Branding and Positioning of Huggies

1.0 Executive summary This report provides an analysis and discussion of the current branding and positioning strategies of Huggies nappies and recommends some feasible branding strategies for the business in the future. This report is conducted from variety of sources and data such as the related website news, marketing theory books and academic press. The analysis and discussion cover the current brand positioning strategies of Huggies to see how Huggies brand been recognize by customers, the brand strength and distinctive competencies that Huggies created for customers, the product related attributes and promotions that Huggies contribute to customers, and the depth of competition in the baby nappies industry that require Huggies to challenge, the end of the report will conduct the recommended strategies that Huggies could consider to utilize in the future for its brand positioning especially the four fundamental steps that Huggies should follow to implement strategic brand management. 2.0 Mission statement of Huggies We are the leader in our field; we are evolving into an integral part of every new baby and new parents life. 3.0 Brand positioning of Huggies Brand positioning describes how a firm designs its offers and images in the target consumers mind; successful brand positioning should be managed based on the nature of product attributes, target market and customers, and the competition in the industry so as to contribute to the entire marketing strategy of the business. (Keller.K, 2008). Huggies brand toward all the parents and target the parents who are interesting in medium cost with high quality of nappies for their babies. Huggies represent the concern for caring baby as the brand image that Huggies is caring from the pregnant period of mothers to newborn, infant, crawler, toddler, walker until junior. Huggies offers different sizes of nappies and baby wipes for baby with consistently high quality to best satisfy parents. How businesses position to describe their values in the marketplace have significant influence on consumers behavior and buying decision because a brand positioning is one of active way of communications with customers. More important, brand identity can be repeatedly communicated in multiple ways to customers. Good brand positioning result in effective communication with consumers, increase the brand awareness and image in consumers mind (Solomon, .M.R, 2004). Therefore, Huggies is there to help parents and care about babies, Huggies help to make parents feel a little easier and a lot less daunting and enjoy the journey of being parents. More important, Huggies nappy is the only nappy that clinically proven to keep babies skin so dry and help prevent nappy rash. 4.0 Huggies brand strength and distinctive competencies Huggies identifies and establishes the Huggies Brand as the symbol of dry bottom for healthy skin to protect babies. According to Huggies website, Huggies nappies combine five particular characters

that have significant differences from other brands. First of all, Huggies nappies have unique 3 Layer Design to keep ultra dry for babies. Secondly, Huggies nappies are designed with large, stretchy, shaped grip tabs to ensure baby snug fit. Thirdly, the wide, stretchy waistband and grip tab design of Huggies nappies are total comfort for baby. In addition, in order to best protect against leaks, Huggies nappies have triple leakage protection that unreasonable for parents to worry at night or go out with their baby. Finally, the contoured shape results in an even more comfortable fit for our babies. There are many categories of similar products in the marketplace that push businesses to create a viable basis of differentiation so that they can carry on the sustainably distinctive competencies to influence consumers. Huggies does carry some distinctive competencies in the business development to against competitors and stimulate the business expansion. For example, Huggies reduces the risks in product decision such as the functional risk, physical risk, financial risk, social risk, psychological risk and time risk. For example, Huggies always guarantee the quality of baby nappies to best protect against leaks at all time which reduce the functional risk for mothers. Also, with the wide, stretchy waistband and grip tab design that total comfort for baby that reduces the physical risk for babies. The retail price of Huggies nappies is acceptable for most families that reduce the financial risk for customers. Furthermore, its convenient for customer to get Huggies nappies in supermarkets or other retail stores in the conspicuous position on the shelf that reduces the time risk for customers. 5.0 Huggies product related attributes and brand promotions Product attributes include the quality level, features, design and usage safety of the product. Huggies nappies is the only clinically proven nappy that help to prevent nappy rash for baby. Huggies nappies are the most absorbent nappy that the fast absort layer can quickly draws moisture away from babys bottom and into the core faster than ever before. Huggies nappies are more breathable that allow air to circulate throughout the nappy and result in babys skin to have breath. Huggies nappies is the only nappy with triple leakage protection and it contains feature soft and stretchy leak guards that designed to against leaks from any gaps. Huggies nappies are greater comfort and fit with leg elastic that allow baby to move freely without scraping. In addition to the soft curved leg elastic, Huggies nappies also feature a stretchy, wide all-round waistband to contour to babys body. With the adjustable soft and stretchy and shaped grip tabs, Huggies nappies are easy and convenient to be fastened and refastened. Also, the large, stretchy grip tabs provide an even better baby snug fit around the waist. The most important, the baby soft liner is Huggiess softest liner yet which reinforcing the comfort on babys skin so as to make baby feel good with wearing nappies. Brand promotion includes sales promotion and consumer promotion. Sales promotion is launching the discount sales as incentives to stimulate the price sensitive for the purpose of increase sales in short term. Consumer promotion mainly focuses on offer different choices, quality, design or timing of consumers product purchases. Brand promotions can be done in variety of ways such as giving discount, price off packs available, premiums, provide free samples, demonstrate product usages, and offer educational materials and so on. More important, all the promotion needs to be

