With 53% of Brits afraid of trying a new beauty product, brands are increasingly turning to experiential marketing to encourage them to make the leap. Sense London’s Diana Petre-Mag looks at the factors in play and how to deliver the most effective beauty experience to attract new customers.
Beauty products are a highly personal purchase. Once someone finds a brand that they like and that works for them, they tend to stick with it. This is illustrated by recent research from ShowersToYou.co.uk, which reveals that over half of UK consumers (53%) are afraid to buy new beauty products. This figure rises in specific categories, with 68% of Brits saying they would always buy the same perfume because ‘it’s part of their identity’, and 66% repurchasing the same mascara brand, making beauty one of the strongest categories in terms of customer loyalty.
Although of course important, beauty brands can’t grow through loyal customers alone – they need new product launches to draw attention to new and existing products. So how can beauty brands win over new customers and accelerate the adoption of new products?
In a category like this, it’s all about building trust in new brands and products. If consumers can be convinced a new product is ‘sensational’, according to the ShowersToYou.co.uk study, 78% of people will switch to it. One of best ways to prove this is by giving out free samples, which 33% of consumers say helps them adopt something new. However, even more important is a friend vouching for the product, which 52% of people believe will influence them. This indicates that, although free samples are effective, they are not enough. Beauty brands can significantly increase their chance of winning people over if they can generate a product experience that people then want to share with their own network.
This realisation is driving an increasing number to take product sampling beyond simply handing freebies out in store, attach them to a magazine or place in event goody bags. From Revlon to Molton Brown, beauty brand experiences are proving to be a successful way to engage directly with consumers to drive more convincing trial as well as encouraging new customers to spread the word and purchase.
Benefit are a prime example of a beauty brand that has wholeheartedly embraced experiential at the core of their marketing plans. From their vibrant pink Roller Liner Diner on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles that ran for two weeks to their Benefit Ship on London’s Southbank and drive-through on the way to Glastonbury 2018, they are feeling the benefits away from store and continue to launch products with pop-ups that are shared through PR and social. Revlon, meanwhile, recently opened a 24-hour beauty salon to celebrate its best-selling colorstay foundation, with Max Factor unveiling its Facefinity gallery.
But what factors are key to maximising the effectiveness of these real world beauty experiences? Here are four essentials:
1. Focus on a product or engaging theme
Beauty brand experiences work best when they train consumers’ attention on a single product, or focus on a theme. This year, L’Oréal is pushing its Lancôme fragrances for Christmas by erecting a 36-foot Eiffel Tower at St Pancras International station made from 1,500 bottles of its La Vie Est Belle fragrance, with a pop-up shop at its base. A great twist is that the bottles will be donated to the international cancer support charity Look Good Feel Better.
2. Deepen the trial experience
Create an environment that allows consumers to try out the beauty product as thoroughly as possible. Ideally, this should include experts at hand that can offer guidance and demonstrations to help people get the most out of the product. Last Christmas, The Body Shop created a sensorial Enchanted Forest pop-up experience in Shoreditch, London to promote its green credentials and the new Christmas collection, It included a programme of free events, including makeovers, workshops, panel talks and yoga classes. This year it is running the ‘Dream Big’ beauty experience, bringing the brand to a younger, eco-focused audience in an environment that promises to ‘pamper, inspire and inform’.
3. Make it personal
Tap into the highly personal and intimate nature of beauty products by tailoring the experience to each visitor as much as possible. MAC’s Studio Fix experience offered each consumer a ‘Shade Match’ consultation to identify their unique foundation colour codes. These were then applied to any product they purchased on the day at a #GetYourFix personalisation station.
4. Include a spread-the-word mechanism
Extend the reach and influence of each activation to visitors’ friends and family by including techniques that enable people to post their experiences of the product or brand through their social media channel – or channels – of choice. Use a driver such as a prize draw or freebie to incentivise this vital process. For example, visitors to Benefit’s GlastonBrow pit-stop on the road to Glastonbury 2018 who shared a picture of themselves at the festival with their gift from the drive-thru using #BenefitBrows were in with the chance of winning a year’s supply of Benefit’s cult brow products.
5. Use data to grow your customer base
Incorporate ways to capture the data of pop-up visitors and getting their permission to send out information, such as offers, free samples and beauty tips and guidance. This is a great way to drive sales and more importantly loyalty beyond the life of the activation.
Managed in the right way, beauty experiences are a key weapon in the battle to quell consumers’ fear of trying new products in this category, while also capitalising on the importance of friends and family influence in encouraging people to switch brands.
Diana Petre-Mag is Account Director at global brand experience agency Sense.