Abstract

This report focused on the influence of 'Meril splash beauty soap ' advertisement on Bangladeshi
consumer and use of the brand. Advertising has been regarded as a veritable tool for creating
awareness for new products and existing ones too. Advertisements have also seen to create
emotional appeal rather than logical appeal. This means that advertisement creates different
forms of perception in the minds of consumer. The study made use of mainly secondary sources
of data - textbooks, journals, articles, online source and use of primary data is limited. This
report also used different theories of consumer behavior to explain the real situation. We find out
that the core benefit offered by Meril splash beauty soap is freshness. Beauty lies in white
complexion is a common concept of Bangladeshi people. Through the think fresh campaign
Square Toiletries addressed to their target consumer that beauty is not white complexion, beauty
is freshness. For this different concept, they got huge response from the target market and other
marketers. This brand soap is also affordable to every people. This advertisement has
successfully met the self-actualization need of consumers. By doing so they have increased the
brand image of Meril splash and if they can maintain that image Meril splash can be a
sustainable brand for future. If we consider the ethical side of this advertisement, it doesn't
present any false or deceptive way to cheat with their consumer. But there is also some limitation
of this advertisement. This report presents the total scenario of consumer behavior after seeing
the advertisement of Meril splash beauty soap.

Introduction
Advertising used properly is a major tool in the hands of marketing managers which helps enable
them to sell products, services and ideas. Advertiser’s primary mission is to reach prospective
customers and influence their awareness, attitudes and buying behavior. 'Meril' is a soap of
Square Toiletries Ltd. This soap blends the ancient imperial luxury of milk baths with its 6 times
more moisturizing power and will give a fresh and soft skin by removing skin roughness and
protecting against it. There are different types - natural milk, milk and beli, milk and honey and
some other varieties of Meril splash beauty soaps are fresh turmeric, fresh melon, fresh
cucumber, fresh peach. Meril splash beauty soap introduced into the market in October 2007 and
it is especially developed for Bangladeshi girls in the local market.

The advertisement of the soap is informative with a social message. The tag line of the
advertisement 'fresh is beautiful' creates a distinct position in the minds of customer. It breaks
the rules of commercial brand advertisement where girl external beauties get importance. They
want to send a social message which creates an impact on aware people of our society. This
brand tends to create a new ideal self-image of our women.
The objective of this report is to identify the level of the effects on the consumer purchasing
power and decision making process and how the advertisement finally change or influence their
purchasing behavior. This ad will create emotions and feelings in the existing consumer mind
which would lead towards belief about the brand, which would lead towards making a positive
attitude towards the brand.

Meril Splash is the brand that believes freshness is a key to a girl beauty. This platform of
freshness is now extended further as we understand that the inner freshness of a Banglasdeshi
girl is eternal and is much bigger than the external beauty.

Literature review:
In this present era, marketers are focusing consumer rule that is the first preferences. To know
more about the customer, marketers keep deep eye on consumer behavior. Researcher finds out
that consumer make rational or irrational decision making which is associated with emotional
appeal and can solve their problem.

This study reviews the consumer behavior and attitude towards advertisement of Meril Splash
Beauty Soap. The purpose of advertisement is to communicate and increase view of their unique
sales motivating information. Their effort towards consumer welfare to create positive customer
attitude. Square toiletries ltd. Marketed meril splash beauty soap. Meril splash beauty soap is the
brand that believes freshness is a key to fresh beauty. Advertiser tries to make consumer
understand that this is not a beauty pageant rather inspiring the girls. They try to give insight that
the inner freshness of a Bangladeshi girl is eternal and are much bigger than the external beauty.

The strategy of meril splash beauty soap advertising is concentrated to their competitors.
Competitors give emphasize on fairness, glow and beauty where they provide a social message
to erase the wrong definition of beauty. The theme of their advertisement is ‘Fresh is beauty’ by
which they inspire and motivated girls to bring changes in society. They do not go for the general
advertising rather come with distinctive thought that give them a huge competitive advantage.

