THIS IS US. THIS IS OUR BRAND. THIS IS BEAUTIFUL.
Asier is an independent sustainable luxury spa product brand designed to promote not only entirely natural products that make the consumer feel beautiful inside out but also, promote body positivity within an industry that is highly focused on perfection. Currently, there are only a few spa brands that provide a luxury feeling product at an attainable price especially in the Hong Kong market therefore, Asier aims to fill that gap. Furthermore, bath and spa products are renowned for either only showcasing the products in the adverts or portraying a perfect image of what a women looks like in their everyday bath/shower routine. For example, showing women waxing but not having any body hair, or coming out of the shower with perfectly blow-dried and styled hair. At Asier, we aim to break that tradition of stereotypical spa and bath advertisements and showcase real women using real products. Our adverts are not necessarily about looking like a supermodel when using our products but instead feeling like one. Therefore, Asier is focused on tackling the issues of body image and advertising within the spa and bath industry.
To be a brand that promotes real beauty inside & out.
Our vision is to be a sustainable brand that allows everyone to enjoy the luxury feel without breaking the bank. We want our consumers to know they are worth it and that our products simply accentuate who they already are, bold and beautiful.
Our brand strongly believes in the idea of not only looking good, but feeling good. We aim to promote the idea of showing reality, rather than staging it. Through our spa and bath products, we want to provide consumers with sustainable luxury at an attainable price, to encourage them to take care of their skin and themselves.
Asier is a brand that strongly believes in ethics, in terms of its values. We believe in sustainability, Asier would have all its bath and spa products made out of natural products and ingredients, ensuring no harm to the environment. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, Asier strongly promotes real beauty, and it intends to showcase the models with unedited photos in our advertisements. This allows the audience to understand what is real and how it is being promoted rather than the ‘perfect’ models and the ‘perfect’ images, bringing in more gradual positivity and acceptance within the public through advertising. Through these ethical differences in how advertising is done in the world today, we want to bring in a change in people’s minds for body positivity and encourage them to avoid body shaming.
Strengths Sustainable All our products are made from 100% natural ingredients that are supplied and manufactured ethically. We believe in creating a product that not only makes our consumers feel good but is also good for our planet. Affordable Our products are luxury at an affordable price with all our products being between 70- 500 HKD and therefore we have a large potential consumer base as our products will appeal to consumers with many demographics. Appeals to Real Women We aim to appeal to women of all body types, race and sexuality by showcasing real women in real situations therefore appealing to those that dont always feel represented.
Weaknesses We will be a small brand that hasn’t been established yet and therefore may have issues with communication and distribution in the beginning which may affect our brand perception as unreliable. Because our products are all natural they will have a relatively short sell by date compared to other brands that use chemicals, this means we cannot hold stock as long and cannot necessarily produce in bulk making thus increasing costs.
Opportunities We will begin by having one pad in Harvey Nichols as well as our online store and therefore through the Harvey Nichols pad we will gain access to their luxury consumer whereas our e-commerce website will be more accessible to those with a lower financial income. Moreover, the consumers that do have a lower financial income will also be able to go into the Harvey Nichols store and purchase our products and therefore will increase the sense of luxury further. There currently is a gap in the market for a luxury spa brand at attainable price and therefore we will be one of the first to fill the gap.
Threats As our products are made 100% naturally our production costs highly depend on the cost of our raw materials and therefore we must watch the markets in order to be able keep our profit margins whilst not compromising on quality.
Describe other successes One of the most well-known companies to utilize body positivity within their advertising is Dove through Doves Real Beauty Campaign. The Campaign showcases multiple women of different, age, race and size and showcases their beauty through videos, picture adverts and billboards that were interactive with the consumer. The billboards allowed the public to vote on who was beautiful and who wasn’t through showcasing different women for example an older women being shown with two check boxes next to her asking if she was “grey?” or “gorgeous?” (ilearnlot, 2018). In the ten years since Unilevers Doves launch of the Real Beauty campaign sales have jumped from $2.5 billion to $4 billion (Neff, 2014) and each campaign has set a greater example that the last for a body positive attitude.
