Abstract
The concept of rational behaviour assumes all consumers engage in rational buying behaviours which becomes the basis for any future analysis of consumer patronage towards a particular type of product or utility. For the cosmetics industry, this means that customers have a certain “limit” to the amount they are willing to pay on a particular type of makeup based on the prices that the company has allotted for them.
It must also be noted that the concept of preferences is based on the fact that each individual consumer has his/her own personal preference towards a particular service or product that is currently available in the market from which they are able to derive the greatest amount of total utility/ satisfaction. It is based on these factors that this paper delves into a marketing strategy that has been developed to address the concept of consumer rational behaviour and preference when it comes to purchasing luxury brand makeup.
Chosen Brand Name
Zodiac
The name of Zodiac refers to the zodiac star signs created by Babylonian astrologists. According to Babylonian beliefs, a year is divided into twelve sectors they are defined as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Moreover, each individual’s traits, characteristic, and moods are different and unique from the others.
Alternatives to Chosen Brand Name
Serenity
The name serenity refers to a state of being wherein a person is calm and collected. This is the state that the brand wants to associate itself as since it implies a certain degree of gentleness, calmness and a lack of complication which results in a better state of mind.
Nature’s Gift
Since the company is placing a particular focus on its products being “natural”, calling the brand “Nature’s Gift” helps to create a better means of associating the products of the company with natural ingredients. Through such a concept, the company will be better situated to focus on its desired target market.
Timeless
The concept behind the brand name “Timeless” is its association with the phrase “Timeless beauty”. By emphasising that the natural ingredients and luxurious nature of the company’s products result in timeless beauty, this helps to become a major selling point for the company. It should be noted though that a proper branding strategy would be necessary if this name is chosen since people may mistake the brand as a new watch company.
Feather
Naming the brand “feather” is to emphasise the cosmetics as being light, nonabrasive and gentle on the skin. With so many reports of makeup damaging the skin in the long term, a new approach is needed to appeal to customers by emphasising that the company’s makeup products are natural, light and will not damage their skin.
Print Adverts
The print adverts that were created focused on a minimalist design perspective so as to emphasise the impact of the product (i.e. skin texture) rather than distract the reader from overly elaborate text or graphics.
Logo
The chosen logo design is meant to be simple and easy to remember, by utilising the name of the company and formatting it in gothic script, this accomplishes the chosen design goals.
Slogan
“Beauty Personified”
Or
“Natural products for Natural Beauty.”
The choice of the slogans was meant to focus on the very essence of beauty, whether in its natural or personified state.
Proposed Message
Natural Products for Natural Beauty
Based on the work of Tangmanee (2013), it was shown that luxury brand companies apparently do not show enough corporate social responsibility when it comes to the effects of their advertising campaigns on society in general. Tangmanee (2013) mentions briefly that popular culture has such a profound effect on people that they have a tendency to emulate what they see in television, online articles and magazines under the belief, which is actually encouraged by numerous companies, that in order for themselves to be more like the actors and actresses they idolise they should buy the items that they are promoting.
This particular view presents itself as a debatable aspect of the luxury brand industry in that they appear to encourage people to buy their products through the use of pop culture icons. It is the position of this report that encouraging such a perception is not the right message that a company should advocate since it promotes a negative perception that is “supposedly” addressed through the use of a company’s product (Tangmanee 2013).
One possible strategy that the Zodiac Cosmetic brand could possibly emulate in its promotional message can be seen in the method used by Dove (the soap, lotion and beauty product company) wherein they created a natural beauty campaign where the company emphasised the natural beauty of a person without the use of excessive and artificial cosmetics. They did so by utilising average and plus-sized models and showcased how beautiful the natural human form can be. Such a strategy could be potentially utilised by Zodiac Cosmetics to promote its own message but in a way that can help to market the products of the company as well.
The message that the company will deliver is that it promotes natural beauty through the use of natural and luxurious products. By emphasising the correlation between natural beauty and natural products, this helps to emphasise that the company is thinking ethically when it comes to its advertising campaign since it is not utilising beauty standards that cannot be achieved by a normal person, rich or not.
This association can be thought of as a positive message and would enable the company to develop a following through the various consumer groups that are fed up with the unrealistic expectations of beauty that are fostered upon the masses by cosmetic companies and could also allow the company to penetrate the “green living” consumer markets that focus on consuming and utilising natural products that have far less processing.
