Hindustan Unilever - Marketing Initiatives

Marketing Initiatives

Khushiyon Ki Doli

The company launched a multi-brand rural marketing initiative called Khushiyon Ki Doli, in 2010 in three states – Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Through this initiative more than 10 million consumers were contacted directly in more than 28,000 villages across these three states. Through this initiative, the company also reached out to 170,000 retailers in these villages.Through this initiative HUL engaged with 25 million rural consumers in media dark areas in 2011.

In 2011, HUL extended this initiative to cover five states – West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, covering over fifty thousand villages across these five states.

In 2012, Kushiyon Ki Doli has been extended to Karnataka to cover a total of six States: Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The initiative aims to cover over Fifty five thousand villages in 2012.

Various personal care and home care brands of HUL have participated in this initiative including: Wheel, Surf Excel, FAL, Sunsilk, Vim, Lifebuoy and Closeup.

The module follows a three-step process, starting with awareness, moving on to consumer engagement and finally retail contact. The first step of spreading awareness is achieved through a team of promoters who head to each village and invite the villages to what is known as ‘Mohallas’ to make them aware of the company and its products. In every village, there are about 4-5 teams that conduct these events in local language for small focused groups so that it allows for greater engagement and involvement for the consumers. During this activity, brands are introduced with the help of TVCs that are played continuously. And the promoters by way of ‘live’ demonstrations bring alive the hygiene benefits of using such brands and improving the quality of daily life. To increase the ‘fun’ element and enhance involvement, promoters also conduct simple quizzes and games around the brands and daily hygiene habits. As part of this activation,the company offers schemes both for the participating consumers and also local retailers for generating trial among consumers as well enhancing availability at retail. Post the ‘mohalla’ activity, the promotes go home to home and conduct consumer home visits to generate trial where they offer attractive promotions to the consumers. Similarly, there is another team which visits all the shops in the village which ensures improved availability and visibility of HUL brands. Technology has been used to highlight the benefits of HUL’s brands in a simple and engaging manner. At the same time, traditional symbols have also been used to create more acceptance. For example, the brand films and hygiene messages are shown to the consumers through the use of Palki.

Lessons in Marketing Excellence

The company tied up with CNBC TV18 in 2009 to launch a television show titled, ‘Lessons in Marketing Excellence’, a marketing case-study competition for management students in India. Some of the participating institutes include: IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, IIM Indore, XLRI,Symbiosis Center for Management and Human Resource Development, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and National Institute of Industrial Engineering.

The show has completed three seasons and the fourth season will be on air soon. http://www.limeonline.in/about_the_show.asp

Perfect Stores

The ‘Perfect Stores’ initiative was launched by HUL in May 2010 with the aim to improve the availability and visibility of its products in retail stores across the country. In May 2010, four thousand HUL employees from across functions launched the initiative through ‘Project Bushfire’ and created 16,000 ‘Perfect Stores’ in 130 towns in India in a span of 6 days. The employees not only laid out various products on the stores’ shelves but also dusted them, thereby transforming the whole look of the stores. The company is constantly increasing the number of stores it covers under the Perfect Stores programme. Technology has played a key role in this initiative. The company’s salesmen have been provided with a hand held terminal called iQ, which gives customised recommendations for each store – which products to sell, when to sell them and in what quantity. The salesman just has to sync the iQ device when visiting the distributor and download data from the centre to retrieve information on the market. To strengthen this initiative, HUL launched POPeye - an initiative that puts the power of iQ in the hands of the employees. When an HUL employee visits an outlet and finds the company’s product out of stock, he can log stock calls either by logging on to the POPeye site, or report the information by phone or email.