Download Kotex Brand Research

Kotex Brand Research
(Executive Summary)
April 2003
Background
• Kotex launched its Soft-Dri pad in Beijing in 1996, followed by liner
in 1998. Now Kotex enjoys 10% market share.
• Sofy is very active both in launching products with new features and
communication
• Majority of the Kotex users are mixed users of value brands such as
C&B, Yiyi and premium brands.
• Kotex is going to launch an improved new product with the features of
protection channels and breathable material.
• Together with this new product launch, Kotex plans to have a
marketing and communication campaign to drive brand image and
sales
• Therefore a qualitative research is needed.
Key Research Objectives
• The key objectives are to identify
– What are the category issues / insights which Kotex
can leverage on?
– What are Kotex brand equity/issues which should be
address in the future marketing and communication
• To achievement these main objectives via the subobjectives of
Research Objectives
• The relationship between Kotex users and brand
– The role of products: Why Kotex users keep using Kotex? What do they
satisfied about the product? Is there any un-met needs about products?
Shall we keep our original brand positioning ie. Security?
– The role of brand image: Perceived user image? Emotional feeling with
Kotex? What factors drive this image?
• Competition situations
– Consumer perceptions: What is the role of Sofy celebrity advertising and
product innovation?
• Attitudes towards category
– Brand loyalty: Is there any brand loyalty in feminine care category? In
what way? How do they view new products?
– The differences of product under different brands among the same
segment
– Category communications
Methodology
• Three groups have been conducted in Beijing
– Two groups are Kotex users defined by using Kotex most often, with one
group started using Kotex early than 1998, and another group start using
Kotex after 1998. They are likely to be mixed users of Kotex and other
premium brands.
– One group is Sofy users defined by using Sofy most often. They are
likely to be premium brands and value brand users
• The fieldwork time is April 28th
Key Findings: Category Issues/Insights
New Products
• Facing to a category with a lot of brands, large variety of “new”
products and different sale promotions, women’s behaviors and
attitudes are:
– Choose one brand as the major brand, but not reject trying new products
with appealing product news such as “弹性贴身”“立体护围” “扇形
尾翼“
– Keep curiosity to new products, because they believe that the firms will
product better product
– Having a list of 2-3 brands to switch around. The brands in this list
should be trust worth, reliable and among the same price range
(RMB4.00-5.00 per 5 pads for premium segment)
– Once they choose a new product, they will use their experience of the
most familiar brand as a bench mark to compare with new product. Any
over claimed product benefits will lead to the perceptions of “It is the
same. I didn’t see the improvement”.
Advertising
• The role of ads is not only on messages, but brand
presence on media as well
– Advertising itself contribute to brand image
“It must be a famous brand, if it can do a lot of advertising.”
– Price and product features strongly influence people’s perceptions
of the brands.
“Given the price and basic product features such as wing, cover
material, we know which segment it belongs to.”
– The tangible differentiation among products are weak, so people
are looking for brand value such as trust, familiarity, product
performance
“Pads have been improved very much. All of them have SAM and
wings.”
Brand
• Trust, reliable, feel safe are fundamental for a brand image, if women
put a brand in their brand list
• There are still some perceived brand switch risk for a feminine care
product
“Once I try a new brand, I still start at light time, in case some unexpected thing happens”
• Familiarity drives women’s perceptions of a brand image especially to
those brands they use most often.
“I use Kotex every month. I feel comfortable of using this brand.”
• The key driving factor of mixed usage are as same as before ie save
money, have best protection at most needed moments
“When I go after safety and comfort, I also need to feel value for money.
Use Sofy fan shaped pads is a waist.”
“Good brand should be used on important moments.”
Brand
• Familiarity of a brand comes from usage experience and
brand presence in market place.
“Once you watch the ads in home; you see packages on shelves,
you feel familiar with this brand.”
• The brand differences are on advertising, packaging and
brand name.
“Little umbrella; it likes a brand name for kids. I won’t choose it.”
Kotex
Loyalty
• The loyalty to Kotex is driven by satisfaction of usage experience. “It
delivers my expectations to a premium brand products on safety
(Heavy flow day protection). Other products are more or less the same
as Kotex.”
• Familiar to product, therefore less risk is also important to loyal
customers.
• The brand image of premium, elegant is perceived by those women
who adopted Kotex in the early stage, due to the premium price and
communication at that time.
• The value of Kotex (Product performance vs price) has been highly
perceived, which is also the key factor keeps customer loyalty
• The role of communication didn’t contribute customer loyalty
significantly. Therefore the brand added value is not as high as Sofy
Image
• We found some key attributes of Kotex brand image:
– Elegant (高雅, professional women：Packaging (Kotex blue),
price, product (film cover), communication in launch stage
– Trust, reliable like sister or mother: product safety performance is
reliable, trustworthy brand (not necessary to be thick)
– 放心, 体贴，关心：Familiar with product (blue strip), package
– Distance, 可望，不可及：No active communication, and
promotion
Competition
Overall Situation
• Sofy’s active communication influences Kotex current users to try this
brand.
• Sofy’s celebrity advertising campaign contributes to its brand image
significantly. Sofy also has premium brand image because of price,
product features (innovative product features) and communication.
• The loyalty of new brands starts from product performance perception
on heavy flow days (safety performance). We observed that some
Kotex current users start using Sofy on their heavy flow days
• It seems that Whisper’s image is relatively old due to user image (my
mother’s brand) and fixed product functional oriented communication
(no added value)
Sofy
• Although some Sofy users are emotional oriented (communication
attracts some of users), and they are not very satisfied with its price
(relatively higher than Kotex), they try to rational their behavior and
try to use the product in their heavy flow days.
• The overall image is:
– Active, for young people, energetic brand (有活力，积极）: Have
frequent brand presence on mass media. Celebrity is appealing to young
women. First claimed some of the product features such as fan shape pad,
立体护围，弹性贴身
– High class (premium): Product features, price and celebrity advertising
– Trust: Trust because of celebrity image.
Advertising
General Attitudes
• Advertising plays an important role for people to to try new brand.
“I won’t try a brand without awareness. A brand has advertising won’t be
very bad.”
• People believe there is an fixed category model ie Whisper model to
do feminine care products ads, which is product feature demo in a lab
environment.
• People do enjoy good advertising such as 立邦漆 , Coca Cola.
However they don’t believe feminine care napkin brands is able to
have good ads.
– Sofy ads is appealing, because of the way of communicating product
features (analogy) and celebrity
– Libra “Murder” is interesting, because of interested story line and the way
of using product. (The product message is clearly perceived fast and good
absorbency). However, Chinese consumers can’t accept the idea of
murder
– Korea “Cotton Cover” is appealing because people get the product
message of cotton comfortable feeling, but not seeing physical product
demo.