Dove in the skin cleansing category case study

: do private labels represent a threat?

Abstract

During the past years, the Portuguese retail mass market had been witnessing some changes in the consumers shopping habits. There are several reasons that might explain this fact. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is the financial crisis, forcing consumers to change some of their habits. Over the years the retail mass market has been changing and adapting to new trends. In general, brands are enlarging their product portfolios in order to face competition and to try to reach every consumer segment – decreasing the product differentiation. Brands are now challenged to stand out in categories where sometimes products’ benefits are very alike. Given the decrease in product differentiation and the Portuguese consumer adaptation to the economic environment, the number of private labels purchased has been increasing. As a consequence, the variation in the perceived quality between NBs and PLBs is decreasing, resulting into the use of price as the deciding factor. Despite the veracity of price being the ultimate deciding factor in some categories (such as food), in the skin cleansing category the same cannot be concluded. As a market leader in the category, Dove represents an example of success in an industry where wining a price war is crucial. This research tries to unveil some of reasons behind this success. Much of the success is due to the nature of each category. This nature will vary according to variables such as risk of purchase, price consciousness and others which will lead to a higher propensity towards national brands.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Pedro Celeste (Supervisor)