Vedika Kapoor
OUGD501 Context of Practice
To what extent does branding affect the commercial success of the cosmetic industry? Body and beauty product companies devise new and unique strategies along with rebranding their design in order to remain ahead of their competitors. Many international brands have created many different brand and product campaigns; however they have not always been successful. This essay will examine the role played by branding in achieving success. Branding is the most important aspect of any business and an effective brand strategy gives an edge in the competitive industry. The cosmetics product industry needs to be competitive not only because the big international brands lead the market, but also many independent companies have opened their own shops. In recent times branding has become increasingly valuable and it works as a promise to the customers. It is said to be the first point of contact between the consumer and the company determining the brand value in the shops. (Eisenberg, 2011) It tells consumers what to expect from the products and services, differentiating them from their competitors. (The Economist, 2014) People have different opinions on brands and how they become successful. Wally Olins (2008, p.9) explains, “For some people, brands are still just where they began- heavily advertised consumer products”. His research shows branding in a completely different and somewhat negative way. Although this definition could partly be true for big international brands, there are a few brands that are successful despite not being advertised on a large scale. International brands that are commercially successful have tried to incorporate new strategies and products with unique campaigns to remain at the top of the league. Every company has its own target and mission in order to sell their products and retain loyal customers. The importance of the brand is explained in detail by Sir Michael Perry (cited by Lury, 1998, p.2) as“ In the modern world, brands are a key part of how individuals define themselves and their relationships with one another… More and more we are simply consumers”. Perry is known for being the former chairman of Unilever owning brands such as Persil, Birds Eye, PG Tips and Calvin Klein. The importance of consumer power is becoming increasingly important in the industry.
The ‘Body Shop’ is still one of the world’s most popular brands despite having tough competition from other natural cosmetic brand companies. After the brand was acquired by ‘L’Oreal’ in 2006 it went through a major change of strategy; despite improving their share values in the market they damaged their reputation with the customers who perceived the core values of the company as having been sacrificed for profit rather than maintaining the ethical values associated with ‘Body Shop’. (Pitman, CosmeticDesign Europe,2006) Alongside this the growing existence of brand families has made brands stronger and the consumers’ emotions are targeted. Consumers are seeking not merely a functional product but a complete lifestyle (Slade - Brooking, 2016) In the cosmetic industry L’Oreal is one of the main big brands that owns many of the other commercially successful companies such as Maybelline, Urban Decay. It is particularly interesting to see that it has a range of different brands that have different target audiences. Most major companies have an established, researched method and strategy for their branding process. Understanding and discovery is the first part of the process that requires a brand audit in order to create a benchmark along with linking this with the history and culture of the company or brand in question. Articulating and clarifying brings the data and research together into words and creates a strategy for effective marketing. In this process, the consideration of the target audience is all-important along with research to gain a competitive advantage. This leads onto the positioning and differentiating of the brand and the design by researching into how to make it different from the competitors. The unique value of the brand is determined using branding, marketing and messaging. Creating and Identifying is the stage at which the personality is expressed and positioning determined. This includes creating a deep meaning of the brand that extends into the final stages, which are applying and extending. This last and critical stage helps identify how effective the brand is. ‘The Body Shop” has taken into account the strategy to include natural ingredients in their products and keep them neutral to some extent. This way they have tried to aim their product range at both genders; however up until now, it is predominately females who purchase the product. (Jason, 2013). Similar to ‘The Body Shop’, the beauty brand ‘Aveda’ focuses on natural cosmetics. Cooper (2008, p.36) articulates, “ Aveda practices what it preaches when it comes to environmental responsibility and is constantly striving to do more”. The brand has put a strong emphasis on being considerate about the environment and Aveda are also the
industry leaders for “environmentally responsible packaging” (Cooper ,2008, p.36). As compared to other brands such as the ‘Body Shop’, ‘Aveda’ has carried out thorough research from its foundation in 1978 to the current time and has maintained its reputation for no animal testing and natural products. The founder conducted thorough research into these elements before considering starting the brand. It has kept its branding and design quite simple as high-end brands are known for simplicity in this genre. The company has been quite successful until now because of their constant engagement in research and campaigning. This has been done due to the natural products and also no animal testing; something which has become quite important these days. High-end brands like these are often heavily promoted to engage with the wider audience and target the different sectors. Moreover the company has played with the natural and no animal-testing element that highlights the brand and is growing