Alan Cooke is product manager for Guard Deodorant Soap. He was just transferred to Lever Ltd$.,$ a Canadian sub$-$ sidiary of Lever Group Inc., from world headquarters in New York. Alan is anxious to make a good impression because he is hoping to transfer to Lever$$s London office. He is working on developing and securing management approval of next year$$s marketing plan for Guard. His first job is submitting a draft marketing plan to Wendy Lee, his recently appointed group product manager, who is responsible for several such plans from product managers like Alan.

Alan$$s marketing plan is the single most important docu$-$ ment he will produce on this assignment. This annual market$-$ ing plan does three main things:

$1.$ It reviews the brand$$s performance in the past year, assesses the competitive situation, and highlights problems and opportunities for the brand.

$2.$ It spells out marketing strategies and the plan for the coming year.

$3.$ Finally, and most importantly, the marketing plan sets out the brand$$s sales objectives and advertising$/$promotion budget requirements.

In preparing this marketing plan, Alan gathered the infor$-$ mation in Table $1.$

Alan was somewhat surprised at the significant regional dif$-$ ferences in the bar soap market:

$1.$ The underdevelopment of the deodorant bar segment in Quebec, with a corresponding overdevelopment of the beauty bar segment. But some past research suggested that this is due to cultural factors$$English$-$speaking people have been more interested than others in cleaning, deodorizing, and disinfecting. A similar pattern is seen in most European countries, where the adoption of deodorant soaps has been slower than in North America. For similar reasons, the perfumed soap share is highest in French$-$speaking Quebec.

$2.$ The overdevelopment of synthetic bars in the Prairies. These bars, primarily in the deodorant segment, lather better in the hard water of the Prairies. Nonsynthetic bars lather very poorly in hard$-$water areas and leave a soap film.

$3.$ The overdevelopment of the $$all$-$other$$ segment in Quebec. This segment, consisting of smaller brands, fares better in Quebec, where $43$ percent of the grocery trade is done by independent stores. Conversely, large chain grocery stores dominate in Ontario and the Prairies.

Alan$$s brand, Guard, is a highly perfumed deodorant bar. His business is relatively weak in the key Ontario market. To confirm this share data, Alan calculated consumption of Guard per thousand people in each region $($see Table $2).$

$*$Adapted from a case prepared by Daniel Aronchick, who at the time of its preparation was marketing manager at Thomas J$.$ Lipton, Limited.

$23.$ Lever Ltd$.*$ Cases

$23$

Table $1$ Past $12-$Month Share of Bar Soap Market $($percent$)$

Maritimes Quebec Ontario Manitoba$/$Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia

Deodorant segment

Zest $21\mathrm{.}3\%$ Dial $10\mathrm{.}4$

Lifebuoy Guard

Beauty bar segment Camay

Lux Dove

$14\mathrm{.}2\%24\mathrm{.}5\%5\mathrm{.}112\mathrm{.}84\mathrm{.}23\mathrm{.}11\mathrm{.}22\mathrm{.}15\mathrm{.}61\mathrm{.}0$

$6\mathrm{.}212\mathrm{.}37\mathrm{.}06\mathrm{.}111\mathrm{.}27\mathrm{.}75\mathrm{.}58\mathrm{.}06\mathrm{.}6$

$31\mathrm{.}2\%30\mathrm{.}4\%25\mathrm{.}5\%16\mathrm{.}117\mathrm{.}214\mathrm{.}36\mathrm{.}45\mathrm{.}84\mathrm{.}24\mathrm{.}24\mathrm{.}22\mathrm{.}1$

$4\mathrm{.}14\mathrm{.}05\mathrm{.}15\mathrm{.}06\mathrm{.}95\mathrm{.}06\mathrm{.}36\mathrm{.}24\mathrm{.}2$

$5\mathrm{.}35\mathrm{.}29\mathrm{.}04\mathrm{.}24\mathrm{.}18\mathrm{.}0$

$17\mathrm{.}216\mathrm{.}022\mathrm{.}6$

Lower$-$priced bars

Ivory $11\mathrm{.}2$ Sunlight $6\mathrm{.}1$

$6\mathrm{.}512\mathrm{.}43\mathrm{.}28\mathrm{.}2$

All others

$($including stores$$

own brands$)26\mathrm{.}930\mathrm{.}818\mathrm{.}6$

Total bar soap market $100\mathrm{.}0\%100\mathrm{.}0\%100\mathrm{.}0\%$

$100\mathrm{.}0\%100\mathrm{.}0\%$

$100\mathrm{.}0\%$

These differences are especially interesting since per capita sales of all bar soap products are roughly equal in all provinces. A consumer attitude and usage research study was con$-$ ducted approximately a year ago. This study revealed that con$-$ sumer $$top$-$of$-$mind$$ awareness of the Guard brand differed greatly across Canada. This was true despite the even$$by population$$expenditure of advertising funds in past years. Also, trial of Guard was low in the Maritimes, Ontario, and

British Columbia $($see Table $3$ on the next page$).$

The attitude portion of the research revealed that con$-$ sumers who had heard of Guard were aware that its deodorant protection came mainly from a high fragrance level. This was the main selling point in the copy, and it was well communi$-$ cated by Guard$$s advertising. The other important finding was that consumers who had tried Guard were satisfied with the product. About $70$ percent of those trying Guard had repur$-$

chased the product at least twice.

Alan has also discovered that bar soap competition is espe$-$

cially intense in Ontario. It is Canada$$s largest market, and many competitors want a share of it$.$ The chain stores are also quite aggressive in promotion and pricing$$offering specials, in$-$store coupons, and so on$.$ They want to move goods. And because of this, two key Ontario chains have put Guard on their pending delisting sheets. These chains, which control about half the grocery volume in Ontario, are dissatisfied with how slowly Guard is moving off the shelves.

Now Alan feels he is ready to set a key part of the brand$$s marketing plan for next year: how to allocate the advertis$-$ ing$/$sales promotion budget by region.

Guard$$s present advertising$/$sales pro