Marketing assignment
- 2. Q1) Describe brief history of Gillette? Gillette Company Introduction to Gillette: Global Gillette is a business unit of Procter & Gamble. It is the successor of The Gillette Company, which was founded by King Camp Gillette in 1901 as a safety razor manufacturer. It was based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. On October 1, 2005, The Gillette Company finalized its purchase by Procter & Gamble, a deal worth 57 billion US dollars. As a result of this merger, the Gillette Company no longer exists. This merger created the world's largest personal care and household products company. Before the merger, Gillette had grown to become a leading global supplier of products under a variety of brands. In addition to Gillette, the company marketed under Braun, Duracell and Oral- B, among others. (Gillette.com) Gillette has pioneered virtually every important advance in the art of shaving. Double edge blades and coated blades, twin blades, pivoting cartridges, lubricating strips, individually spring mounted blades. The first razor designed specifically for the unique shaving needs of women, and micro fins. Major introduction includes.
- 3. 1903: Gillette Safety Razor 1932: Gillette Blue Blade 1938: Gillette Thin Blade 1939: Gillette Three-piece Razor 1960: Super Blue Blade 1963: Coated Stainless Steel Blade 1965: Super Stainless Blade 1969: Platinum Plus
- 4. 1971: Tracll / Gll-First Twin Blade Shaving System 1977: Ultra / Contour-First Pivoting Head Shaving System 1985: Ultra Plus / Contour plus- First Lubricant Strip 1990: Sensor- First Spring-Mounted Blades, Shell Bearing Pivot 1992: Sensor for Women-ergonomic Handle, Designed for women's shaving needs 1993: Sensor Excel- Soft Flexible micro fins, elastomeric handle 1996: Sensor Excel for women-micro fins, elastomeric handle designed for women
- 5. Gillette in Pakistan: The organization is well growing in all the areas of the market. It is not only capturing the whole market of the other countries but also having significantly growing in Pakistan. After the partition of subcontinent, in 1949, the Gillette started its business in Pakistan and started from the Karachi. Now days, no one organization is there in the Pakistan market that can compete this well grooming organization. Q2) Visit your nearest supermarket market and find out about the various brands of Gillette razor available? I visited Imtiaz store nazimabad and I found various brands of Gillette razors which are as follows: Gillette MACH3 sensitive (Aloe Vera) Gillette series Gel (conditioning soin revitalizing) Gillette series after shave splash (cool wave fresh) Gillette BLUE3 Gillette Sensor Excel Gillette Fusion PROGLIDE
- 6. Gillette Venus Gillette MACH3 Turbo Q3) What are their prices and illustrate Gillette pricing strategy? Gillette is known to penetrate new markets by offering its razors at extremely low prices, and once the customer is hooked on to its quality, it makes money by selling blades at high prices. Other pricing strategies in Pakistan are: Many different types of pricing strategies have been used over the years by Gillette on its product Mach 3 Turbo. Some of those pricing strategies which were used are: Market Skimming Pricing: Basically this type of pricing is used when a business wants to extract maximum revenue from its customers for its new product. When Gillette introduced Mach 3 Turbo, it charged a high price for because it was an innovative product, that is to say it was a razor with three blades and many other extra features. Product Line Pricing: In this type of pricing, the business sets steps between the product line items. For example, Gillette placed a big step between Mach 3 Turbo and Blue Two Plus.
- 7. Although they belonged to the same product line, both these items were quite different to merit a significant price difference. Captive Product Pricing: This type of pricing is used for those products which are used with a main product. In the case of Mach 3 Turbo, its razor blade cartridges are quite expensive compared to the main product. Consumers who may find the product itself cheap or moderately priced are shocked at the price of the razor cartridges. Psychological Pricing: Psychological pricing is such a pricing strategy in which the price is used to say something about the product itself. For example, the high price of Mach 3 Turbo says that it is a good quality and a highly innovative product. Many consumers may buy it considering it a high quality product just because it has a high price. Promotional Pricing: This type of policy is used to promote a product. Basically, in such type of pricing, the business may price products below list price for a temporary period in order to increase the sales of the product. Gillette has on many occasions reduced the price of Mach 3 Turbo slightly in order to increase its popularity.
- 8. Product Bundle Pricing: When businesses combine several products and then sell that bundle for e reduced price, it is called product bundle pricing. Again, Gillette has on some occasions combined Mach 3 Turbo with several razor cartridges in order to sell that bundle at a slightly lower price. Focus On Differentiation: They do not stick on a single product for longer period of time because they believe on shorter product life cycle period as they consistently introduce more and more new advanced technological products. They have very efficient and effective research and development centers all over the world where they continuously do research through their expertise and come up with new innovative and more beneficial products for their customers. Price Changes: If Gillette will increase the price of Mach 3 Turbo, it will decrease the sales of the product, but not to a great extent because there is no satisfactory competing product of Mach 3 Turbo in Pakistan. A price decrease may give a confused reaction. Some consumers may welcome the decision and may buy more of the product but if Gillette reduces the price significantly, that may indicate to
- 9. the consumer that there is something wrong with the product and they may not buy it. So, these are all the ways different pricing strategies may affect the image and popularity of a product. Q4) who are their major competitors? In the raging razors war between Gillette and its competitors, customers judges razors on the basis of Durability, Ease of use, Convenience, Cost, Smoothness of shave and Hygiene/Environmental value. In all these benchmarks, Gillette has outshone its competitors in the past. It is the largest supplier of razors and razor blades in most of the world's major economies BRAUN PHILIPS SCHICK
- 10. Q5) how market is segmented? Segmentation In the shaving cream/foam/gel market there exist different categories of customers who have different needs and are willing to pay different amount for the product that meets their demand. Introduction of shaving cream would help Gillette identify the needs of the customers and take advantage of the segment which has not yet been targeted by thecompany. Price sensitivity, importance of attributes, point of purchase decision makers and customers influenced by additional features are the factors on which we will segment the shaving cream market. Segment One ->are most prices sensitive and values additional features the least. This segment has one third of our sample size. As Gillette is a premium brand which focuses on differentiating its products from the competitors and upgrading the customers in the value chain, targeting this segment will not beat strategically appropriate decision. Segment Two
- 11. -> is more influenced by attributes of the products and is not a price sensitive segment. Gillette through its shaving gel and foam series iscurrently catering to this segment. This segment has more than one fourth of the survey sample. Segment three -> is concerned about the attributes, additional features as well as price. This segment comprised of more than forty percent of the survey sample. Gillette through its shaving cream can enter this segment. Q6) What customers perceive about Gillette? Gillette has always been perceived as a premium product with competitive edge always bit more expensive than other which targeted to middle, upper middle and elite class as well.