Secondly, Billie, a subscription service based in the US that provides users with inexpensive yet quality razors was the first razor ad campaign to showcase body hair (Hampson, 2018). Although this is not specifically about spa products it still is encompassed within the beauty category and thus is reflective of the success of body positivity and advertising within beauty/skin care. The project called Billie’s Project Body Hair acknowledges that women have body hair and they can choose to remove it if they so do please yet it is not a necessity and became viral almost instantaneously thus sparking a conversation on beauty standards and encouraging feminist consumers to buy from their company.
The success both these campaigns showcases that the consumer is changing, they no longer want to be shown the perfect pretty picture of how their products are going to affect them as they never live up to results and thus are un-relatable and unattainable. Therefore, by aligning our brand with similar attitudes we will not only be putting a positive message into the world but also helping to potentially maximize our exposure and sales revenue.
Target Market and positioning The target audience for Asier is primarily women of the ages of 21-40, usually single or recently married, they desire sustainable and natural products and believe in a brand that stands for good ethics and has strong values. They believe in making changes and believe in a new beginning for leading a better life and an accepting life. They would usually be from the middle class and from urban areas, with an average income of $33,000 - $60,000 (Jackson, 2018). They cherish brands that support rights and good ethics. They would be extremely willing to unconsciously spend on high quality products that they believe would be beneficial for their skin and themselves. Additionally, our target strongly and passionately believes in natural beauty and having women to be comfortable in their own skin. They believe in making a difference to the society by taking small steps, encouraging the society to become a better place for people to live in.
Competition Currently, Harvey Nichols HK has a large product range consisting of brands that primarily focus on beauty/ skin care but also have a small range of spa products available to purchase. This includes the likes of Aveda, Elemis, & Laura Mercier. We have decided to focus on the brands that are also currently being sold at Harvey Nichols as they are our direct competitors due to the fact that we will also be trying to sell our products within the same space. Aveda is a natural, cruelty free brand most well-known for its hair care line. Its currently sold internationally in its own brick & mortar stores, online as well as multiple vendors and is known to be an ethical and sustainable brand due to its focus on wind powered manufacturing (aveda, 2018) however, still uses plastic packaging. They are one of our largest competitors as they currently have specific advertising targeted at the Hong Kong consumer as well as are widely known and trusted with a very similar price range of 90-1000 HKD (harveynichols, 2018) yet they also have a very small spa based product range.
Furthermore, Elemis is the #1 UK skin care brand (elemis.com, 2018) that sells a relatively small section of spa based products however is considered to be a brand for a primarily mature consumer. The majority of their packaging is glass and very simple and their products use plant based botanicals however they do not necessarily focus on being natural or environmentally friendly. Yet they do offer a list of ingredients that their products utilize on their website that are explained in simple terms for their consumer (elemis.com, 2018). They are an internationally known brand with a price range of 200-1500 HKD (harveynichols, 2018) and are
one of the few higher end skincare/ spa brands to use women within their advertisements instead of simply just showcasing the product. They currently have an online store, brick & mortar stores and are sold by vendors across the world.
Laura Mercier is a cosmetic brand based out of Paris and New York (lauramercier, 2018) that again has a small range of spa based products including their infamous honey bath that has become a well-known Christmas present across the UK. This brand was one of the inspirations for our company’s product line however isn’t a sustainable brand and rather focuses on being luxurious rather than socially conscious. They use primarily glass packaging with innovative twists such as a honeycomb stirrer that comes with their honey bath. They also use typical beauty advertising with perfect models in perfect situations utilizing their products however they do use a diverse range of models in terms of race to appeal to a wider consumer base. Their skincare/ spa products range from 200 HKD to 700 HKD (harveynichols, 2018) and thus are one of the closest in terms of price to Acier. Lastly, they operate online, in their own brick & mortar stores as well as through internationally recognized vendors.