communicated to customers that firms should choose the suitable media to implement the promotion activities. Huggies chooses to advertise in television commercials and magazines and most promotions are informed in these two media. In addition, customers can also notice sales promotions from supermarket as well. 6.0 Competition in the baby nappies industry The baby nappies industry is saturated with hyper competition that customers can see a lot of brands of nappies available in supermarket for them to choose. For example, in addition to Huggies, parents have many choices of nappies in Foodtown and Pakn Save such as Baby Love, Loving, Treasure giggles, Aqua Kids, Select and Home Brand nappies. Hereinto, Aqua Kids focus on toddlers to juniors, Baby Love focuses on babies up to 5 Kg, Home Brand nappies are more acceptable by low income group of parents, Select-contour fit nappies have good price and design but medium quality, Treasure is the closest competitor for Huggies to compete with; especially in New Zealand market that Treasure is the only domestic firm makes disposable nappies, and Kiwi parents seems to trust and support the local nappies producer rather than the importing brands. Furthermore, Treasure declares that the Treasure nappies are manufactured through a rigorous environmental and product safety system, and their factory facilities are ISO accredited to produce high quality of nappies for babies. This means Treasure nappies assure the quality and safety concern of parents and it will result in some parents feel safer to select Treasure nappies than other brands of nappies for the consideration of safety issues. However, Huggies nappies also put the safety issues as the number one solution for baby as Huggies nappies is the only nappy clinically proven to keep dry skin for our babies so as to prevent nappy rash. Finally, it is important for Huggies to recognize the most compelling threats and opportunities and avoid defining competition too narrowly. For example, the substitute products such as cotton nappies, washable nappies and reusable nappies are also competitors of Huggies. For the purpose of gaining the competitive advantages in the baby nappies industry, Huggies should explain the similarities and strongly define the difference of Huggies brand in baby nappppies branding landscape. For example, Huggies should emphasize the product strength of Huggies nappies and indicate the benefit of using Huggies brand. 7.0 Recommendation of branding strategy for Huggies Determined the Brand objectives, focus on the target customers and build the brand equity are the critical issues for the Branding strategy for Huggies. Huggies need solid the brand identity so that customers can associate with the Huggies name as their choice, Huggies can do a lot with the frequent customers who have experience the Huggies brand with their baby such as offering the discount deal to stimulate those people to be the loyal customers so that they will purchase Huggies for their second or third baby in the future days as well as introduce the Huggies brand to their families and friends. Therefore, Huggies should identify the sources used to produce nappies, communicate the assignment of responsibility to product maker, be the risk reducer for parents in choosing nappies, be in the well-marked place to reduce the search cost for customer, show the signal of quality and consistently guarantee the quality of nappies to care babies. For example, the sources of the product being told and described in detailed to customers will influence their buying decision because the sources of the product directly relate to the quality of the product. So it is very

necessary for Huggies to have the identification of the source of the product such as the materials used to produce the nappies, the factory location and the people who have been training to increase their skill overtime so as to produce the good quality nappies. Also, consistently guarantee the quality of baby nappies to be the risk reducer so as to ensure the confidence of parents who choose Huggies as the safe and favorite brand. Finally, be supportive, proactive and innovative in creating customer value is also critical for Huggies in the strong competition market environment because competitors might imitate some product features of Huggies nappies or introduce better nappy products. For this reason, Huggies should notice to customers that we not only offer the standard benefits but also promise the differentiated benefit to baby. In addition, Huggies could consider developing the brand expansion strategies to be more competitive in the marketplace. For example, Huggies might add more product line to produce other baby product such as baby powder, baby shower gel, baby oil and so on. It is essentially important for Huggies to realize the importance of brands to consumers because parents might choose to buy the brands of nappies they like, trust, heard from friends, recommended from somebody or try a particular new brand. According to Keller, the strategic brand management should follow four fundamental steps. First of all, Huggies should identify and establish the Huggies brand positioning and values for the purpose of building a strong brand based on brand equity and creating customer values; secondly, plan and implement brand marketing programs that is to choose the right brand elements, design the marketing programs such as arrange some marketing activities, launch the Huggies brand promotions, integrate the marketing communication system throughout the organization and leverage the secondary brand association in order to build brand equity; in addition, measure and interpret brand performance to develop a brand equity measurement system, to measure the sources and outcomes of brand equity so as to capture customer mind-set and market performance; the last is to grow and sustain brand equity by designing and implementing branding strategies, managing brands over time and managing brands over geographic boundaries and market segments (Kotler& Keller, 2006).