Fair & Lovely: Evolution of the Brand
Hindustan Unilever's star product in the fairness creams segment had evolved into one of the most successful brands over three decades in as many distinct phases. Phase 1 saw the launch of the product in 1976 on the basic premise that "younger women wanted to have fairer skin in order to attract a better looking husband." HUL marketed this brand as a beauty cream capable of providing fairness within 8 weeks. The value proposition lucidly communicated to the consumer base read, "Get noticed by the man of your life."
During Phase 2 of Fair & Lovely's evolution, the brand talked to a younger college going woman who is self confident and more modern in her outlook and believes home remedies for facial care to be old fashioned. In Phase 3, this further metamorphosed into a brand offering emotional benefits for achievers who actively seek solutions and do not look at marriage as the ultimate source of personal achievement. Fair & Lovely thus became a brand which communicated a message that Fairness leading to Beauty leading to Good husband to Fairness leading to Self-confidence leading to Good career.2
Fairness Cream Segment
The market forces which had helped in shaping the competitive environment for Fair & Lovely include new entrants, new category introductions, increased buying power of consumers and controversies. New entrants are a regular feature in this segment of the skincare market, trying to capitalize on the same value proposition. As recently as in 2007, Nivea launched a fairness cream. Emami's Fair and Handsome created an entirely new category of products within the fairness cream range acting on the insight from consumer research that 20% of all fairness cream consumers are men. This altered the market dynamics completely, forcing Fair & Lovely as the market leader to look up and take notice. Controversies have always surrounded the fairness cream segment, with people accusing them of being regressive for promoting that fairness is beauty. These market forces have elicited certain reactions from Fair & Lovely and made the brand what it is today.
Fair & Lovely - a INR 1,000 crores brand - is the market leader in this segment having captured at least 53% of the total fairness creams market.i The competition can be best understood, if it is divided into three separate categories - Mass premium, Equivalent pricing and the Men's segment, as shown in Exhibit
Customer Perspective: Loyalty
In order to understand the current position of the brand from a consumer's perspective, market research was conducted. An existing survey conducted on the basis of attribute-based loyalty (to understand determinant attributes which govern the customer choice, particularly when confronted with alternatives and substitutes) and secondary data gathered from reputed journals were used to understand a typical customer and chart his/her profile. In addition, a questionnaire was floated to a random sample set, eliciting opinions on the performance of Fair & Lovely and depth interviews were conducted with lead users and lost users in order to determine the ideal positioning of the brand. Based on the market research, a typical consumer has been identified and portrayed in Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2 A typical fairness cream user
In general, consumers had good and bad things to say about fairness creams. They believed that fairness can be associated with confidence. But the survey results also revealed that such creams do not fulfill their claims and that fairness is not the only functional benefit that consumers are looking for in a face cream. There are many perceptions about Fair & Lovely as a brand, some of which were positive. For example, since it is the oldest fairness cream, it has become a household name particularly in the southern part of the country. But Fair & Lovely is believed to be a product for the middle class by and large and its promotion strategies are dismissed as regressive in nature. The positioning strategy of the brand becomes apparent from this exercise and it clearly equates fairness with beauty and success.
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