Today in Sri Lanka the detergent industry has become a turbulent, rapid changing industry.

There are many brands involved in this day to day household business, here we talk about

“Surf Excel ®” one of the top brands in the industry.

In a country like Sri Lanka, people were used to stick in to soap in cleaning purposes

especially in laundry. According to the geographical circumstances ordinary washing soaps

weren’t the most suitable thing in laundry in areas like Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa,

Hambantota etc… Here in the middle of 1980’s a new solution, washing powder was

introduced suitable for any water condition that used in laundry.

At the mid of 1990’s, the brand Surf Excel® was launched in Sri Lanka. At present the brand

Surf Excel® has become a famous brand among all areas in Sri Lanka by winning peoples’

hearts. Now it contains several large scale channels and thousands of workers joined. At the

beginning of 2010 it is included most famous detergent brands in Sri Lanka acquiring 30% of

market share.

Surf Excel® is originally manufactured in India and imported, marketed by Uniliver Sri

Lanka. As being the sole agent in Sri Lanka the marketing process of Surf Excel® is totally

handled by Uniliver Sri Lanka.

At the launching time market segmentation was insignificant as there wasn’t many

competitors. As being a new product, people were taken forward to buy and use Surf Excel®

without any effort. But at the end of 1990’s due to diversification of the detergent industry

Uniliver reconsidered their marketing mix. As a result Surf Excel® was introduced in a fresh

appearance targeted towards housewives as a highly effective stain remover. This new

appearance succeeded in short run but in the long run they had to make some changes to the

original one.

Due to the highly competitive environment Surf Excel® marketers decided to divide the

customers in to more significant parts. In return their target market was matched with

housewives having kids. Under a new attribute “Dirt is good” this new marketing plan was

launched and currently they are proceeding with this. Dirt is good implies that the children

aren’t aware of stains at their activities, so stains are essential part of learning. Hence let your

children do anything and the stains can be dealt with Surf Excel®. This is a new kind of idea

that differentiates Surf Excel® products which has done an excellent positioning process

compared to other competitors.

Considering the other competitors segmentation we can observe that the Surf Excel® has

bounded comparatively effective segment where the others don’t see as a separate unit.

Mainly the others focused on removing stains without promoting the process of stain removal

but Surf Excel® focused on exhibiting the process of stain removal rather than saying.

Through there advertisements one can get a clear view of their target market as all of their

advertisements appearing kids with stains on their cloths and moms use Surf Excel® to

get rid of stains.

Surf Excel® doesn’t focused on how effective it works on the stain but says don’t worry about

stains because Surf Excel® will take off the stains, which means stain removal is nothing to it

when the others talking about how to remove stains using their products. This idea gives a

special place for Surf Excel® among other competitive products, remaining on customers’

intentions that Surf Excel® is the most suitable laundry cleaning product for a family with

kids. On the other hand, it implies that if it can handle the stains on kid’s cloths, removing

stains on adult’s clothes is nothing. This shows the unique features of Surf Excel® and the

strategy of positioning. Also it differentiate from Uniliver’s other detergent products due to

the same reason and they use this strategy to discourage new enters to the industry taking the

ultimate advantage from positioning.

When considering on marketing mix of Surf Excel® basically, one can observe competitor

dependence mostly except promotions. Other tools of marketing mix such as Price, Placing

are mostly same as the others. Those things are discussed in detailed further.

The Marketing Mix of Surf Excel®

1. Product

When considering market mix tools of Surf Excel® the product is the most important thing as

the people are used to believe that all detergent products are appear same. Surf Excel ® having

special formula which can work in both hard and soft water which means Surf Excel® acts

same at the south end of Sri Lanka as well as middle or north end. Specially Surf Excel® can

be easily identified among the other products as its unique container.

The consumers’ need can be varied consumer to consumer based on intention. In a product

like detergent powder the demand could not be exceed more than 1 kg, according to the target

market. Also the product should be available in small sachet matching to the buying power of

most of the members of the target market. So the Surf Excel® product comes in small sachet

to 1 kg powder packs, giving the opportunity to the customer to fulfill his/her need. On the

other hand this type of range makes sure that customers of Surf Excel® won’t bend for

another product in a case of lacking buying power.

Surf Excel® introduced their product range mainly in two categories.

1. Surf Excel® Quick wash.

2. Surf Excel® Matic.

Surf Excel® Quick wash is strategically targeted on most of customers in their target market.

It can be used for both hand wash and washing machine

and promoted throughout all parts in Sri Lanka in all

forms, such as sachet 50 g, 100 g, 200 g, 500 g and 1

kg. Also can be purchased in any store, super market

etc… No matter of water (whether hard or soft) but the

action remains same. It comes in common usual orange

and blue pack, shows the highest selling compared to

the Surf Excel® Matic.

Surf Excel® Matic is specially designed for washing machines and the forms of products are

fewer compared to Surf Excel® Quick wash. Strategically this is designed for the customers

in target market who are having higher buying power. This has gained an extra advantage by

catching all the customers based on various buying power. Also Surf Excel® Matic is

somewhat expensive than Surf Excel® Quick wash due to the above reason and mainly sell

via super markets.

