Translation of Lifestyle Data into Consumer Values

1.How would you translate the set of lifestyle data given in the case into consumer values?

2.Compose a weighted matrix for the 3 brands with an overall score for each?

3.What specific values are reflected with regard to the Himalaya brand as compared to its competitors?

4.Comment on the research methodology.  Was it a good approach?  If so why?  Is there any other research that might have generated value with respect to brand insights?

5.What are your recommendations for the Himalaya brand of face wash based on your analysis of questions 1, 2 and 3..

1.The most rapidly growing direct marketing area is the lifestyle data, which is generally used by suppliers to direct their strategies. Initially the providers of lifestyle data used database of investors to pre-select or filter their targets but now there are many modern and technologically developed systems to collect this data. The lifestyle data that is presented in the case describes about the changes that took place in the Indian lifestyle since the population within India is young (60 percent people below the 35years age mark). The data is very appropriately in the sense when it is compared to the consumer values. Values can be defined as the belief within the people that helps people in making or taking actions or decisions related to specific objectives. Value can be related to anything such as money or the usage worth or the importance that product or thing has upon the individual or a group. They gave focus on consumer behavior and many preferences were given on the need of the people and how their demands were changing with the time and also considering the different effects people faced as compared to problems that were faced by the earlier generations (Flint, Blocker, & Boutin 2011). The values were basically inspirations from the professional success, orientation towards the future, choosing symbols as a mode of expression and having a fun-filled life. These aspirations and inspirations were added with the face wash category as well as with several other personal care categories that had been advertised in India for the five decades or so. This was a very great step taken considering a country having its citizens very young and people being highly inspired to do well in their careers and fields thus an advertisement that is concentrated on how a girl or any person looks. That defines what actually a customer wants. They have very well created a marketing plan that justifies the customer values in terms of money or the importance. They relating their products to some personalities within country on whom people or the youth within India look upon for inspirations or want to become and achieve like them has done wonders as this has very well integrated with the values of the customer like if someone wants to become a model or an actor then it is important to look good and thus the product became of some value to the customer. Like in the advertisement they have targeted youth and particularly a women who wants to look good and get rid of oil off her face. So the customer value is related to a product that does not harm the skin and is natural also. So by promoting the brand in such a manner where it is of full use to the customer and having natural ingredients in it has been a great strategy by the company and thus very well related to the customer values (Flint, & Woodruff, 2014).

Weighted Matrix for 3 Brands

2.

Selecting Face wash brand
		I.F		I.F	I.F		I.F		I.F		I.F	I.F
Brands	Many Variants	2	Ph Neutral	2	Natural Ingredients	5	Germ Protection	4	Value for money	5	Unique component	1	certification	3	Total
Himalaya	3	6	4	8	5	25	3	12	5	25	1	1	4	12	89
Clear and Clear	2	4	4	8	4	20	4	16	2	10	3	3	3	9	70
Ever Youth	3	6	3	6	3	15	5	20	4	20	2	2	3	9	78

A weighted decision matrix which helps in selecting or making a decision has been done for the three face wash brands ( Himalaya, Clear and Clear, Ever Youth) and various components that a customer would want in the product have been included for the assessment. Also, the Importance factor(I.F) is given for each component was also given. The various components taken into consideration are Many variants, PH neutral, Germ protection, Value for money, Unique component, Certification. These were given importance factor: 2, 2, 5, 4, 5, 1, 3 respectively. With the analysis done and after obtaining the final score which was 89 for Himalaya, 70 for Clear and Clear and 78 for Ever Youth, a clear brand with the maximum benefits keeping all the important factors in mind it was concluded that the Himalaya Face wash can be the best choice among the present brands. It is now just dependent on the marketed values of the product which decided the industrial advantage for the product to be acceptable amongst the masses.

3.The specific value of every product must be based on the ways people conceive it to be used. In case of facewash the organizations need it to be face cleaning product that enhance and procures the skin quality of a person and is affordably priced so that more number of people gets attracted to buy the specific item.  In last decade the demand for facewash amongst girls in India has increased rapidly as it is this decade when people here have become conscious about their appearances (Durnev, Morck, & Yeung, 2004). Therefore because of the high demand, the various companies have launched their products in the segment targeting teenage girls to young and mid-aged women of India. There are many popular facewash brands in competition to Himalaya Facewash with their unique values to offer to the customer such as Clean & Clear facewash a product of Johnson & Johnson is a product that projects perfect skin as girl’s best friend and has an image in the market to be suitable for all skin types. In addition, EverYuth facewash of Naturals brand advertise the product with the value of providing anytime freshness, beauty, and purity to the skin. Whereas, Himalaya with its product line reflects the value of chemical and soap free facewashes, and consists of beneficial natural cleansing ingredients such as neem leaves. They advertise their product to solve all common skin problems such as pimples, blackheads and roughening of skin due to the presence of dust and advertise their product to be one ultimate solution for all the problems (Pandey, Malik. & Banik, 2012).

