Strengths
• Good brand
• Strong profit
• Loyal customer base
• Dominant in hair care market
• Wide distribution
• Has many product collections
• The sales of shampoo also help to increase the sales of other Pantene products
Weaknesses
• Use different package around the world
• Confused consumers by offering too much collections
• Messy product line
• Spend a lot of money on the new packaging strategies
Opportunities
• The concern about beauty and health increases
• People are willing to pay more for “green” products or natural products
• Launch the new product line called “Natural Fusion”
• Wining The Australian Beauty Award 2009
Threats
• Many competitors in the hair care market
• The fast growth of beauty salons and salon’s product
• Susan Anord, president of global business units of P&G, left after 28 years serving for the company.
STRENGTH
Pantene Pro-V is the leading brand in hair care market and is one of the top brands of P&G, the world largest consumer-products company. Pantene is also the planet’s best-selling shampoo with the sales of more than $3 billion dollar annually1. It’s really easy to find a Pantene product in any supermarkets, pharmacies, and convenient stores; from city to countryside and from countries to countries. With that wide distribution, more than 1.5 million Pantene products are sold everyday around the world2. The brand has the loyal customer base because people tend to stick to the cosmetic products that they get used to. Beside that, these customers also buy the other products from Pantene, according to a survey, 85% of Pantene shampoo consumers buy Pantene conditioner, 17% buy hair spay and 16% buy other styling products3. With 19 different collections such as Anti-Fizz, Beautiful Length, Smooth, Classic Care etc, Pantene can serve various market segments.
WEAKNESS
Having too much product lines doesn’t mean that it is always good and the products lines seem to become messy. Many Pantene’s consumers said that sometime it’s confused them from choosing the right collection for their hair. However, Pantene already responded to this problem by offering the quiz, designed by hair expects, on their website www.pantene.com to help consumers find the right one for their needs. The company also tried to make the distinction between different collections from promotion and packaging. Packaging, P&G spent more than $100 million to refresh the brand by changing its packaging. Unfortunately, The new packaging strategies fail to deliver any real value innovation to the market, and thus can only be regarded as a fad because bright and glitzy packages will eventually lose their eye-catching quality as more products try to do the same.4
OPPORTUNITY
As the standard living increases in many countries, the concern about beauty and health also increases. That is an opportunity for Pantene because people are willing to pay more for the beauty care products or hair care products. According to a study published last month by The Boston Consulting Group, consumers worldwide expressed an interest in buying “green” products with natural ingredients despite the slumping economy. This trend can be seen as a threat for Pantene because it is still weak compared to some salon-level products like Nexxus and Tresemme of Alberto Culver and Everpure Shampoo of L’oreal in this market segment. In fact, these products experienced a strong growth recently. Don’t yield the market share to these products, Pantene launched a new product line called “Natural Fusion” to compete with them. An advertisement of Natural Fusion tries to send a message to consumers that they can get a salon’s result by using Pantene Natural Fusion. Pantene Pro-V also won The Australian Award 2009, this is an opportunity for it to increase sales the following years.
THREAT
Although Pantene Pro-V is the leading brand in hair care market but it often lose its market share because there are a lot of players in this market. It’s a challenge for Pantene to make consumers choose its products over more than 100 kinds of shampoo from various brands on the shelf. Another threat for the company is the rise of beauty salons and salon’s products. Susan Arnold, the President of Global Business Units for Procter & Gamble Co, helped P&G from having one billion-brand, Pantene in 1999 to have eight billion-brands today: Pantene, Olay, Head & Shoulders, Wella, Mach3, Gillette, Fusion and Braun when she resident of the Company’s personal beauty care business ten years ago5. Her leaving after 28 years serving might be a disadvantage for P&G.