The advertisement of meril splash beauty soap has a great influence on the decision making
process of consumer. Normally when consumer exposed to advertising, a portion of their long
term memory is activated thereby, stimulating buying behavior. Meril splash beauty soap
advertising is triggered the mind of consumer by appealing to inner directedness social character
of consumers. Consumers also give positive response towards this advertisement because they
felt something different .Besides consumers find emotional attachment with this advertisement.
In addition they get strong vibrancies to break the misconception of beauty. Consumer trust and
make purchase attitude by product evaluation and brand recognition through advertisement.
 Methodology:
The study involves an examination of impact of advertisement on consumer buying behavior and
on their attitude towards this advertisement. For conducting this study we do not use any primary
source of data. Because consumer response will be varied according to different consumer and it
may not give correct result. So we use secondary source of data includes textbooks, article,
research paper, newspapers, magazine, YouTube etc. Secondary data enhances our knowledge
and help us to critically analysis this advertisement. The collection of secondary data is saving
our time, cost efficient and provides us wider variety of options and findings. So with the help of
secondary data, we use some hypothesis and general thoughts to analysis the impact of
advertisement.

Meril Splash Beauty Soap

Product category structure:

 Product Class: A class of products that provides a substitute for another, according to
how wide or narrow the product definition is. The product class of “Meril Splash Beauty
Soap” is “Cosmetics and Cleaning Preparations”
 Product Category: A product category is all the products offering the same general
functionality. The product category of “Meril Splash Beauty Soap” is “Toiletry product”.
 Product Type: Product type is the groups of products that share the same attributes. The
product type of “Meril Splash Beauty Soap” is “Beauty Soap”.
 Brand information: Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large
or small, retail or B2B. The parent brand of “Meril Splash Beauty Soap” is “Square
Toiletries Ltd.” Under the sub brand “Meril”.

Advertising appeals: An advertising appeal is a reason for someone to buy a product.

Commercial and print ads use some form of appeal to reach potential customers. The most
common advertising appeals include use of fear, humor, rational, emotional, sex or bandwagon
propaganda.

Television Commercial “Meril Splash Beauty Soap” used emotional appeals. Emotional appeal
is a persuasion method used to create emotional feedback or response from the target audience.
Emotional appeals are often used to manipulate an audience into making an emotional decision
or giving an emotional response. This TVC tends to create a new ideal self-image among the
target customers.
Cultural Appeals: Culture refers to a set of values, ideas, artifacts, and other meaningful
symbols that help individuals communicate, interpret, and evaluate the symbols as active
members of society. Culture provides people with a sense of identity and an understanding of
acceptable behavior within society. Cultural content in TV commercials primarily focused on
advertising appeals which are embedded with cultural values. Values are shared beliefs or group
norms internalized by individuals. Cultural values, then, are the organizing principles, or the
orienting ideas for thought and action in every society.

Television Commercial “Meril Splash Beauty Soap” tries to provide an informative advertising
with a social message that is embedded with our cultural values. This TVC is appealing to inner-
directedness social character of consumers. This TVC tries to make an effort towards consumer
welfare to create positive consumer attitude.

Product Positioning and competitors: Meril Splash Beauty Soap gives the experience of
freshness like no other. It tries to create a distinct positioning strategy through stimulus
discrimination concept with the promise of giving extra freshness to Bangladeshi Girls, Square
Toiletries Ltd. has developed and marketed Meril Splash Beauty Soap. Meril Splash is the brand
that believes freshness is a key to a girl’s beauty. This platform of freshness is now extended
further as we understand that the inner freshness of a Bangladeshi girl is eternal and is much
bigger than the external beauty.

The direct competitors of Meril splash beauty soap are Tibet and Keya. All of them are lower
priced beauty soap. But other beauty soap brands like Lux, Dove, Sandalina Sandal Soap etc. are
the indirect competitors of Meril Splash Beauty Soap.