Locally Made
While the use of advertising is nothing new in this day and age, the fact remains that product placement is aggressively being pushed by numerous companies in an attempt to encourage people to buy their products. Not only that, due to the social attitudes involving popular culture, people are encouraged to buy brand name items in order to appear more successful to those around them and, as a result, gain success through it.
The thing is though, certain aspects of the production of different luxury brands have also emulated the current outsourcing trend by having different aspects of their production cycle made in outsourced locations and shipped to their respective corporate stores for sale. The issue of outsourcing can be considered a very volatile issue since people often associate it with corporate greed. One way that Zodiac Cosmetics could take advantage of this would be to deliver a message that states that the company’s products are not the only natural, but they are also made locally within the UK.
Thus, at least within the context of regional advertising, the company would be able to utilise nationalism (i.e. love for one’s own country) as a means of promoting the product to its UK customers at the very least. Combined with greater consumer demand for a natural product that has little in the way of toxic chemicals, the company would be well poised in utilising the proposed message to target its desired consumer segments.
Media Vehicles
Aside from the use of print ads, this report advocates the use of YouTube beauty tutorial stars as a means of promoting Zodiac Cosmetics. O’Reilly (2011) justifies the use of such a strategy by explaining that within the past five years, YouTube has increasingly become one of the most popular media platforms. With millions of videos on an assortment of topics, people have flocked to YouTube for its entertaining and educational content.
In relation to education, the concept of the “beauty tutorial” has been a ubiquitous aspect of fashion and lifestyle magazines for years yet has experienced an explosive degree of popularity on the YouTube scene (Calvin Klein Campaign Set For Youtube 2012). YouTube beauty stars provide video tutorials explaining how to create particular styles for their hair and makeup, which is far better than trying to interpret the instructions and pictures within a magazine.
On average, YouTube beauty stars such as Michelle Phan, Lisa Eldridge, Blair Fowler, Zoe Sugg and others like them often generate hundreds of thousands of views per video, greater even than some shows on cable television (O’Reilly 2011). Furthermore, these shows are watched by a global audience encompassing countries such as the U.S., UK, China, Russia, Australia, and various states within the European Union (O’Reilly 2011). This would enable any marketing campaign that centres on the use of such YouTube beauty star to, in effect, target a wide range of consumer markets at a relatively low cost.
Affordability of Proposed Media Vehicle
YouTube beauty stars, in general, do not demand a lot of money for placing ads within their show; it is usually the case that by providing a promotional code or a link in the description of the video, the company that created an advertising contract with them usually pays on the basis on the number of clicks. This averages to around $1,000 or less on select advertising and promotional deals. This is vastly different when compared to the millions demanded by A-list stars within Hollywood.
You also have to take into consideration the fact that YouTube beauty stars can come from a variety of different countries wherein they have a distinct level of popularity with the local populace. Based on this, a marketing campaign created by Zodiac Cosmetics could spend 1/5th the amount of money that would normally go to an A-list star yet reach 20 times the intended audience demographic by utilising a select marketing strategy devoted to using YouTube stars from specific regions that cater to the audience demographics that the campaign is attempting to appeal to.
Maximising the use of the Proposed Media Vehicle
The best way in order to fully utilise the viewership of a YouTube beauty star is to have them promote Zodiac Cosmetics by mentioning the brand during one of their tutorials. The company can then have them point to either a banner location on the screen, a promotional code the viewers can use to get discounts or a link in the description of the video where viewers can go and visit a website detailing the various products of Zodiac Cosmetics that they can avail of.
Furthermore, by having the YouTube star indicate both in the title of the video and during their tutorial that Zodiac Cosmetics is a high-end luxury brand where natural ingredients meet luxury, this helps to further limit the amount of traffic directed towards the website of the company to only individuals who have an interest in the product and can afford it.
Through such a strategy, this ensures that the company is able to target its desired consumer segment without spending money on a broad advertising campaign that may target people who may be after cheaper alternatives. The proposed strategy is often utilised by the company Netflix on either the Philip DeFranco show or on the show “Epic Meal Time” in order to gain a substantial amount of subscribers to their services.
