As with humans, products also have a lifetime, and pass through various stages throughout that life, e. g. beginning, growth, maturity, decrease and, eventually, loss of life. Product life routine (PLC) is a portrayal of the life of a product in the market attempting to get the dynamics of any brand from the point of view of business/commercial costs and sales options. Sunsilk premiered in India in 1964 and it grew with the progress in the head of hair treatment industry, specifically the shampoo market, in India, starting a number of product variations.
Steps used by Sunsilk at each stage
AT PRODUCT LEVEL
Stage I: Introduction
Sunsilk premiered as a aesthetic beauty shampoo, and was situated the same manner during its preliminary years in India
Stage II: Growth
Within a decade of its release in India, Sunsilk released a tonic shampoo for dandruff, which was the first anti-dandruff shampoo in India. In the next years, it launched many shampoo variants such as Sunsilk Silky and Straight Shampoo, Sunsilk Good care & Repair Shampoo, Sunsilk Hydra, Sunsilk for Locks Destroyed by Daily Deterioration. Sunsilk also arrived with its selection of hair conditioners such as Sunsilk Daily Repair Conditioner and Sunsilk Soothing Conditioner.
Stage III: Maturity
By the beginning of the new century, Sunsilk achieved maturity as a global brand, with its products being sold in 69 countries. To prolong the set in of the decline stage, Sunsilk gone for Brand rejuvenation in 2003 and arrived with "SUNSILK NATURALS".
From 2009, Sunsilk has began working with a number of professional hair experts to develop new and increased products. Each mane issue version has been associated with a specialist with the relevant specialist scalp knowledge. For example, Dr Francesca Fusco, a fresh York dermatologist, co-created a "hairfall" variant for the brand. Sunsilk created a new look with new variants, new presentation, new advertisement and a fresh tagline "Life can't wait".
AT COMMUNICATION LEVEL
Stage I: Introduction
Sunsilk started out its publicity efforts in 1955 with an marketing campaign that focused on specific mane "issues". In the united kingdom, the campaign focused on shiny hair. During the 1960s, a tv commercial of Sunsilk featured a tune composed by John Barry, "The girl with the sun in her hair", which became so popular that it was consequently released as a pop single. In its early on years in India as well, Sunsilk centered a lot of its marketing attention to position the product as a beauty shampoo.
Stage II: Growth
In the first 1970s, Sunsilk was marketed with the punch line "All you need is Sunsilk". In its development stage, the communication of Sunsilk was focused on different product variants and promoting the utilization of Sunsilk conditioners.
Stage III: Maturity
After the dawn of the new century, Sunsilk found it very difficult to capture market talk about and entice a more youthful audience. In 2003, Sunsilk travelled the online road with the website "Sunsilknaturals. com". Further, it sponsored occurrences like "Femina Pass up India" and "India Fashion Week".
In 2005, Sunsilk donned a new avatar to become more in sync with today's 20-something women. It launched new variations to the brand, repositioning itself into a full haircare brand. The founding concept behind the marketing campaign is that hair can dramatically adjust a girl's mood and activities. The beliefs behind it is the fact that by firmly taking appearance into their own hands, girls are also taking positive steps towards being more in charge of their life: "Hair On= Life On".
From this emerged the tagline, "Life can't Wait. " Hair has a deep emotional connection with women and plays a substantial role in the audience's life. Like epidermis, it is an integral part of the individuals form, but like clothes it can be manipulated. By acknowledging this emotional connect, Sunsilk has managed to stand apart from its rivals. Sunsilk realizes that different women have different needs and hence has created 7 products that focus on a variety of them.
On June 17, 2006, Unilever launched Sunsilkgangofgirls. com, India's first "online all-girl community" which quickly captured the attention of the target group as it was promoted by using a 360-degree advertising communication blitz. The site was brand name space to market Sunsilk, while at exactly the same time it provided a public networking platform for girls.
The site offers its users usage of a variety of local and global experts to handle various hair attention needs through its content, weblogs and live chat room. The website includes rich content of mane attention and fashion, and users can also take part in interactive video games and quizzes. The work to consider the GoG website on the road began in later 2006 when Unilever conducted a Sunsilk Scalp Pubs event in Delhi that was essentially a live version of the GoG website where girls could spend their weekend getting advice on hair care, mall activation programs and participation in college youth festival occasions.
Market Circumstance and Challenges
Sunsilk faces hard competition from the 'sachet' market which makes up about 70 percent of the marketplace. Also Sunsilk still neglects the rural market which is the major chunk of the shampoo industry in today's day situation. Further, the brand is restricting its concentrate on to 20 something women only and in hence neglecting the middle aged customers. They have also lost an enormous segment of men users by naming them 'Desperate Fellas'. The gang of young girls has lost its relevance over the time frame with introduction of other, far better social networking discussion boards like Facebook, Twitter, Friendster and Orkut in India. Thus, Sunsilk must up their ante against each one of these obstacles to emerge as a force to reckon with.
Summary
In the first years, Sunsilk focused much of its marketing attention on gaining international presence. A fresh campaign was launched to recruit youthful users. The new products focused on scalp color, texture, feeling, dryness, etc. The kept up to date Sunsilk marketing campaign, "Get Hairapy", used the same strategy, marking a striking move towards users in their 20s and upwards said to be in their "quarter-life crisis". Around 20% of the brand's current users are new users after repositioning while 40% are brand faithful. The brand is also approaching the rural areas with "Sunsilk Sahelian".