Consumer Decision Making Process and Promptness

Consumers are continually making decisions that are meant to solve problems. Decision making
process generally include five activities: 1) need recognition, 2) search for information,
3) evaluation of alternatives, 4) choice, and 5) post-choice evaluation. Consumers do not always
proceed through the activities in sequential fashion, nor do they always complete the process.
Consumers reach decisions in a number of ways. The decision making approach depends heavily
on the amount of involvement a consumer has with a product category or purchase and the
amount of perceived risk involved with the decision.
Buying soap involves habitual or ‘routine’ decision making. Choice is often based on habit.
Meril splash soap has certain consumers who will buy it without any information search; brand
inertia is present when the consumer simply buys without real attachment. So, this advertisement
won’t affect their purchase but loyalty. The consumers will have a bond with the brand.
This brand loyalty will enable consumer to reduce searching time and will lead to benefit of
convenience. Although we will now show how the advertisement influences the decision making
process:

1) Need Recognition: When consumers are out of stock,they can notice the advertisement and
replenish the stock. The purchase decision is simple and routine. Ads for personal hygiene
product like this soap create insecurities and consumer resolve that buying the products. Meril
splash says ‘’Fresh is beautiful’’. So the ad will gain attention of those who value freshness than
so called fairness. Here Square Toiletries Ltd. will take advantage of consumers’ tendency
toward novelty-seeking behavior. Consumers who are satisfied with their other brands: Jui,
Chaka, Senora, Revive, Meril protective care etc. will also try this soap brand. Marketers will
encourage brand switching by advertising Meril splash soap brand on regular online and offline
medium.

2) Information Search: Meril splash soap uses their websites, advertisement, public sources
including articles in magazines or newspapers etc. to influence the information search of the
consumers.

3) Evaluation of Alternatives: In this stage consumer will compare it with the other brands’
advertisements. Though it may varies from one consumer to another and depends on situation,
soap brand like Lux, Dove, Tibet, Sandalina, Keya are considered to be in the evoked set of
consumers when purchasing a soap. Meril splash soap has to compete with these brands to be in
the evoked set. It need to gain awareness among the consumers. Marketers use point of purchase
materials and promotional techniques for this brand. They also arranged a beauty hunt program
in association with Persona.

4) Choice: For consumer package goods, the time between the decision and actual purchase may
be short. Consumer will buy from their brand loyalty. So the marketer of the Meril splash soap
should use reminder advertising. The purchase decision also can happen in store, so packaging,
self-displays should to be maintained properly.

5) Post-choice Evaluation: The consumer decision process does not end with the purchase.
After using the product the consumer will compare the level of performance with expectation.
Consumer will be either satisfied or dissatisfied. Meril will have to acquire the feedback from the
consumers who actually used it because it will influence the likelihood of future purchase.
Square Toiletries Ltd encourage their consumers to contact them through phone call or email for
feedback and other queries.
 Consumer Behavior Insight:
An insight consists of the 3W’s: What is the customer doing? Why are they doing it? Wow -
nobody has ever noticed or talked at such detail about that problem before. Powerful insights
contain the following 3 key characteristics:

1) Targeted - someone needs to feel addressed and involved. When looking for Insights it’s vital
to focus your activity, narrow your research to a specific target and key gap’s in your knowledge.

2) True (Problem) - at the HEART of every Insight needs to be a true dilemma as without a
problem no one need your solution.

3) Fresh - as an Insight can be true but generic and noncompetitive – make sure it’s a new
problem or an existing problem described in a new way.

We uncovered insights into how women shop for beauty today. It’s no secret that the beauty
path-to-purchase is changing—rapidly. The way women access and experience beauty are more
dynamic and varied than ever before. Trends and product innovation are driving women to
experiment with different products and brands and challenging their loyalty to any of them.

Consumer behavior insight:

1. Cosmetics and personal care products are important or very important in their daily lives.
2. Consumers make clear link between cosmetics and personal care products and quality of
life.
3. The important criteria of quality of life, consumers value good health and personal
hygiene the most.
4. Cosmetics and personal care products play an important role in building up self-esteem
and enhancing social interactions every day.
5. Consumers consider cosmetics and personal care industry products important or very
important to how they are perceived by others.

Many people consider fair skin more desirable than dark, the cosmetics industry has responded
by producing a wide range of skin-lightening products—and with great success.

