (Max.200 words).

The real average income of household nearly doubled up in last 20 years. Indians witnessed a
changing lifestyle with increasing disposable income and spending power. This was aided by
increase in availability of affordable products and change in the mindset of people, from
practicing restraint to spending more to fulfil their desires.

Indians still respected the traditions but did not follow them rigidly. As the exposure to media
increased, they became open to new ideas like paying extra for value, openness to experiment,
exploring new career options and spending money on items which were not essential.

A shift to nuclear families from joint families was also seen due to Western influence,
although they were close to their families. The youth of the country sought individuality
rather than following conventions. People started migrating from rural to urban areas for
better livelihoods. Women started earning and became independent by starting their own
careers and hence, started spending more on grooming and personal care.

Moreover, we can also witness an increasing dependency on technology. People now have
access to more information about products, their features and customer reviews which has
helped them make an informed choice when it comes to spending money.

2) What do you think is the reason for the growing rise of fairness cream segment among
men? (Max.200 words).

In India, there is a natural bias towards lighter skin. Before men's fairness cream came into
existence, they used to apply products meant for women. Today there are many brands who
 converted an existing user base for their products. The primary reasons for the rise of the
fairness cream segment among men are:

 Partner's skin color has been a point of attraction for women in the country, which
resulted in men facing rejection or not getting attention from their partner due to
darker skin tone.
 We can also analyze that people with dark skin tone, mostly from South India, face
many racist comments or mockery from people of North India or fair skin people in
general.
 Also, cinema impacts society a lot. We see most of the actors are either fair or wheat-
ish. Even the ones which are dark skin toned appear wheat-ish on screen and even
fairer in the actresses' imagination. This impacts men’s thinking about how women
want their partners to look.
 Also, people from first world countries have a lighter skin tone, whereas people from
third world countries have a dark skin color. Due to this, fairer people were
considered elite or implied that they belong to a higher class.

3A) Based on information from the case, how are the following brands trying to position
themselves in the minds of the consumer?

a) Dabur Amla Vs Parachute Coconut hair oil?

b) Fair & Lovely VS Fairever

(Take only a few important areas/attributes which the brands are using to differentiate
themselves. Draw a perceptual map with these attributes in the X and Y axes and
indicate where you think the brands are trying to locate themselves. (Samples of
perceptual maps is given in this site for your reference-
http://www.perceptualmaps.com/example-maps/)

a) Dabur Amla Vs Parachute Coconut hair oil

Dabur Amla has positioned itself in the heavy oil category, with composition of natural amla.
Its value proposition is enriching and strengthening. It also has non-sticky variants along with
flower fragrances.

It has divided into two segments – Economy and Premium. Dabur Amla being the economic
product while Dabur Vatika being in the premium segment.
 Parachute Coconut hair oil on the other hand is the market leader, and has positioned itself on
the parameter of purity.

Value propositions are moisturize and nourishment. It also wants to focus on beauty. They
also want to highlight that they are continuously innovating something new.

With saturation in the hair oil market, it also introduced segments such as advanced and
Jasmine. And have also introduced different product lines in the form of shampoos and hair
gels.

Youth

Parachu
te

Dabur
Oily Non Sticky

Elders

b) Fair & lovely vs Fairever

Fair and Lovely is the flagship skin care product of HUL which has remained the undisputed leader of
skin care products in India for more than a quarter of a century. Fair & Lovely is targeted by HUL
majorly at Low and Middle Income consumers. Not only does the brand has various offerings such as:
Multivitamin, ayurvedic, antimarks, menz active it is also available in various convenient packages.
Fair & Lovely majorly targets the inherent bias of population towards lighter skin and thus has
positioned itself as fairness/ skin whitening cream. With the launch of other variants it further
 explores the positioning on basis of other factors such as: multivitamin version positions itself as
nourishing and freshening cream, ayurvedic variant leverages the recent grown popularity of natural
care products. The advertisements of the fair & lovely majorly run the theme of how fairness leads to
self-confidence and success. It leverages the inherent bias of Indian population that fair skin will get
noticed and helps you go a long way in life. It links confidence and self-esteem with factors such as
skin color and quality and playing on this mentality it has been able to acquire the leading market
share.

Coming over to the product Fariver, it is manufactured by the company called Cavinkare. It is the
second-best selling brand with major popularity in southern India. It is also available in two variants:
one base variant and other Fairever Fruit variant. The brand overall has been positioned in the
category of facial moisturizers and not as skin whitening product. The fruit variant of the brand
leverages the popularity of natural and care products and thus is perched on ‘naturals’ platform. In its
advertisements also Fariever suggests that their product will give women confidence and they will
become successful. It however distances itself from the concept of skin whitening unlike its
competitors.
Natural care/ ayurvedic variant
exists

Fair &
Fariever Lovely

Skin nourishing
Skin Whitening

Non-natural
3B) Given the changing values landscape in India, are the haircare and oil brands doing a good
job in positioning themselves? Explain(3A and 3B-Max.1000 words).

Upper Class Segment Analysis

S.No Dominant Values Parachute Dabur Amla

.

1. Power Distance In either of the ads No mention of advice from

described, there is an elders for oiling hair.
element of power distance
with the celebrity either
receiving/giving advice
regarding proper treatment
of hair.

2. Conservatism Parachute has ignored the Conservative people would

Conservatism dimension in not like to stand out in
its ads, instead portraying crowd and show off their
Parachute women as bold hair which is exactly what is
and experimentative. shown in the ad.

3. Utilitarianism Parachute has emphasized The ad does not position

the importance of using oiling as a necessity but
Parachute coconut oil to rather something to add onto
rejuvenate hair, positioning their hair to look better.
its product as a necessity.

Middle Class Segment Analysis

S.No Dominant Values Parachute Dabur Amla

.

1. Respect for work The Parachute ads did It does not show women as
include the element of working professionals
working women specially requiring oiling instead it
actresses srequiring the mainly focuses on
need to oil ans nurture hair. superficial look of
stereotypical women

2. Self esteem “Feel good about myself” The ad focuses more on the
 and “Self-Respect” are negative aspect of a girl
recuring themes in feeling underconfident
Parachute ads, capturing because of bad looking hair,
the Self Esteem value it does not resonate well to
graciously. middle class people who are
confident and tend to feel
positive about themselves

3. Individualism One of the Parachute ads Again, unlike in Parachute

show the protagonist ad, Dabur does not convey
experimenting with how oiling using their
different hair styles. This product will help people
experimentation is explore or accept their
analogous to women individuality; moreover, the
expressing their decision to buy this product
individualism. is shown to be influenced by
the insecurity induced by
another good-looking
woman

Parachute has captured most of the dominant values in either consumer class in its
advertisements. On the contrary, the Dabur Amla brand seem to be doing a poor job in
tapping the middle and the upper-class market. The advertisement seems to be portraying
exactly the opposite values that are prized by the respective consumer classes and can induce
a negative perception among the consumers regarding the product and what the brand stands
for.

The Dominant Values (Exhibit -2) for each consumer class were selected on the basis of the
values having the highest mean, after being accounted for deviation. The values having high
µ/σ values implied a higher frequency of observations in the customer responses, with low
deviation.