more popular with the growing awareness of people on these topics. Up until 2008, brands and companies relied heavily on advertising agencies in order to present their products to the consumer. Any small brands had to use bigger company names in order to survive. Another alternative to this was to create unique names such as that of “Dove” or “Sunlight” which “were intended to embody specific product characteristics and which enabled manufacturers to put a multiplicity of overlapping goods on the market”. (Olins, 2008, p.13) This meant that they were promoted in a very limited way only despite having a corporate identity. However all of this has changed with the growing influence of social media and digital design which has helped even small businesses to get advertised. Many cosmetic brands include the human element in advertising, possibly to engage more with the target audience. Budelmann et al (2011) explain that primary human needs have dictated branding. Brand identity reflects values that they wish their products to emphasise but which, in reality, exceed the scope of the product. The commercial success of the company is widely influenced by branding as this advertising strategy helps the users to engage more with the brand, something which also reflects on the brand alongside the brand identity and package design. The logo or the symbol of a company is the prime identifier. The elements associated with it include colour, typefaces, straplines or slogans, tone of voice and style of expression. Olins (2008) describes the logo as encapsulating the brand. He signifies the importance of the logo as being the centre of the pattern which keeps a company alive and successful. Its purpose is to “present the core idea of the organisation with impact,
brevity and immediacy” (Olins, 2008, p.30). Top leading companies have invested a huge amount of money in creating a logo and many of them have had several rebrands. Major companies have still been successful following rebranding. Another way to change and rebrand companies in recent times began by not entirely rebranding the logo but bringing out new packaging design. The commercial success of the company also depends on the packaging. Bates (2007) comments on how the consumers pay a fortune for not only the product but the packaging as well. He shares his thoughts on Chanel’s high end sheen lacquer finish about how it “fingerprints like crazy: when I watch a women hold a Chanel compact, she is constantly burnishing it and making it beautiful. The nature of the packaging engages the consumer with the product—the interaction just adds to the story”(Bates cited by Chaudhuri & Thinkerbelle, 2007) According to Harris there is a “marketing mix” which consists of the four P’s; product, price, promotion and place. (Harris, Ambrose, 2011) The author emphasises the importance of packaging in the overall construction of a brand identity. Many times the packaging plays a vital role in attracting the customers; however even that links to the logo and symbol of the company. For international companies, it is important that their logo and packaging work globally. This is also because of the language and text being altered to suit a specific country’s needs. “As such, packaging becomes merely another way of usefully communicating a brand’s value to the consumers”. (2011) The author explains that packaging is a major part of the branding as the product inside might just explain a certain element which would be secondary as the packaging plays the main role in shops in attracting consumers to actually look into the product more closely. This is another reason why companies like ‘Dove’ were forced in 2006/2007 to rebrand their design. The company had only two aims to address through their packaging about their brand namely image and inconsistency. In some countries, their brand had been shown in a disorganized manner, as the logo did not work on the different products in terms of placement. This affected the commercial effect of the company to a great extent so designers reconsidered the decisions to launch a brand identity that took into account the languages and codes of each of the four P’s. (Pure, Bates, 2007) Known for being soap and cleansing brand rather than being a cosmetic brand, and as compared to other companies such as ‘The Body Shop’ or ‘Aveda’, ‘Dove’ has a much bigger target audience. Whereas where brands such as ‘Dove’ have been forced to create a new packaging design due to their commercial success being in question, a bath oil brand named
‘Olverum’ has engaged with a new package design in order to reach the standards of the product being targeted at premium customers. This brand was developed by a wine merchant who got stimulated by the fragrances to create the bath oil. The redesigning of such an element is something many companies do especially when launching a new campaign or a range of products. Even ‘Dove’ did a similar thing while launching their “premium tier of products sitting above the core Dove Hair Care range”. (West, 2014) With this new development the brand strove to reach out to a broader consumer base and market their new products. Launching a new platform is a vital part of a company’s commercial success due to the growing competition from other brands. Especially for a brand such as ‘Dove’, it is vital to launch and create an impactful branding in order to escape from the stereotypical image which has been formed about them. This includes being an ordinary brand known to a mass audience rather than a high end and more advanced brand that can develop from a simple, engaging product design to creating a new series with more innovative concepts. Although this has been done by several companies in the past and present, brands such as Dove appear to remain the way they are in the eyes of the consumers because of their long relationship with them and the products. While many individual international brands use different marketing and branding techniques to remain at the top of the league, multiple brands which are owned by the same company face a