Marketing Assignment: Dove VsBaylis and Harding

Question

Task: Marketing Assignment Task: Based on the principles of marketing compare and contrast how dove soap/hand wash compares against Baylis and Harding soap/handwash. Conduct an in-depth research into the brands target market, likes and dislikes, levels of personal disposable income etc, using market research databases.

Answer

Executive Summary
The aim of this report on marketing assignment is to compare and contrast the marketing strategies that have been adopted by Dove and Baylis and Harding. Both these organizations operating in beauty and personal care sector and are known to have served a large number of customers across the world. Secondary research has been conducted to present the report. Marketing research databases like TGI and Statista has been used for gathering relevant information. The report concludes that Dove has targeted people who belong to the middle to high income group and Baylis and Harding has targeted people with high disposable income. Dove has adopted competitive pricing strategy whereas; Baylis& Harding has adopted premium pricing strategy. The availability of Dove products is high as compared to Baylis& Harding. Both the companies are socially responsible. In addition to this, Dove can be marked as one of the competent companies whereas Baylis& Harding can be marked as one of the sophisticated companies. Despite, adopting effective marketing strategies Dove should emphasize on diversity and inclusion whereas Baylis& Harding should emphasize on increasing its availability in several countries.

1. Introduction
Marketing strategies have gained popularity in recent years because it is developed and implemented for increasing the reach of the products/services among a greater number of customers and to help the firm achieve long-term growth (Parola, Pallis, Risitano and Ferretti, 2018). The aim of this report is to compare and contrast the marketing strategies adopted by Dove and Baylis& Harding to increase the reach of their product in the market. The parent company of Dove is Unilever and it sells Toiletries in various parts of the world. The global brand value of Dove in the year 2021 has been estimated as $5.1 billion (Statista, 2021a) (Appendix A). The objective of Dove is to make sure beauty enhances confidence of an individual and not anxiety. On the contrary, Baylis& Harding is a family-owned luxury brand that specialises in luxury hand washes and customization of gift sets. The organization has generated $61.96 million revenue by selling its products (Dun & Bradstreet, 2021).The premiere quality product has helped the company to grow significantly.

2. Segmentation Targeting and Positioning Strategic Approach
STP is framework that involves 3 different steps. Marketers of firms use this framework to segment the market, target customers and position the product or service within the market. STP helps marketers of an organization to remove the firm from large market segments to small profitable market segments (Camilleri, 2018). The following part of the report focuses on explaining the process that the marketers of Dove and Baylis& Harding has adopted for targeting potential customers and for positioning their respective brand in the global market.

3. Findings
3.1Comparison of the Target Market
Dove primarily focuses on women who are affluent and belong to the age group of 18-35. In recent years, the organization is also targeting women who are engaging themselves in social media activities for a long period of time. Dove also targets people who belong to the medium to high income group. On the contrary, Baylis and Harding is a luxury British brand that targets people who belong to the high-income group and whose personal disposable income is high as compared to people who use Dove. Since, the organization targets people who use premium and high-quality brand therefore, the members of the organization has also focused on manufacturing the best quality products to the customers. It has been found that in 2020, Baylis and Harding became the second fastest growing brand for providing high quality sanitizers to the people of UK (Statista, 2021b) (Appendix B). Thus, it can be said that Dove is more inclined towards people with low disposable income and Baylis& Harding is inclined towards people with high disposable income.

Furthermore, people who love Dove also tend to like other brands like Nivea,Garnier and many more. Previously, Dove used to sell soaps, then the organization slowly started launching a range of personal care products to meet the needs of the customers in the competitive environment and to increase their share in the market. During the pandemic, Dove sanitizers, and shower products like soap and shampoo witnessed a rise in sale by 32.8% and Dove has been an integral part of it (Mintel Report, 2021).Dove ensures to integrate the concept of “real beauty” in the mind of people across the world and this is how the organization is adding value to its brand (Kantar, 2021). On the contrary, organizations like EL Erman, Wilcor International are few significant competitors of Baylis and Harding. Unlike Dove Baylis and Harding is known for providing customized gift packs to its customers. These gift packs contain essential toiletries. The objective behind introducing gift packs in the market is to make the purchase experiences of their busy customers easy. Moreover, Baylis& Harding in recent years have gained popularity because of the firm has emphasized on selling products that are sustainable. Apart from selling sustainable products, the organization is also well-known for collaborating with other brands like Terra cycle to recycle waste materials and ensure ecological balance (Baylis& Harding, 2021a). This initiative of the organization has also added value to the firm and helped the firm to gain competitive advantage.

In addition to this, Dove operates in almost 80 countries and the company is known to have functional positioning strategies. The objective of this positioning strategy is to position the product in such a way so that the product can solve the problems of the customers. Dove tends to use the attributes of the product to meet the needs of the customers. On the contrary, Baylis and Hardinghave adopted Symbolic positioning strategy. This means the organization has used the value of the brand to position its product in the market.

3.2 Product/Brand
According to the ring model of Levitt a product of an organization is distinguished on the basis of two different attributes. They are primary and secondary (Pettifor, 2019). The innermost level of the Levitt circles represents the core benefit of the product and the outer circles represent the added benefits of the product that makes it more customer-centric and helps the product gain competitive advantage. Furthermore, according to Levitt added benefits associated with metaphor can increase the sale of the product because buyers are more inclined towards metaphor (Yakob and Steals, 2021).The core benefit of Dove is the primary attribute of the product. Thus, the core benefit of Dove is to nourish skin and keeps it hydrated every day (Appendix C). On the contrary, the product of Baylis& Harding increases the wellness benefits of an individual and this is the core benefit of the product (Appendix D).

