Marketing Management

Case Analysis: Gillette Personal Care Division - Marketing Planning & Control

Indian Institute of Management

Kozhikode

Submitted By:

PGP/14/258 Alok Kumar PGP/14/279 Lokesh Singh

PGP/14/280 Mahtaab Kajla PGP/14/283 Naveen Vyas

PGP/14/303 Shruti Kabdal PGP/14/304 Sneha Ramteke

Submitted to: Prof. Rahul Kumar Sett

1

Ma

rke

tin

g M

an

age

me

nt

| 2

5/0

7/2

01

0

Situation Analysis:

Each April the sales planning department and the brand managers organized a field sales and marketing manager meeting to

discuss potential changes in marketing plans for the next year.

The planning and control system was the followed to make the strategic marketing decisions.

Right guard was restaged using the planning and control system.

Right guard strategy did not work as the market conditions changed and the system was a bit rigid and could not adjust itself to

the changing market environment.

White rain was another product launched using the system. But this time the strategy worked.

The managers of Gillette were now in a dilemma weather to continue with the system as there were problems when the

market conditions changed.

Problem Identification:

The non-adherence of the management in following the systems and procedures as specified in Planning and Control

System.

Right Guard’s market share dropped instead of following proper planning and control procedures but White Rain, in

spite of skipping some steps was able to do well. Why?

Qualitative analysis

Pros and Cons of Structured Strategy

Pros

The system provides a powerful historical perspective in the fact books and plans that it generated.

The system fostered enough communication and information flow to keep the brand up to date.

The system required managers to step back and examine the relevant variables in their programs and interaction between

variables which protected them from making mistakes.

Cons

The system is very time consuming which is not very much desirable at times.

There was commitment issues, when compromised solutions were sought against strongly held opposition views, sometimes

resulted in lack of enthusiasm from all quarters.

The system leads to sub optimization of a lot of things.

Some of the brands may suffer due to unfair resource allocation to prioritized brands.

Right Guard vs. White Rain

Table – A

Right Guard White Rain

2

Ma

rke

tin

g M

an

age

me

nt

| 2

1/0

7/2

01

0

Money High Low

People Many Few

Time Heavy Heavy

Heroics Absent Present

Table – B

Right Guard White Rain

Situation “hold brand” Old fashioned Low market share

Entry level, Low priced product

Strategy Carried the Brand Image Pure risk and opportunism

Externals Aerosol burst (Market share decreased 26% to 8.5%)

Was performing better than its expectations

Expectations High Low

Effort High – Increased advertising expenditure ($13 million)

Low

Competition Advertising expenditure increased by Mennen by 45%

Suave increase in prices(unexpected)

Results 12.9 $ Market Contribution 3% Market Share.

Quantitative Analysis

The quantitative analysis of Right Guard is being shown in appendix A, actual values against forecasted values and the computations of

units sold is calculated.

Recommendation

The Planning and control system should be in action but steps should be taken and changes made to make it simpler and the

time lag due to complex procedures.

The time-to-time continuous system review of the system should be there to identify the right programs to allocate resources.

From the case analysis we understand that the Planning and Control system in place at Gillette’s PCD had certain bottlenecks especially the reaction time to changing market conditions. White Rain hair care product was successful as it gave a lot more freedom to the implementation team to take decisions and react faster. This however does not take away the benefits of having a Planning and Control System altogether. The system needs to be simplified to become more effective in responding to changing scenarios in the market.