Clinic Plus

Hindustan Lever Limited (also called HLL) is India's largest consumer products company and is headquartered in Mumbai. Lever Brothers India Limited was formed in 1933 which became Hindustan Lever Limited. It has 41,000 employees. HLL is the market leader in Indian products such as tea, soaps, and detergents. As of May 2006, it is headed by Mr. Douglas Bailey. The Anglo-Dutch company Unilever owns a majority stake in Hindustan Lever Limited.
Some of its brands include Kwality Wall's ice cream, Lifebuoy, Lux, Breeze, Liril, Rexona, Hamam, Moti soaps, Lipton tea, Brooke Bond coffee, Pepsodent and Close Up toothpaste and brushes, and Surf, Rin and Wheel laundry detergents, Kissan squashes and jams, Annapurna salt and atta, Ponds talcs and creams, Vaseline lotions, Fair & Lovely creams, Lakme beauty products, Clinic Plus, Clinic All Clear, Sunsilk and Lux shampoos, Vim dishwash, Ala bleach and Domex disinfectant
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. They endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tonnes and sales of Rs.10,000 crores. HLL is also one of the country's largest exporters; it has been recognised as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India.
The mission that inspires HLL's 36,000 employees, including over 1,350 managers, is to "add vitality to life." HLL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HLL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds 51.55% of the equity. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among 380,000 individual shareholders and financial institutions.

HLL has traditionally been a company, which incorporates latest technology in all its operations. The Hindustan Lever Research Centre (HLRC) was set up in 1958, and now has facilities in Mumbai and Bangalore. HLRC and the Global Technology Centres in India have over 200 highly qualified scientists and technologists, many with post-doctoral experience acquired in the US and Europe.

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HLL believes that an organisation's worth is also in the service it renders to the community. HLL is focusing on health & hygiene education, women empowerment, and water management. It is also involved in education and rehabilitation of special or underprivileged children, care for the destitute and HIV-positive, and rural development. HLL has also responded in case of national calamities / adversities and contributes through various welfare measures, most recent being the village built by HLL in earthquake affected Gujarat, and relief & rehabilitation after the Tsunami caused devastation in South India. Over the last three years the company has embarked on an ambitious programme, Shakti. Through Shakti, HLL is creating micro-enterprise opportunities for rural women, thereby improving their livelihood and the standard of living in rural communities. Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the Shakti Vani Programme, and creating access to relevant information through the iShakti community portal. The programme now covers about 50,000 villages in 12 states. HLL's vision is to take this programme to 100,000 villages impacting the lives of over a 100 million rural Indians. HLL is also running a rural health programme – Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana. The programme endeavours to induce adoption of hygienic practices among rural Indians and aims to bring down the incidence of diarrhoea. It has already touched 70 million people in approximately 15000 villages of 8 states. The vision is to make a billion Indians feel safe and secure. If Hindustan Lever straddles the Indian corporate world, it is because of being single-minded in identifying itself with Indian aspirations and needs in every walk of life.


Brands
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is India's largest fast moving consumer goods company with leadership in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. HLL's brands, spread across 20 distinct consumer categories, touch the lives of two out of three Indians. If Hindustan Lever straddles the Indian corporate world, it is because of being single-minded in identifying itself with Indian aspirations and needs in every walk of life.



HLL


Home and Personal Care Water Foods

Personal Wash
Pureit Tea
Laundry
Coffee
Skin Care
Clinic Plus Foods
Hair Care Clinic
Clinic Plus Ayurveda Ice Cream
Colour Cosmetics

Oral Care

Deodorants

Ayurveda Personal
& Health Care



Clinic Plus is located in the Home and Personal Care segment in the Hair Care SBU








Clinic Plus






Clinic Plus Health shampoo was launched in India in the year 1987. Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) has relaunched Clinic Plus Health Shampoo in the year 2004. It is India's largest selling shampoo, offering the five most important hair health benefits: strengthens weak hair, prevents hair breakage, softens rough dry hair, shine for thick and healthy hair, and contains anti-dandruff ingredient. This is the first time such a five-in-one shampoo has been introduced in India. Bottles of the new Clinic Plus Health Shampoo with milk proteins are now being made available at more affordable prices.
The relaunch of Clinic Plus Health Shampoo, with its five-in-one benefit formulation and the new reduced price points, is HLL’s second major initiative to offer outstanding consumer value in this category.
HLL has decided to stretch the equity of its Clinic Plus shampoo into an ayurvedic variant. The new sub-brand — Clinic Plus ayurvedic hair wash — is priced on par (Rs 60 for 200 ml) with its existing Clinic Plus Health shampoo with milk proteins. With natural ingredients such as neem, tulsi and cinnamon leaf oil, the hair wash's dark brown colour is different from the usual blue colour of the Clinic Plus shampoo.
Clinic Plus is the market leader in the mid price range shampoo segment. Its main competitor is the Rejoice shampoo from P & G and Chik Shampoo from Cavin Care.
It uses line extension type of branding because it has Clinic as the main brand name and it uses clinic plus and clinic plus ayurveda as a line extension.