Uniliver only imports two product ranges from a vast product range compared to the

manufacturer. There are available many related products like Surf Excel® Blue, Surf Excel®

Liquid wash etc…

Considering along the segmentation and target market, a product like Surf Excel® blue will be

a nicely matching product as the members of target market use blue as well as washing

powder. With the previous experiences in Surf Excel® washing powder there exists a high

probability of accepting such a product by the target market.

2. Price

According to the target market the price should not be exceed the limit that a normal family

willing to pay for detergent. Also there are many competitors with various prices and small

differences of the product outcome. Being one of the old detergent powder Surf Excel®

dominates a high market share compared to the others. Here Surf Excel® has got the

advantage of competing with both cheap and expensive brands using its two product range. It

competes with cheaper ones using Surf Excel® Quick wash and expensive brands with Surf

Excel® Matic.

Uniliver also promotes a detergent powder called Rin® which has different qualities other

than Surf Excel®. Strategically Uniliver does this to survive both products and make the

pricing using one as the defender of the other. This helps to Surf Excel® to set the highest

price margin without refusing by the customer. Also beat the competitors and to gain

competitive advantage.

Observing the process of pricing of Surf Excel® shows that Uniliver is using competition

based pricing policy that the Surf Excel® doesn’t increase or decrease its price independently

but depending on the competitors. This acts as a main reason of non-refusing by the

customers because price of the all other similar products are also raised at the same time.

Also the product range like Surf Excel® Matic gives the higher profit margin focused on to

the customers who concern on quality rather than price. So Surf Excel® Matic price setting

not highly based on the competitors prices but the quality. Presently we can observe a price

war between Sunlight, Rin, Surf Excel® and Diva, four major brands in Sri Lanka. Due to

this, the customers may switch from one product to another to get superior satisfaction. There

is a nice opportunity of attracting other customers who use different brands towards Surf

Excel® and to increase the market share of them.

Suggestions

If Surf Excel® can maintain a medium price among the similar products will give an

opportunity to attract customers from the other brands who aren’t selecting Surf Excel® as

their detergent powder.

Currently there isn’t a fixed pricing policy such as discounts at the purchase or price

reduction at the major purchases as the other similar brands do. Our opinion is that if

Surf Excel® can such a policy there market share will be higher in a short time.

Surf Excel® sachet price is the highest price among the similar product. This has made the

most of sachet users away from buying Surf Excel® sachet. This should be considered by the

Surf Excel® marketers.

Promotions

Surf Excel® highly believes in sales gain through promotions. Annually they spend a lot for

these promotions. Typically sales promotions can be observed and customer targeted

promotions can be highly seen.

Specially according to their strategic marketing plan, mothers having small kids – target

market- are mainly focused they involved in the traditional marketing promotions and also

modern techniques they own gondolas POS stalls and etc… Also field activities which can

be significantly identified from the other similar brands.

Especially their field promotions a set of activities for the customers (mothers and their

children) are highly popular among the rural areas. Through these activities they motivate

customers to buy more or to stick in with them or to attract new customers of their target

market. As the advertising they use these events effectively packed and thrown to their target

market.

Event list

Advertising using media.

Surf Excel® mainly uses television and daily papers (especially weekend papers) as their

advertising media. You may see kids involved in their childish activities with a set of

annoyed mothers and a joyful mother. The joyful mother always uses Surf Excel® and not

paying any attention to the stains on the clothes. Even the mother also joins with the kid to

accomplish the kids’ task. These commercials get popular both children and moms even

among fathers. These commercials indirectly force customers to buy Surf Excel®. We observe

significant arise of these advertisements which implies that there are working well.

Apart from the media they use a powerful marketing tool called super market promotions.

We can frequently see these kinds of promotions rolling over all the super markets. Here

these super market offer a raffle draw or price rewards for the customers who are buying

some of the nominated products. As the time this report is being processed we observed three

main super markets (Cargills, Keells and Arpico) running this kind of promotions running for

the New Year. Surf Excel® was a nominated product over the three super markets. Through

this kind of marketing promotions Surf Excel® gains new customers and attract people for

impulse by normalizing the product.

Also Surf Excel® conducts the way of doing laundry in the areas that are hiving hard water.

They conduct seminars, demonstrations at those areas. Through these they have gain a huge

competitive advantage. Also they involved in socio responsible marketing by repairing public

wells, washing areas etc… At the rural area they place a huge cutout near a public well,

washing area on a tank, stating the advantages of using Surf Excel®.

Suggestions

1. There is not a proper way of getting feedback from their promoting campaigns. Most

of participants are not truly customers of the Surf Excel®.

2. Surf Excel® marketers are mostly concerned on short term promoting events. This

gives short time benefits but not suitable in long run.

3. They are conducting continuous promotion programs which prevent the survival of

new entrants’ products, also gaining customets.

4. Through these promotion programs Surf Excel® has been gained a memorable

reputation among all the customers which strongly helps to be survived.

Placing

Group Members

M.M.M Dilushan AS2009351 AS/63344/2008/2009

M.D.M Lahiru AS2009426 AS/62768/2008/2009

B.A.E.H Mendis AS2009449 AS/62786/2008/2009