The same strategy can be utilised on select YouTube beauty stars from specific regions (i.e. the U.S., the UK, China, etc.) and through multiple shows. By examining the viewership range and what type of viewers normally watch a particular YouTube beauty star through the analytics data provided by YouTube, the marketing campaign will be able to determine what star to use, how long should the promotion period last for and will be able to monitor the overall effectiveness of the campaign via the number of clicks on the link, the number of people watching the video or the sheer amount of times the promotional code is used (Learmonth 2012).
Vloging the Creation of the Makeup
The last approach to promoting Zodiac Cosmetic brand and to emphasise its use of natural and luxurious ingredients is to arrange for an all-expenses paid trip for the YouTube beauty star to either the factory of the company or to the places where it sources the natural ingredients that go into its cosmetics. The YouTube beauty star can then vlog their experience to their viewership so that the company’s use of natural and luxurious ingredients can be seen.
This particular strategy is actually widely utilised in various beauty commercials which attempt to capitalise on the growing public demand for natural makeup products. However, the main difference is that instead of utilising a television commercial, Zodiac Cosmetics will instead use a YouTube beauty star so that it can better focus its marketing initiative on its desired consumer range rather than utilise a broad generalised approach through a commercial wherein the company could possibly be paying to advertise to people who have no inclination to purchase any of its products (Learmonth 2012).
Vlogging is a term that is a result of combining the words “blogging” (referring to the act of publishing personal thoughts and experiences online for complete strangers to read) and “video”. The vlogs of YouTube stars often generate a substantial degree of views due to the current obsession over “reality viewing” wherein people want to watch people living their lives as it unfolds. By having YouTube beauty stars vlog their experiences within the company’s factory or source location of its natural ingredients for a few days, this in effect acts as a type of commercial which showcases the amenities and overall appeal of Zodiac Cosmetics as a brand that lives up to its “natural” and “luxurious” label.
Since it comes from a personal perspective and not through a telegraphed and obviously one-sided view of the UK based company, this in effect generates a unique appeal to the market segments that the marketing campaign of Zodiac Cosmetics is attempting to target (Klaassen 2008). It must also be noted that the YouTube beauty stars in question could also be potentially convinced to host their shows with a live background of the location in question. This enables the marketing campaign to more effectively capture a larger audience without having to increase the amount of money paid to the YouTube star since they are already on an all-expenses paid free vacation.
Loyalty Programme
Aside from the use of YouTube stars, a second marketing concept that could be utilised is the implementation of a loyalty programme page on the company’s website where customers can register the products they bought by creating an account and redeem prizes through it. A loyalty programme is a structured marketing effort meant to encourage loyal buying behaviour for a particular service or product (How can I connect my YouTube advertising with my other marketing initiatives 2012).
It is utilised as a means of increasing sales by ensuring that a client/customer will continue to come back to that particular company in order to patronize what they are selling (How can I connect my YouTube advertising with my other marketing initiatives 2012). Normally, the medium utilised when it comes to loyalty programme s comes in the form of loyalty cards, reward cards, advantage cards or other similar cards which ensures consumers can avail of a certain discount when shopping at a particular store or in some cases “points” which can be accumulated and redeemed later on for a prize.
This concept will similarly be utilised in the case of Zodiac Cosmetics since a special page can be created where customers that continue to show patronage for the company’s products can register and avail of different prizes and rewards that come with being loyal to the company. This can be very helpful to ensure long term loyalty since some of the possible prizes come in the form of free vacations or large discounts on their next purchase.
Reference List
‘Calvin Klein Campaign Set For Youtube’ 2012, WWD: Women’s Wear Daily, vol. 204, no. 35, pp. 7-1.
‘How can I connect my YouTube advertising with my other marketing initiatives’ 2012, Marketing, vol.109, no. 5 p. 17.
Klaassen, A 2008, ‘YouTube: You created the content, now sell the ads’, Advertising Age, vol. 79, no. 23, pp. 1-47.
Learmonth, M 2012, ‘Toyota, Lever channel big bucks to YouTube’, Advertising Age, vol. 83, no. 9, p. 8.
O’Reilly, L 2011, ‘Online: YouTube in drive to lift advertising revenue’, Design Week, vol. 5, no. 6, p. 214.
Tangmanee, C 2013, ‘Relationships among Two Visual Attentions and Fixation Duration on an Ad Banner: An Exploration through Eye-Tracking on YouTube’, Journal Of Global Business Issues, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-6.