As a first step, the company decided to deploy its summer trainee-Preethi Ganesh from the K J Somaiya Institute, Mumbai who was going to be with the company from May to July 1999-on a fact-finding mission: Ganesh was asked to find the reasons for the Eva range not achieving the targeted sales, specially keeping in mind the advertising effectiveness and consumer satisfaction level, and to suggest measures to overcome the problems she unearthed.

The Ganesh methodology

Preeti Ganesh decided to use a mix of quantitative, qualitative and pluralistic research methods to track the Eva trail.

Under the quantitative study, a self-administered survey was undertaken through a questionnaire on the awareness level of consumers with respect to a particular brand.

The qualitative study used focus group discussions to reveal consumer perceptions and attitude on a new Eva advertisement. Sample testing was done to find out the perception of a consumer about a new product. In-depth interviews were conducted to find out the effectiveness of an already telecast ad and to find out the user satisfaction, as part of the pluralistic study.

Net result? Ganesh found out that: nearly 60 per cent of the population surveyed was aware about the brand name Eva in toiletries of which almost 64 per cent came to know about the brand through the ad campaign.

However, among the population surveyed only 18 per cent had used Eva. The message that came through from the campaign was that it was costly, meant for the upper-class career-oriented/working women.

Hence Ganesh came with the following conclusions: The ad failed to put forward the message that Eva was meant for teenage girls. The products were not shown properly. Respondents felt that Eva was a costly product. The ad was not telecast frequently enough. Based on the findings, Ganesh made certain recommendations.

Sprucing up Eva

Since deo talc was considered a costly product, Ganesh suggested it be introduced in small portable containers of 25-50 gms. In the case of the deo-spray, people did not find the pump mechanism user-friendly, so a change was recommended. For body splashes, the duration of the fragrance had to be made long-lasting and the liquid non-sticky. Since users did not like a combination of moisturizers and sunscreen, Ganesh felt they should be launched separately.

With regard to the ad, she recommended that it convey the price better and show the range of products in more detail. The ad also needed to be telecast more frequently. For merchandising, her advice was that it should be available and seen in more places.

The company took up the recommendations and a new ad was created that projected a teenage-product image. The pump mechanism of the deo-spray was substituted with a spray.

In phase two a focus group discussion was arranged with 10-12 college students and the new ad was screened for their responses. To Ganesh's delight: the new ad didn't just put across the right message, it motivated the students to buy the product. Moreover, when the sample-testing of the newer versions of body splash and deo spray was conducted, on one complained about the product.

Ganesh was sure that with strategy in place Eva would become a potential best selling range given the fact that it is aimed at a niche segment. But she did have one note of caution: The potential could be tapped only by successful advertising and sales promotions tactics.

One more area that had to be looked at was the distribution system. According to her, more research had to be done into areas of distribution, product improvement and the teenage preferences in toiletries since thiswas a new market and not much data was available.