Specific Values of Himalaya Brand Compared to Competitors

4.The research methodology adopted was effective study and enabled the organization to adopt appropriate training methods and planning products that could help organization sustain its competitive advantage in the industry. The methodology that was used to do conduct the research was an age group specific study and review of the public and this was done through surveys in the city of Bangalore via questions that were personally administered. The survey was done considering the women of age group between 22 years to 30 years. Now the research methodology that was carried was very much appropriate as it targeted the right age group and especially women because their target was to get hold the population of the market that uses these kinds of products on a frequent basis and there could not have been better audience other than young women (Witesman & Walters, 2015). Secondly, why this approach is appropriate is because of the use of the methodology to involve the lifestyles statements into values. This would help the company very much as this would give them a fair amount of idea to on how people lead lifestyles and what conditions they face and hence this would help them to develop various components within their product that would bring value to the customers and thus this would connect the public with the company and the product and thus would help in developing better customer-company relation. Also, by the in-depth knowledge, they would help them in making new marketing strategies and new advertisements that would help them target the particular aspects of people’s living. Only negative point in methodology was that the area was confined and also in present world not only young age groups use these products but also others also do utilize these products hence they should have conducted surveys of people of age groups other than 22-30 years. This would help them in targeting the whole population and thus would make them a prime industry in this sector (Srinivasan, R., 2016).

5.Based on the analysis of above three sections multiple recommendations can be made to Himalaya brand for maintaining and improving its competitive advantage of the company in the field of facewash (Koli, Mane, Kumbhar & Shaha, 2016)).

1) Himalaya must work on rebranding its facewash products or launch some new variants targeting different section of the buyers as currently its advertisements and promotional activities only target girls ranging from 15 to 24 year age and project their product to be effective against sweat and excess of oil on face.

Evaluation of Research Methodology

2) They have launched many variants of face washes, which are effective only on a particular skin type.  They must widen up their target market.

3) They must work on developing more products which could target a wider range of customers.

 4) They must be recommended to improve the standards of their advertisements in order to expand their zone of target markets. 

5) Moreover, they must be suggested to use a number of sustainable and valuable natural product in their new line of facewashes. And introduce a product suitable for all skin types (KAPADIA, 2016).

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above literature that in recent year’s demand for facewash in India has increased rapidly because of people becoming cautious about their looks, walk, and personality. For the reason, Himalaya promotes its brand to use all the herbs and natural ingredients that can be used to attract customer and having natural ingredients in them, as they have been working on strategy formed by the company and thus very well informed about customer values. Moreover, it has been concluded that Himalaya facewash is the leading facewash in India. In order to help Himalaya maintain the competitive advantage in the market, the literature analyzed the values represented by other brands and gives recommendations practicing which the organization can sustain its advantage within the industry for the longer duration of time.

References

Flint, D. J., & Woodruff, R. B. (2014). Marketing’s service-dominant logic and customer value. In The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing (pp. 201-213). Routledge.

Flint, D. J., Blocker, C. P., & Boutin Jr, P. J. (2011). Customer value anticipation, customer satisfaction, and loyalty: An empirical examination. Industrial marketing management, 40(2), 219-230.

Koli, D. S., Mane, A. N., Kumbhar, V. B., & Shaha, K. S. (2016). Formulation & Evaluation of Herbal Anti-Acne Face Wash. World Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 5(6), 2001-2007.

Pandey, D. K., Malik, T., & Banik, R. M. (2012). Quantitative estimation of barbaloin in Aloe vera and its commercial formulations by using HPTLC. Int. J. Med. Aromatic Plants, 2, 420-427.Srinivasan, R., 2016. Himalaya: head-to-heel herbal healthcare. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 6(3), pp.1-29.

KAPADIA, M.P., 2016. FACTORS AFFECTING MEN PERSPECTIVE TOWARDS PURCHASE OF FACE WASH (Doctoral dissertation, NMIMS University).

Durnev, A., Morck, R., & Yeung, B. (2004). Value?enhancing capital budgeting and firm?specific stock return variation. The Journal of Finance, 59(1), 65-105.

Witesman, E. M., & Walters, L. C. (2015). Modeling public decision preferences using context-specific value hierarchies. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(1), 86-105