Personal Care: An amalgamation of ‘Nature, Science & Beauty’

Research shows that women in general spend 90 mins every day to appear beautiful. It’s amazing that marketers have leveraged this aspiration to build a strong category to enhance beauty of the women! Multiple product formulations and brands are available to fulfil beauty cue from head-to-toe. Millions of dollars spent every year on R&D to bring-in new usage patterns and create a product which is not hackneyed and inspires new consumption patterns.

Let us look at the market opportunity briefly. There is crux of personal care branding which abetted category creation, increase in penetration and per capita consumption.
Presently, Indian personal care market stands at Rs 18,000 Cr ($ 4 billion). It’s clearly segmented as Beauty & Wellness, Skincare and Haircare. Most of the brands are leveraging their brand equity from single category to expand and create line extensions in other categories to buy-in consumer loyalty for a single brand. (Refer image)

If you analyse the evolution of Indian personal care market since 1995, post economic liberalisation and with the entry of International brands consumers’ awareness towards internal beauty, through a proper diet and exercise, and external beauty by using natural products for maintaining a healthy skin has increased. In such scenario brands have to put enormous effort to convince the consumer about the product and its functional benefits.

L’Oreal, Garnier, Lakme, Revlon strongly manifest scientific beauty both in the positioning and communication. They have already established the brand equity and have created consumer franchisee globally basis scientific positioning. Consumers in west are evolved and there is strong trust in the brands those who manifest scientific proof in product development and benefit. Unlike West, Indian consumers have mixed behavior; it is because of long drawn tradition and culture. Indian consumers who are exposed to global brands have developed trust on the scientific beauty products. However, there is a huge untapped market of nouveau riche those believe in mix of science and nature to gain beauty. These customers ponder that scientific beauty products are effective and act very fast but don’t last, while natural beauty products work slowly but are effective and stay for a longer duration (that’s why you will find success of Homeopathic and Ayurvedic medicines in India)

Inecto (United Kingdom

Beauty achieved through natural products is preferred over scientifically made products. Nature is perceived to be anything that is not adulterated yet exquisite. Marico’s brand ‘Parachute’ is classic example which communicates a magic mix of ‘Science & Nature’. This has led the brand to dominate in hair care segment over last two decades with largest market share. It has also enabled extension into other categories in wash and post-wash segment. I’m sure Marico would like to leverage Parachute’s brand pull in all the categories (as quick as possible) the way Inecto brand in UK has done (refer image). Inecto brand is synonymous to “Natural” in UK & Europe market. The brand is giving huge competition to other established brands in UK. Consumers’ belief in naturalness has been established through ‘Pure Coconut’ position and product line

Another classic example of beauty through nature & science is Clarin’s. Clarins Spas can be found in luxury hotels worldwide. They harmoniously bring together local tradition and the brand's unique know-how to offer prestigious, one-of-a-kind, exclusive therapy. They strongly manifest amalgamation of beauty and therapy relying completely on nature to bestow its benefits ‘the 100 % natural way’. Today, the group has presence in around 150 countries. Clarins international success is due to their exceptional product range and exceptional spa treatments of unrivalled quality to deliver beauty through nature and science

The above examples clearly evince the shift in consumers’ mindset and preferences when it comes to beauty. Whether it is product/service offering problem-solution or prevention everything has to give the end result of beauty through a balance of nature and science. If the international/domestic brands have to connect with growing Indian consumers’ then they have to revisit their branding strategies, if they have not already. A billion people country may be having billion behaviours and mind-sets but all of them look for single proposition of Beauty with an amalgamation of nature and science.