In addition to this, Dove has adopted plastic-free packaging that helps in ensuring sustainable business practices. This can be termed as the augmented product offering as per the Levitt’s model. On the other hand, organic extracts are used by Baylis& Harding for manufacturing its products (Baylis& Harding, 2021b). The sustainable aspect of the product adds value to the brand.

Furthermore, Dove focus on marketing its product by saying that inner beauty of an individual matters the most and outer beauty is secondary. This is an emotional appeal. On the contrary, Baylis& Harding aims at providing high-quality product to the customers at it aim at functional appeal. The brand personality framework of Aaker segments brand on the basis of 5 different aspects. The aspects include sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and Ruggedness (Moura, 2021).According to the brand personality framework of Aaker, Dove is a highly competent brand because it is reliable, it has gained success and has also intelligently placed the product in the market. On the contrary, Baylis& Harding is more sophisticated because it targets upper class.

3.3 Price
In the table below, the types of pricing strategy have been provided (Appendix E). Dove has adopted competitive pricing strategy because the organization is known to analyse the price of the products of its competitors before setting price of their product. The objective behind this is to attract a greater number of customers and enhance market share. On the contrary, Baylis and Harding have adopted premium pricing. In this type of pricing the premium multiplier is involved (Ko and Lau, 2015). Furthermore, premium pricing has been adopted by this organization because the brand targets people with high disposable income. The price of the products has been provided in Appendix E.

3.4 Promotion
In 2004, the Real beauty campaign was launched by Dove. It was launched in print media and also in television. This campaign gained popularity by promoting the concept of real and inner beauty (Unilever, 2021). Furthermore, no real model was hired for the campaign. Thus, the brand has positioned itself as one of the social-conscious beauty brands, which is also affordable. On the other hand, Baylis& Harding first launched their TV advertising “surprise surprise”. The objective behind sponsoring this show is to promote the core message of the brand. It aimed at promoting how gifting loved ones and fulfilling their long wishes can help an individual to reunite with them. This campaign also has an impact on the emotions of the customers.

3.5 Place
Dove is a mass market product. Products of Dove are available in local retail stores in almost 80 countries. Furthermore, the products of Dove are also available in online platforms because in recent years the percentage of online shopping has increased significantly. On the other hand, the products of Baylis and Harding are available in online platforms like Amazon.

4. Conclusion and Recommendations
The aim of the report was to compare and contrast the marketing strategies that have been adopted by Dove and Baylis and Harding. The report concludes that Dove has utilized the 4ps of marketing to target the mass market. The marketers of Dove aimed at gaining competitive advantage and increase its market share in the global market. On the contrary, Baylis and Harding have utilized marketing strategies for attracting a niche market that comprises of people with high disposable income. They have aimed at providing high quality premium products to the customers. Both the brands are found to be socially responsible but consumers perceive Dove as one of the affordable brands. On the other hand, Baylisand Harding are perceived as one of the premium brands that provides high quality and customized product to its customers. Despite this, both the brand can improve their marketing strategies. Dove should focus on including diversity in its campaign. The real beauty campaign aims at promoting diversity but it has failed to include women from large number of communities across the world. On the other hand, it is recommended to the marketers of Baylis& Harding to expand its operation in more countries and should focus on the availability of the products. Modification of these strategies can help both the companies to increase the reputation of the brand and can increase the reach of the product among a greater number of customers.

References
Baylis& Harding, 2021a.Sustainable Luxury.[online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Baylis& Harding, 2021b.Our new goodness collection.[online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021). Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Market segmentation, targeting and positioning.In Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 69-83).Springer, Cham.

Dun &bradstreet, 2021. BAYLIS & HARDING PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY. [online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Kantar, 2021.Examining the enduring success of Dove and Nivea.[online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021)

Ko, T.H. and Lau, H.Y., 2015. A brand premium pricing model for digital music market. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 6(2), p.117.

Mintel Report, 2021. UK Soap, Bath And Shower Products Market Report 2021. [online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Moura, F.T., 2021. Brand Personality: Understanding Aaker’s 5 Dimension Model.Marketing assignment[online].Available at (Accessed 01 November 2021).

Parola, F., Pallis, A.A., Risitano, M. and Ferretti, M., 2018. Marketing strategies of Port Authorities: A multi-dimensional theorisation. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 111, pp.199-212.

Statista, 2021a.Brand value of Dove worldwide from 2016 to 2021.[online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Statista, 2021b.Fastest-growing hand sanitizer brands in the United Kingdom in 2020. [online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Unilever, 2017.Announcing the Dove Real Beauty Pledge.[online]. Available at (Accessed 30 October 2021).

Yakob, F. Steals, G., 2021. Why the metaphor makes the sale. [online]. Available at (Accessed 01 November 2021).

Appendices
Appendix A

Fig. 1 Dove’s brand value across the world (2016-2021)

Source: Statista, 2021a.

Appendix B

Fig2. Fastest Growing hand sanitizer brand in UK (2020)

Source: Statista, 2021b

Appendix C

Fig 3. Dove Product positioning using Levitt’s model

Source: Author made

Appendix D

Fig 4: Baylis& Harding product positioning using Levitt’s model

Source: Author made

Appendix E

Fig 5: Pricing strategies

Source: Author made

Appendix F