But, when these companies pitch their creams in ads that seem to portray fair-skinned people as
somehow superior to those with darker skin colors, marketers are crossing a line. Cream makers
say they are merely meeting a market need, but social activists argue that these companies have
an ethical responsibility to avoid marketing products in a way that could perpetuate a skin color
bias and people now support this argument. So we think there are no changes required.
 Ethical Consideration of this Advertisement:
The nature and medium of advertisement has changed day by day. Now-a-days advertisement
has created a buzz. Everything is introduced by advertisement. Goods, services or ideas etc. are
promoted through advertisement. TVC or Television Commercial is a big medium of
advertisement and most of the persons get influenced by advertisement. So advertising should
hold an ethical issue that will make sure that everybody must know something from those. So,
there should have a message in every TVC. The relationship between ethics and advertisement is
in questionable situation now-a-days. Many marketers use ethical issues and many just mislead
people. Most of the marketers are not following ethical issue of advertisement. They just want to
make ad popular at any cost. But some are different and I have found it by this analysis.

Here when we are talking about the promotion of soap, in our country the most using term is
fairness. Considering the enhancing of fairness there is a baneful effect for the skin in the long
term. But most of the brands hide this to get the highest response. Interesting thing is this brand
Meril Splash Soap doesn’t saying anything about the fairness. Even they indirectly underestimate
the fairness without freshness. So there is no chance of practicing unethical job in term of
fairness.

But Meril splash is focusing on the freshness so they had to count the elements of the product.
They are saying about cucumber, turmeric, milk, pomegranate, blackberry as their elements of
Meril soap. Though it’s not confirmed that are they really use or not those ingredients but mostly
we get the news of using artificial elements instead of natural. As the cost of pure ingredients are
higher than the artificial. So it can be a question to the ethical practice. From the above
discussion we can say that this TVC is not practicing any type of major unethical issue compared
to others.

Limitations of the TVC

With the promise of giving extra freshness to Bangladeshi Girls, Square Toiletries Limited (STL)
has developed and marketed Meril Splash Beauty Soap. Meril Splash is the brand that believes
freshness is a key to a girl’s beauty. This platform of freshness is extended further as we
understand that the inner freshness of a Bangladeshi girl is external and much beggar than the
external beauty. STL is carefully integrates and coordinates many communication channels to
deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message about “Meril Splash Beauty Soap”. To reach
in consumer they use different types of advertisement. They use Direct Marketing, Internet
Marketing, Sales Promotion, Publicity, and Personal Selling to reach every customer. So they do
promotion well of their advertisement.

The ad is very informative with a social message that is “fresh is beautiful, not fairness”. This
line attracts customers most and breaks the social rule of beauty. It tends to create an ideal self-
image. It makes customer to think beauty in a different way. It changes the perceptions of so
called beauty. In the ad, they use celebrity endorser “Nusrat Imrose Tisha” whose skin color is
not white and it also represents the ad. They state that all skin color person can be beautiful if
they are fresh. So we think that they made the ad very carefully and strategically. And we don’t
find any limitations to the TVC.

Limitations of the Study

This study couldn’t prepare any questionnaire as a source of data collection. Hence, it was
unable to know the ultimate response of the consumers. The more people are conducted as a
sample size, the more accuracy is accumulated in the research paper.

Also, this study couldn’t visit the company, factory, employees, and couldn’t meet the suppliers
to find out the actual scenario related to the philosophy and ethics, that have been shown in the
advertisement. It should be done because it can give the research more compact and unbiased
information as well as more strength, based on which a powerful message can be established and
spread. The future researchers should have done this to avoid relying on outside data resources.
This study was also limited with the secondary information which have been gathered from
internet, text book, youtube videos, online journals and so on. Finally, the use of some
hypothesis and general thoughts could be hopefully introduced as an element of subjectivity into
the interpretation and analysis of the data. All attempts included in this research have been taken
to minimize the effects of these limitations on the study.

Conclusion
We have investigated the role of feelings in understanding the Meril Splash advertising effects.
We have conducted these studies to examine whether feelings occur as a result of viewing
television commercials or the relative importance of feelings and judgments of the ad's
characteristics on several advertising outcomes. The Meril Splash ad's that emerges interest in
emotional aspects of consumer behavior, advocates a broadened view of consumption-related
emotions, and focuses on the role of emotions in mediating the effects of advertising.
Specifically, it proposes an approach that examines the manner in which intervening emotional
reactions mediate the relationship between advertising content and attitudes toward the
advertisement or brand. An illustrative application of this approach demonstrates its usefulness
in assessing the role of emotions as mediators of consumer responses to advertising.