Super Shampoo

Suresh Venkataraman, a successful marketer had always wondered how shampoo transformed from an unaffordable product to an affordable one and also believed that the rural markets in India offered a huge potential in consumer products. He was doubtful about the brand names of different shampoo brands being complex to understand that is why he decided to launch a product called “super shampoo” which was easy to pronounce and projected a superior image against whatever it was competing against.
To develop a strategy for positioning the new brand in the Indian market he needed to do a market survey in a rural market. The survey was related to the several attitudinal aspects of consumers towards the shampoo category as well as towards the brands. The target population was defined in terms of elements, sampling units, extent and time. As part of the survey, the respondent profiles, attitudes, interests and opinions were captured. Data was collected using shampoo category and brand – specific questionnaires.
The main concerns he had were that he didn’t have the financial muscle to compete against the advertising of the megabrands, since marketing communication was so important in a such a competitive and glamour ridden category. Since rural India was a highly heterogeneous consumer market, it would be difficult to target it as a single consumer market. It would be hard to persuade the consumers to try a new product when three major brands of shampoos were already ruling the market. Unlike urban India, rural India a kind of dark media market i.e. the media penetration was very low.
As per the data collected using the survey, it would be imperative for super shampoo to come out in sachets along with small – sized bottles since in rural India 90% of the shampoo sales occur as sachets. TV advertising and word of mouth should be the two main marketing strategies based on the attitudes of the consumers towards trying something new. Print marketing to be done through putting