Marketing Case Study of "Pamela Shampoo"

What alternatives Mr. Alfred Jones have for improving his social position? Was manufacturing a shampoo a right decision?

Alfred who engaged in buying and selling of land- a real estate business and brokering deals were known as dalal. When Alfred grew up, he joined his father’s company as a Director in 1980.His father was the Managing Director and Chairperson of the company. Alfred was very successful, growing the business and becoming rich in the process. Despite his financial success, Alfred was concerned about the social status.

In 1985, his father retired although he remained the Chairperson. Alfred become Managing Director but did not like his family business anymore because of its low social profile. Mr. Haque-who was the proprietor of small market research firm. During the discussion regarding his family business, Mr. Haque encouraged Alfred to launch a new venture company. Mr. Haque convinced him that starting a new business would help him get rid of the associations with the humiliating term dalal.

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Production decisions involve the processes by which raw materials are converted into the finished products through manufacturing. These decisions play a very important role in the product quality, cash flow, control etc. The new venture had problems right from the beginning. It failed to reach sales target because Alfred did not do any market research before manufacturing and launching Pamela Shampoo. Despite huge investments, over a period of couple of years, Alfred had become a bankrupt. Manufacturing a shampoo was not a right decision without market research properly.

Given that Mr. Jones had financial resource, what process should he follow for developing a business plan and its implementation?

Financial resource is using the profits and accumulated savings from his real estate company, he brought a huge area of land for establishing a factory for manufacturing Shampoo. Every business plan, campaign, or project comes down to Tactics, Tools, and Strategies. To conceive, develop, and implement a sound social media marketing strategic plan that will be successful needs to have those three critical components. The new company was named his wife Pamela and the brand name of the product is Pamela Shampoo. Alfred took some of better employees from J&J and employed them his new venture. He hired new employees and paid them attractive salaries. Alfred allocated substantial amount of money to advertise the new brand of Shampoo. Strategic planning implementation is at the heart of how to make change of any kind happen in your organization. Why the organization might want to embark on a strategic planning process and implementation.

Want to be one of the organizations, in which employees understand the mission and goals. ACNielsen retail audit data show FMCG market growing at around 7% (sales 5,097 Crore in 2004 and 5,444 Crore in 2005).Moreover, the shampoo market is growing at a phenomenal rate of 22% a trained that started in early 2000. (Sales 79 Crore in 2004 and 97 Crore in 2005).It failed to reach sales targets and his every venture had slid downhill. Multinational market research Company held clients’ conference and Alfred was invited as a participant from the business community. Alfred talked to them about his Pamela Shampoo venture. The researchers wanted to know whether he had done any market research before manufacturing and lunching Pamela Shampoo. A key to Strategic Planning Implementation Success is to effective strategic planning implementation for the business.

Full and active executive support,
Effective communication,
Employee involvement,
Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis,
Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.

13.3 What are the consumer behaviour issues regarding the purchase of FMCG product like shampoo?

What role does brand name, brand image, and advertising play? What steps must be followed for developing these marketing tactics? Did Pamela Shampoo follow them? FMCG market growing at around 7% .Moreover, the shampoo market is growing at a phenomenal rate of 22%, a trend that started in early 2000.Therefore; Alfred was rightly tempted towards entering the Shampoo market. Consumer decision making varies with the type of buying decision. There are four types of buying behavior that consumer purchase of FMCG products. There are complex buying behavior, dissonance-reducing buyer behavior, habitual buying behavior & varietyseeking behavior.

The new company was named after his beloved wife Pamela. As a symbol of his love, the brand name of the product is Pamela Shampoo. Alfred allocated a substantial amount of money to advertise the new brand of Shampoo. A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. So, brand name & brand image is the identity of the product to differentiate them from others. Advertising play the role of introduce the product to others.

Market research steps must be followed for developing marketing strategy. For developing marketing tactics we need to take four strategies. That are individual names, blanket family names, separate family names for all products, and company trade name combined with individual product names. Pamela shampoo did not follow them. So, he did not make his business profitable like P&G and Unilever.

Consumer purchase shampoo by variety-seeking buying behavior because that buying situation are characterize by low involvement but significant brand differences. Here consumers often do a lot of brand switching. The consumer has some beliefs about shampoo, chooses a brand of shampoo without much evaluation, and evaluates the product during consumption. Next time, the consumer may reach for another brand out of a wish for a different test. Brand switching occurs for the sake of variety rather than dissatisfaction.

What can be done to salvage the business? What are the choices and how can Mr. Jones make the decision?

First of all Mr. Jones must understand and choose the correct marketing strategy. Good marketing strategy can result in success even for mediocre products. Since the product ‘Pamela Shampoo’ belongs in the FMCG segment and the growth of the homogeneous product (shampoo) was about 22%; Mr. Jones must take into account the following important issues address accordingly: a. Market Segmentation: Pamela Shampoo requires to revisit its segmentation strategy and then must decide whether the company will choose mass marketing, segmented, niche or micro marketing.

For this particular purpose Mr. Jones can involve the market research companies. b. Based on the segmentation strategy, the company must then choose the target market. c. The company should revisit its pricing strategies and should calculate the Break Even units of sales and carefully select the type of pricing that will be helpful in struggling times. d. The company must realize that the product is positioned against its global brands such as Pantene, Head & Shoulder, Clear etc. and few local brands as well. So the competition is very high. e. The company must go for line filling strategy and must increase depth in its product systems. It can have baby shampoo, herbal shampoo, anti-dandruff and other varieties by keeping an efficient product mix.

f. It may think of co-branding strategies with possible companies who may be involved with production and distribution/market hair oil. g. Must rearrange the sales force. Rather than having its own sales force and incurring major fixed cost, it can rely on its distributors as distribution channels. h. Must have Proper packaging and labels for the products that convey the descriptive and persuasive information to consumers. The labels that the containers will use must be attractive and eye-catching.