bigger challenge to keep all their brands updated to the latest trend. Significant examples include that of ‘Estee Lauder’ and ‘Clinique’. Around August 2015 the brands started noticing declining numbers in sales in certain products that made them decide to launch new digital designs and products to target the younger audience due to their traditional products not being able to attract them. The company also wanted to “implement learnings from its younger, non-traditional advertised brands such as Mac and Bobbi Brown as well as re-balance its media spend for Estée Lauder and Clinique“ (Mortimer – The Drum Online, 2015). Their aim was to engage with the digital era even more and break away from stereotypical television adverts to engage with the audience. Their rebrand and collaboration with beauty chain ‘Sephora’ enabled them to engage with a wider audience who were not only theirs but the beauty chain’s as well. This strategy has been applied by businesses to re-launch their brand to a new and fresh audience. For the two brands to combine is also an innovative step which has not been taken by many brands who have instead decided to team up with other brands in their own league or product category. However the collaboration
enabled the formation of a new modern fresh dimension in the beauty, body and cosmetic industry. This further emphasises the growing use of digital media in the industries in order to be successful commercially. Further this strategy introduces the growing engagement with everyone in the company to shape across all the touch points for the brand to be successful rather than just using marketing specialists. In order to establish success and introduce an interesting idea, it is important to “establish themselves in the collective consciousness, propagate themselves and influence behaviour as they go”. (Kendall, 2015, p.151) This is due to the growing objectives of commercial communication. Stephen King argues that “People choose their brands as they choose their friends. You choose your friends[…] because you like them as people. “ (King cited by Lury,2001, p.3) This is a rather interesting way to describe why one brand is chosen over another. Many times these factors include the brand value and the name rather than the quality and products it serves. The value could even just be something non functional in terms of the product but an added factor not present in other brands of the same genre. Along with that, many times, despite some brands selling more commercially, there is still a preference for its competitor because of those factors. Charles Revlon, owner of the cosmetic brand “Revlon”, realised that the true meaning of a brand lay more in the heart of the consumers as compared to those of the products themselves, stating “In the factory we make cosmetics, in the store we sell hope” (Revlon, cited by Lury, 2001, p.4). This shows the perception of brand identity changing over the years from being something more than just a name. The brand strives to deliver a certain value along with functional benefits. Alongside that they also have their own personalities and means of expression which adds to brand valuation. This is another vital and key element to be considered for commercial success. While many brands have developed and redesigned their brand to meet the current trends mostly before going into big losses, Pear’s Soap faced such a situation back in 2000/2001 with the emerging competition from other upcoming brands such as Dove. The brand was owned by Unilever who suddenly announced their discontinuation with the brand owing to the drastic decline. The upcoming trend of liquid soaps and shower gels became more successful and Unilever also joined hands with ‘Pears’ rival company ‘Dove’. Pears soap brand was built mainly on advertising and when this was taken away the brand was unable to survive and meet the current taste of the consumers. The brand identity started to become irrelevant for the audience despite it being the number one
brand. This kind of an incident proves how important advertising is in conjunction with the overall branding and packaging of the products. (Pike, 2015) Careful and researched branding strategies are the key success for any company. With innovative advertising strategies plus the on-going trend of digital media coming to the fore, success has started to depend more on social media and digital campaigns rather than the actual products. Many companies have modified their advertising campaign styles and their overall branding in order to meet the current trends. Whether it be high end companies or more basic companies, most of them have advanced to create engaging campaigns for their consumers. Alongside advertisements of different mediums, the collaboration with other brands and companies is another strategy applied by brands to attract more consumers. There are many stages to a successful brand strategy which include the marketing and promotion alongside the branding and design which determine the brand value to the consumer in the shop. The commercial success of the company is driven by these elements to make the brand valuable in the consumers’ eyes. This has in the past, present and will in the future be achieved by big brands taking over more brands rather than new brands being introduced. These brands are either going into a rebrand or joining the bigger companies in order to benefit from the commercial success of that brand and its innovative advertising strategies.
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Images
Dove Products Source: http://www.fabulesslytarget.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dovecoupons1.png
Aveda Cosmetics Advertisement Poster Source: http://bodybarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/639x300-aveda.jpg
The Body Shop Product Lineup after takeover by L’ Oreal Source: http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/img/packshot/categories/sc-satsuma.jpg
The Body Shop Boycott after takeover by L’ Oreal Source: http://sublimemagazine.com/images/Blog/mar13/bodyshop3.jpeg