Market Share
Hindustan Lever Limited is the market leader in the shampoo segment with 65 % of the market share. Cavin Care holds 19.8 % of the market share and 15.2 % share belong to others.

Name of the Company
Market Share
Hindustan Lever Limited
65 %
Cavin Care
19.8 %
Others
15.2 %




Brand Share
31 % of the shampoo sales of Hindustan Lever Limited is contributed by Clinic Plus.

Name of the Brand
Share
Clinic Plus
31 %
Others
34%



COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT

HLLs Clinic plus is a market leader. Its market challengers are
P & Gs rejoice shampoo
Cavin care’s Chik shampoo
The niche market in the shampoo industry is shared by companies like Dabur & Himalaya.
Profitable markets for clinic plus are semi urban, urban and rural market. Although its market challengers Rejoice and Chik shampoo are hitting these markets and posing a threat to clinic plus, but clinic plus is still doing well because has the price advantage over its competitors.

Strategies used by HLLs Clinic plus against competitors

Ø Position Defence strategy:
Clinic plus uses this strategy to defend its position against new entrants. HLL’s long established ties with retailers and ties extensive distribution reach probably acts as a entry barrier for new entrants.

Ø Counter offensive strategy:
This strategy is usually used against market challengers like Rejoice and Chik shampoo, recently when P&G’s Rejoice reduced its prices HLL fired a salvo by offering a free bottle for every bottle of its clinic plus shampoo.
“As a market leader, HLL believes that it can lead market growth by driving consumption and frequency of usage. Bottle packs play a significant role in this.” And this was one of the great moves in directing the sachet users to bottles.

Ø Low pricing strategy:
In the Rs 1,000 crore shampoo market, HLL is a clear leader hogging 65% of the market share with clinic plus contributing 31% .HLL enjoys a price advantage over its competitors. With low prices HLL believes that “it can neutralize significant part of cost of this initiative overtime while fortifying our market position”






Product

Segmentation of the product

Premium
Popular
Economy
Clinic Plus is a Premium product since it is targeted at the existing customers and it is the market leader. Positioning of the product is done by uses and applications since it has been now launched with a five in one benefit. The product is differentiated in to two categories. It has clinic plus which targets the family and a variant which is clinic plus ayurveda which targets the niche market.


Price

Clinic plus comes in a variety of packs they are priced as follows,

Type
Quantity
Price
Sachet
7.5 ml
Rs. 02
Bottles



Clinic Plus Auyrveda
25 ml
100 ml
200 ml
300 ml
200 ml
Rs. 05
Rs. 30
Rs. 55
Rs. 90
Rs. 60
Bubble Pack
30 ml
Rs. 08


Promotion

Clinic Plus uses various promotion strategies some of which are,

Reduction in prices.
Hindustan Lever Limited relaunched Clinic Plus with its five in one formula with reduced price. This reduced price has greatly increased the market share of Clinic Plus because where other shampoos in the same segment are priced at almost Rs. 39 Clinic Plus is priced at Rs. 30.


Buy One Get One Free.
HLL started introduced the scheme of buy one get one free. So you get two bottles for the price of one. It does not affect the profits of HLL because it has so high volume of production that it can absorb the cost of production.


Bubble Pack.
The bubble pack which is available for Rs. 8 for 30 ml is an innovative way of promoting the product. Since the sachets are difficult to store and reuse the bubble pack is a welcome relief.

25 ml for Rs. 5.
This bottle of shampoo is introduced to switch the sachet users to the bottle. Where you get 7.5 ml for Rs. 2 you are now getting 25 ml for Rs. 5




How to reach out to customers /innovative ideas

Since HLL’s clinic plus is the market leader controlling 65% of the market , the only way to grow would be expand the market itself. Hence our innovative ideas are concentrated on expanding the market.


Ø Hair saloons:
Concept:
Promotion of Clinic Plus in various hair saloons and beauty parlours across India.
Motive:
Creating brand awareness and getting it on top of mind.
Idea:
Since people visit hair saloons and beauty parlours very often they tend to get attracted to the products used in the saloons or parlours , carrying the general impression that whatever products by the people in saloons are the best for that purpose.
Ø Health Clubs:
Concept:
Promotion of Clinic Plus in various health clubs across India.
Motive:
Creating brand awareness and getting it on top of mind
Idea:
People are becoming more health conscious these days. Right from HNI’s to the youth to the middle class housewives most of them are regular to health clubs. Hence promoting the Clinic Plus shampoo at these places with a special mention in the diet chart by the local nutritionists would lead to greater brand awareness as hair also require nutrition’s. We can use banners like


This would also help to fight the general perception that “shampoos are glamour products and not health products.”

Ø Weekly Bazaars:
Concept:
Promotion of Clinic Plus in rural areas across India
Motive:
Creating brand awareness and converting non shampoo users to shampoo users.
Idea:
Since the market penetration of shampoo industry is not high, we look at promoting Clinic Plus in rural areas by putting up stalls in weekly bazaars setup in most parts of rural India.






The BCG Matrix

Market
Growth
Rate

??
Cash Cows
Dogs
Relative Market Share


Barrier Matrix


High Worst Gamble



Low Stable Best




Low High