The graph above describes the positioning of the competitors in comparison to Asier. The price and each brand’s level of ethical advertising was compared in order to particularly realise where we would want Asier to be placed at. As mentioned, Asier sells high end and high quality products but still at a relatively attainable cost. In addition to that, the level of ethical advertising was depicted through the way their advertisements are portrayed. For example, showcasing models with perfect hair, with no frizzes, perfectly done. It provides misleading information to the audience, which we aim to change for our brand Asier.
Product and Price For our products, we will be selling a few kinds of bath and spa products such as bath bombs, foot scrubs, therapy oil, nail oil and moisturizer and candles. Our price range is from $150 - $600 HKD, with relatively high end quality products, allowing the consumers to attain a luxury feel through fairly reasonable prices. Below is how we plan to price our products:
Product Bath Bombs Foot Scrubs Therapy Oil Nail Care (Oil + Moisturiser) Candles
Price (HKD) $250 - $350 $450 - $600 $400 - $500 $200 - $400 $150 - $250
Considering the competitors and the market of bath and spa products, the products that are directly applied to the skin is usually priced higher, which is the strategy we followed for the pricing for Asier’s products. People are generally more willing to spend on products that have direct contact to their skin, as it could potentially harm them. Therefore, through this way of pricing, purchasing aromatic and atmospheric products is cheaper while the products with direct contact to the skin is a lot more expensive, ensuring the purchase of the products. People Our brand will have a small number of employees as we are in the beginning stages of creating brand awareness and thus want to keep costs as low as possible. Therefore we will have our two founders, Shreya Lunawat & Alyssa Advano, our financial advisor, our production co-ordinator and our marketing expert as a part of our team. Our financial advisor will be in charge of our costs, specific pricing, and overall general accounting including budgets for each section of the company. Our marketing expert will be in charge of not only advertising, social media, merchandising and event coordinating etc but also will act as an R&D advisor by scouting for new sustainable production techniques as well as conceptualizing new products that could be potentially beneficial to our consumer and expand our product range positively. Lastly we would have our production coordinator that would oversee quality control for our products, coordinate with our production factories as well as also work with the marill outsource in order to maintain a working and functional website/servers.
New Strategies/ Plan/ Ethical Model Our strategy is to be as body positive as possible with our advertisements, showcasing that real women don’t necessarily look perfect when they are pampering themselves but they always feel beautiful when they are doing so. Spa Products are designed to not only make the consumer look good but feel and therefore why promote an unrealistic, unattainable image of product users when advertising that is only going to make the consumer feel less than amazing whilst pampering oneself. Many sustainable/ ethical brands pride themselves in doing good in the world yet that only extends to the planet and production and not necessarily to its consumer. For example Lush is a sustainable brand known for promoting its natural products yet it avoids advertising entirely instead of simply putting a positive message within its adverts to help with the problem. Therefore at Asier we want to make a difference by showcasing real situations and a real use of products through un-staged advertising and using real women to create a platform of acceptance from others as well as oneself. We believe we are part of the “femvertising,” (Iqbal, 2015) movement in which campaigns are encouraging feminism and has a goal to empower women. Furthermore we aim to follow in the trend of sustainability by using primarily recycled glass packaging, all natural and sustainably produced ingredients in order to keep our brand as environmentally friendly as possible. Although this means that our products may have a shorter shelf life as well as we won’t be able to take as much advantage of buying wholesale raw materials thus increasing costs, we as company believe being sustainable and profit is not only possible but a necessity.
Our aim is not to simply sell products but instead to sell a message about body positivity within advertising in all industries. All our models are real women, of different race and body type, all of them are untouched and shown in real situations where they are able to use products to make themselves feel beautiful inside and out. We as a company are tired of seeing hair commercials where the women comes out of the shower with perfectly blow dried hair or bath commercials where the womens mascara isn’t running down her face because of the hot steam. That image of beauty is not realistic and our products are not going to be used that way so why showcase a “perfect” women in a ‘perfect” situation if very few of our consumers will be able to relate? This is us. This is our product. This is beautiful.
be real.