IIM Lucknow: Marketing workshop conducted by Mr Sudhanshu Vats

Mr Vats started the session with a live case study that involved finding the strategy to revive the market share for VIM in the Utensil Cleaners market a the development that initiated HUL to launch Vim Liquid in the market. Today, the company enjoys healthy share of the Utensil Cleaners market. The students formed a group of eight and analyzed the case from different perspectives to arrive at different strategies that came very close to the actual strategies employed by HUL.

Supplementing the case study with his insights, Mr Vats explained HULas strategy of targeting rural and urban consumers separately. Although it is mostly the consumers in urban sector who were responsible for the high sales of VIM bar, management at HUL realized that it is the rural market that has more potential for growth in the future. It faced the biggest challenge from the popularity of ash and powder in the rural sector. It was not easy to enter into this market especially because of the easy availability of ash in villages. Mr Vats explained that HUL decided to establish strategy of lowering the input costs to arrive at a low cost VIM bar for rural sector consumers.

Seeing that the future of liquid cleaners is promising in urban sector, Mr Vats explained the reasons which led to the launch of a new product aVIM Liquida. Sharing the secret of this successful launch, he explained how HUL identified and overcame barriers that existed in the minds of consumers. The perception that the liquid cleaner is not strong enough was cleared by the tag line that one drop is sufficient to clean a good number of utensils. Also, to ensure the cost efficiency of the product, a new bottle cap was introduced that only allowed drop by drop usage.

Mr Vats then shared the market results achieved by HUL and concluded the workshop with feedback on the case analysis by students.