Reaching Out to Millennial Parents Through Product Innovations and Awareness: A Case Study on Brand Positioning

A company's long-term growth is closely linked to its ability to build a successful brand and position it in the market. Positioning a brand effectively can shape brand value propositions, determine customer messaging and drive competition and marketing strategies. It can also leave a strong and lasting impression on customers. In this article, we shall discuss brand positioning of Huggies Brand, look at some strategies and understand the components involved in brand positioning to the millennial parents by Huggies as part of a sample MBA project work in Marketing Management. 

Brand positioning refers to the process of influencing the minds of prospective customers to offer a desired product or service. With a good brand positioning strategy, brands can craft their value propositions, define the marketing strategy and reinforce their brand purpose. An effective positioning strategy requires a deep understanding of the market, identifying how a company is different from its competitors and recognising the market conditions and opportunities. Marketers can create a perceptual map of dominant brands to identify opportunities. This positioning map illustrates how consumers perceive brands competing in a marketplace using two key factors. A brand can create its own niche and create positioning opportunities using the map and looking at areas where there are few competitors.

About the Brand

The brand considered for this MBA project study is Huggies, which is a leader in disposable diapers for babies and a product by Kimberly-Clark India, the parent company is Kimberley-Clark, America. The company have been serving Indian consumers since 1995 in a joint venture with Hindustan Unilever - Kimberly-Clark Lever. In 2017, with the unwinding of the JV, the company started its independent operations in India. At Kimberly-Clark, from innovative products to insightful solutions, there are continuous missions to lead the world in providing the essentials for a better life. With iconic brands like Huggies, Kotex, Kleenex and Depend in its portfolio, the company’s goal is to bring the strength of its global brands and the capabilities to build a high performing organization in India. With India being amongst the key focus markets for Kimberly-Clark globally, there have been on a transformational journey to enhance the footprint across the country, to bring the portfolio of great brands & products to Indian consumers and to establish Huggies diapers as an me too product for the millennial.

Rationale of the Study

As a brand, Huggies have always tried to bring a positive difference in the life of millennial parents as they navigate through the new journey with the little ones. As part of its marketing strategy, the company does a lot of consumer work by speaking to consumers. One of the major observations of the company for Huggies is that the consumers are looking at a lot more choices and want baby care products containing natural and organic ingredients in them. The brand in its latest campaign, created awareness amongst consumers about the innate goodness of organic cotton which is a vital ingredient for Huggies nature care. The intent is to provide the millennial parents a product which has no added chemicals like Parabens, Chlorine and Latex. The brand intended to make consumers aware that the product which a parent is looking for their babies is now available in the market. Considering many advantages of the brand like goodness of organic cotton etc and its market share and presence in the minds of millennial parents, it is felt necessary that students should carry out MBA project work on brand positioning strategy of Huggies in Indian market so that findings of the study can be utilized by the other similar organizations producing or marketing or planned to introduce baby diapers in Indian market.

Marketing mix to reach out the millennial parents

Huggies baby diapers is a great product of Kimberly-Clark India with superior quality of packaging and design to promote it as organic product. Its objective is to spread awareness to the millennial parents by leveraging different mediums. Over the last couple of years, Digital media has become a crucial part of our life. With the growing footprints on various social media platforms and parenting portals, it has become imperative for the company to engage with consumers at digital touch points. Thus the company has initiated this campaign heavily on digital mediums as the product caters a lot to millennial parents who are mostly present in Digital and social media. There has been huge growth in online business, as well offline business continues to be a significant part. Further, if a consumer is purchasing the product offline, a lot of content is consumed by him/her online. According to the company, investing in relations with consumers is most important in India. The company has a vision to build a bond which is not only functional but also emotional and to support the millennial parents in the journey of parenthood. Nowadays consumers are making well informed choices and opt for natural products for their babies. Thus, the objective of its advertisements/campaigns are about boosting confidence of parents and reassuring them that they are making right choice for their babies. As part of its branding strategy, the company is building bond with the parents, like in one of its campaign a mother has a bond with her child. The marketing mix of the company to be studied in details as part of the MBA project.

Strategy to meet future challenges

The Indian millennial consumers are going back to earthly and natural products in several categories. So the company has also transformed itself future ready with organic products as their next big thing in the market. Considering consumers will always want choices, as a brand, Huggies fundamentally do innovations and identify different trends that the consumers are looking forward to. There are multiple different aspects that consumers require today and so as a brand it will continue to do innovations to meet future challenges of competition by providing consumers with different products across different needs and this being one of them. They are also a pioneer in product and packaging innovations and that remains a priority in future as well. When the company realized that the consumers were buying products in bulk quantity, it launched Sumo monthly packs. Two of its new portfolios- Huggies Nature Care and Huggies Premium Soft are exclusively launched for E-commerce platforms. Thus the brand is identifying requirements of consumers and providing them with the right product. New player like Dabur is entering the diaper segment. But according to Huggies, all kinds of competition is good, thus they respect it. They have their future ready strategies in place and know how to grow the business. Strategies for future challenges to meet customers’ wants should be detailed in the MBA project. Also competitors like Dabur etc and the strategy to face competition should also be a part of the MBA project.

Conclusion

The brand has been growing steadily over the last couple of years and intend to continue with that growth momentum. Huggies nature Care campaign is a testimony that they are focused on growing upcoming brands as well. The company and its baby diapers brand are looking at a very robust growth in the next couple of years. If you are an MBA student and about to start your MBA project work but feel like unclear of where from to start, then this article is for you.

Dedicated faculty member of Madembaezy can help a student during the MBA project study and to find a subject, select a topic, find an organisation for the MBA Project work and plan the MBA project and will act as a liaison between the student and the host organisation.