Clarity: 7
Kotex portrays the values that its brand stands for in its marketing efforts. Its positioning is not just an advanced feminine hygiene brand; it is also about empowering young women with knowledge about their bodies. We can see that these values are communicated across the company’s marketing campaigns advertised through their websites, opinion leaders in the youth internet community, and social media channels.
Internal Factors
Commitment: 8
Kotex is internally committed to the brand positioning of empowering women, and its target audience are young and active women. We see this commitment in the marketing efforts that Kotex places into the internet and social media. Its website focuses distinctly on the iKnowMovement, which aims to help women know about their bodies. Its focus of its social media channels are gravitated in the same direction as well. Kotex also places investment into developing new technology that can help set its product offering apart from competitors.
Responsiveness: 6
Kotex responds slower to market trends than its competitors. For example, according to Euromonitor, there was a consumer trend for ultra slim pads and consumers were willing to pay more for their added benefits and functions. Kotex was slower than its competitor, Laurier, to capitalize on the trend of slim pads. As a result, Laurier is now the market leader in Singapore as it is able to produce slim pads with good functionality at a price reasonable to consumers’ expectations.
Protection: 9
The brand is secure as its technologies are patented by law and packaging designs are distinguishable from its competitors. From our survey results, 93% of respondents were able to identify Kotex’s packaging.
External Factors
Relevance: 4
From the survey results, leakage prevention and comfort emerged as the top 2 important attributes that customers look out for. However Kotex does not fare well in those 2 areas. Instead it does marginally better in the aspects of absorbency and pricewise. Kotex also invested efforts at improving the aesthetic appearance of its pads, however, aesthetic design of pads did not surface as a key consideration in our focus group discussion at all.
Authenticity: 7
We consider Kotex to be quite authentic as it has been in the business of sanitary pads for a long time, and it is not new to the Singapore sanitary protection market. Its value set is also well-grounded as it has attempted to distinguish itself from competition by adopting a feministic approach of empowering women.However we question if Kotex can really deliver against the expectations that customers have. From our survey results, Kotex fares an average of 6.54 out of a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of performance of sanitary pad attributes.
Differentiation: 4
Through our survey results, it was revealed that Kotex and its competitors have both high brand recall and recognition. However from Kotex sales, it lags behind Laurier and Whisper, which indicate that although it enjoys high brand awareness from its target audience, it is unable to develop a unique proposition that sufficiently distinguishes itself from competition. This is reinforced by the survey finding that switching cost is low for sanitary pads.
Consistency: 8
Kotex is consistent across its marketing touchpoints- from its website to social media to advertising to packaging, it exudes a young, active and independent image positioning.
Presence: 6
Kotex engages opinion leaders amongst its target audience, such as internet bloggers who have a significant readership and following, to advertise its products. However as to whether the method of this advertising has positive effects on the target audience remains to be seen. For example, we did not encounter any recounts of gaining a positive affect towards Kotex because of a certain blog post during our focus group discussions.
Understanding: 4
Although there is high brand recognition, customers do not possess in-depth knowledge of Kotex’s distinctive qualities such as the flower designs on the pads and the Proactive Guards technology that targets leakage prevention, a key concern amongst customers.
