Overview of Nivea Brand and Organisation

Nivea is a personal care brand located in Germany. The company specialises in body care products for both males and females. The company is owned by Beiersdorf Global AC and was founded in March 1882. The current name of the company came after it was sold to Oscar Troplowitz. The company started to develop new skin care creams and named it Nivea, which means snow white. The brand and the organisation are widely famous for its skin care products and provide the best skin care products despite its competitors (Nivea.com 2018). In the assignment, the focus will be on Nivea Facial for men. The CSFs of the product will be discussed in the assignment along with the marketing mix that the company currently uses to launch its products in the market. Recommendations are provided based on the current application of CSF and marketing mix model.

According to Wilson et al. (2016), Critical Success Factor (CSF) of an organisation denotes the necessary elements of an organisation that are required to meet its objectives. It is required to ensure the success of an organisation. Without proper CSF, it can be difficult for organisations to maintain the consistency in the market or ensure growth. In the case of Nivea, the CSF factors that can be analysed includes

To be recognised as a company that provides skin care facilities to men. It has been seen that Nivea is recognised as a brand that provides products that can be used by women. The thought of men using the product does not appeal to the customers. Hence, to ensure that the men’s facial skincare product gets proper recognition it is necessary that the company undertake arrangements that denote the usability of the product for men. This can help the company to increase its market share and improve its reputation in the market (Armstrong et al. 2015).

Another important CSF of the company is to meet the requirements of the customers. One of the primary objectives of Nivea is to ensure that the rate of satisfaction of customers reaches 98% (Nivea.com 2018). This can be achieved if the company manages to retain staffs and meet the requirements of the target market. One of the established factors of the company is the fact that it has achieved enough success to retain the female customers worldwide. With the focus on launching men’s facial skin care, the company need to ensure that the marketing mix addresses the elements required for satisfying customers and maintain the productivity of the company (Babin and Zikmund 2015).

Critical Success Factors of Nivea Facial for Men

Marketing mix consists of the elements that are required for conducting a particular market in a proper manner. According to Huang and Sarigöllü (2014), marketing mix is required for identifying the elements that influence customers in purchasing the products of a particular company. In the case of Nivea, the marketing mix of the company needs to focus on the ways by which the sector consisting of the men can purchase its products.

Marketing mix element	Description
Product	The product of a company refers to the items that are manufactured to satisfy the customers. According to Kotler (2015), the products may be intangible as well as tangible and factors such as product design, packaging, life cycle and guarantees and warranties play an important factor for the choice of products made by a customer. In the case of Nivea, the product in focus is the men’s facial skin care. Hence, the popularity of the product is determined by the product assortment that defines the range of the product. The fact that the product reaches out to the male customers of the society plays an important part in the success of the company.
Price	According to McDonald and Wilson (2016), the price is always an important factor as most customers expect to get the best quality product at a minimum cost. To ensure that the profitability of an organisation along with the satisfaction of the customers are maintained it is necessary that the organisations formulate strategies that are involved with the proper pricing of the products. For example, in the case of Nivea, the company need to make the price of the facial skin care of men at a low level. This is mainly required to attract the attention of the male population so that the product faces success like its female compatriots. One of the ways to ensure that the male population of a society is attracted to the product is by lowering the price of the product and providing a discount on it.
Place	This refers to the point at which customers can access a particular company. This is done so that convenience can be provided to the customers based on the manner in which they can reach the organisations (Menon et al. 2015). Strategies need to be formulated to ensure that the distribution of a particular product is done in a manner that provides full market coverage by addressing every target customer. Nivea is engaged in franchising the company. The global reputation of the company is such that decisions regarding the locations of the company are based on the demography of a region. This provides Nivea with an advantage to ensure that the male customers are reached conveniently.
Promotion	The promotion of a product or organisation is done to gain popularity among the people in the society. It is a way to communicate with the market by using a method of advertising, PR, direct marketing and sales promotion (Charter 2017). Strategies regarding this include the ways to communicate messages with the use of various channels and media. The frequency of the message is determined by analysing the number of times a particular product needs to be communicated to the market. Nivea needs to ensure that the promotion of the men’s facial skin care is done by using a proper promotional method that highlights the introduction of the product. The promotion needs to be done in channels and newspaper segments that are followed by men.

Table: Marketing mix

(Source: Created by author)

Apart from this the people, physical evidence and the process elements are analysed to ensure that the customers have a proper understanding of the marketing elements mix. For example, the process used for the manufacturing of the men’s facial skin care needs to be sustainable and need to consist of chemicals that do not pose any harm to the skin of men. The people element refers to the target market of the company, which in this case are the male population (Mix and Brand 2017). The physical evidence of the marketing mix can be identified by providing opportunities to the male population to test the product prior to its use (Steenkamp 2017).

Thus, based on the analysis of the marketing mix and the CSFs of the company certain recommendations can be provided. These recommendations are provided based on the interest of the stakeholders of the company and the manner in which the company can develop itself in the market. To achieve the first CSF of the company, the managers of Nivea can ensure that promotion of the company and products are done in an effective manner. A proper promotional mix can be obtained by ensuring that the balance between advertising, PR, direct marketing and sales promotion are maintained. This balance needs to be maintained by analysing the responses provided by the customers and the financial position of the company.

The fact that the people believe that Nivea is an organisation that specialises in female products can be proved wrong by providing free samples of the men facial skin care products along with female skin care products. Such a strategy can be adopted as a pricing mix technique that ensures that the company provide value to the needs of the customers. This particular strategy can be adopted to ensure that the second CSF is achieved. The satisfaction of the customers can be obtained by providing a proper discount on products that require a focus on the target market. Providing such free samples as discounts can help the company to promote its products and ensure that the trust of the male population is achieved. Another important recommendation that can be provided is the place from which the product is distributed.

To ensure that the satisfaction of the customers is attained and the recognition of the brand, it is necessary that the place from which the product is distributed and manufactured is convenient for the customers. Setting up physical stores in a society need to be done based on the popularity of the company and the demographics. The convenient place for Nivea needs to be in the residential locations so that customers around the neighbourhood can gain access to the stores and the products. This can enhance the revenue of the company as products can be sold on a daily basis keeping in mind the needs of the customers. Thus, with the application of these recommended improvements, Nivea can attain the CSF that the company seeks.

Reference

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Nivea.com. 2018. NIVEA website selection page. [online] Available at: https://nivea.com/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2018].

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