STAGE 4: BRAND STRENGTH
Looking at the various facets of the SK-II’s marketing campaigns, from the choice of brand ambassadors to the type of products launched, the SK-II brand clearly conveys that its main target audience is the mature sophisticated affluent women which aspires to have age-defying flawless skin. However, it is worthwhile to note that SK-II’s marketing efforts focuses more on product experience, as compared to product quality. There is great emphasis placed on SK-II’s rich brand heritage. This can be seen in its marketing campaigns, which often narrates the story of how SK-II started at a Sake brewery in Japan where scientists noticed the elderly workers had wrinkled faces but youthful-looking hands.
1. CLARITY (7):
With the Magic Ring, a skin-profiling device exclusively developed by SK-II, an in-depth skin analysis can be conducted to create a personalized skincare regimen that improves the consumer’s Ageless Vector score in the 5 different dimensions. It can also be used to monitor skin improvement after using the products. However, it can be seen that in terms of marketing efforts, there is relatively less emphasis placed on this skin analysis test, which greatly exemplifies the product’s functionality. Taking this into consideration, brand clarity is moderately high, as further emphasis can be placed on SK-II’s main selling point: product quality and functionality.
Although the exact amount that P&G has invested on SK-II’s marketing efforts is not publicly known, we can infer from the scale of SK-II’s marketing campaign that the amount of commitment and support SK-II is getting from P&G is indeed a sizeable one. Furthermore, SK-II is a billion dollar brand under P&G, it is justifiable to infer that P&G would provide generous marketing budget to maintain the brand’s billion-dollar brand status in the market. Also taking into account P&G also has other brands under its umbrella like Pantene and Olay to focus on, we deduce that SK-II’s level of commitment from P&G is moderately high.
P&G provides extensive support to promote SK-II as a brand. This can be seen in SK-II’s sizeable promotional efforts to promote greater performance outside its existing main market, Japan. SK-II’s latest major advertising campaign, The Discovery featured a two-minute film, which portrays the journey to the beginning of Pitera’s discovery from a little girl’s point of view. The short movie was directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (director of The King’s Speech and Les Miserable) and includes a musical score composed by Mychael Danna, the Oscar Award winning composer of Life of Pi.
2. COMMITMENT (8):
This recent marketing campaign was promoted not only on traditional mediums like print, radio and television, but also extensively in the online space through YouTube and Facebook. SK-II’s marketing venture into new media platforms to reach its target consumers is propelled by the fact that consumers are now spending more time on digital media. As a brand, SK-II is also actively involved in the social media. This is evident in the company’s commitment to ensure that the SK-II’s Facebook page is updated on a regular basis. Furthermore, in conjunction with its new product launches, SK-II also holds several competitions with different themes, such as the recent Age Doesn’t Matter contest.
Based on our secondary research, SK-II responds rather quickly to changing consumer trends and competitive threats. Recognizing the trend of consumers shifting from traditional media to digital media, SK-II’s advertising strategies have also evolved accordingly to reach their target audience in a more efficient manner.
A year after launching the Skin Signature Eye Cream and Wrinkle Specialist in 2011, SK-II launched a new product line for men in 2012. This launch was a strategic move in light of the increasing demand in the men’s skincare segment, allowing the brand to enter the niche prestige male skincare category. SK-II Men is also one of the very few prestige male skincare lines to be priced similarly to prestige skincare products for women. In 2013, SK-II launched its new Stempower Essence line, formulated with its signature ingredient Pitera and the newly discovered Stem-Acanax.
3. RESPONSIVE (8):
To analyze the brand in terms of protection, the important element to examine is SK-II’s signature ingredient PiteraTM, which is synonymous with the brand name. Included in all of its products, this unique ingredient is a registered trademark owned by the SK-II Company. As the brand owns the exclusive rights to this ingredient, it can be deduced that SK-II has a high level of protection.
4. PROTECTION (9):
The desire to look young and beautiful is definitely an ultimate aim for all women. However, with aging – an unavoidable process, SK-II is definitely a hailed upon solution for many people.
Marketed with an Asian heritage and the emphasis on natural ingredients, it naturally relates SK-II products to be fundamentally engineered for Asia skin types. Thus, allowing women to reinstate beauty without fear of side effects caused by chemical contents. In addition, with constant research and innovations to introduce products like anti-aging and whitening, SK-II has definitely paid close attention to the markets’ needs and desires. From the survey, the high satisfaction with the performance of SK-II products further emphasized the relevance of its products to the needs and desire of consumers.
5. RELEVANCE (8):
Nevertheless, with many respondents indicating SK-II products are priced too highly and the lack of effectiveness for sensitive skin, SK-II might not be an answer for all consumers who desire it. Furthermore, its low market share in Western markets might suggest that its products can be further “localized” to cater to the Western markets.
As such, although SK-II series of product proved to be effective to most women, the lack of synergy across all markets has decreased its rating to 8.
Strategically designing a marketing campaign based on its heritage and its prized ingredient; Pitera, SK-II has certainly reinforced the foundations and strengthens the credibility of its brand. Furthermore, its on-going “Live Clear” community projects serve to instill a purpose and a well ground set of values in the development of products.
In the “Live Clear” projects, SK-II commits to helping women as they believe women “are the conduits to empowering communities” and by helping women, they are in turn able to help their communities/families.
6. AUTHENTICITY (8):
SK-II sets to differentiate its brand from competitors based on 3 factors namely; a brand that draws associations with quality and the ability to cater to Asian skin types, the use of natural ingredients that would restore youth without fear of side effects as well as a rich heritage that reinforced the passion and values behind the development of products.
This differentiation is evident as SK-II holds a relatively larger share of the market (3.7%) against leading competing brands like Lancome and Estee Lauder, each with only 2.5% of the market.
Nevertheless, from the surveys, these differentiations have not been well perceived by consumers as the perceived performance of competing brands is relatively similar to that of SK-II. Therefore, the rating is decrease to 7 for SK-II brand differentiation.
7. DIFFERENTIATION (7):
The key channels that SK-II engages in for their communication strategies are through televisions, social media, print advertisement, events, ambassadors and their physical booths in departmental stores. They focus on using integrated marketing communications but they do ensure that the image that SK-II wants to portray about the brand and its products remain consistent and effectively communicated through all channels. This image has also been consistent as reflected in the quality of its series of products.
8. CONSISTENCY (7):
Despite such high level of consistency, the human factors in SK-II’s final touch point vary the experience of each visit, thereby making the brand experience less consistent. As these booths are key avenues for the brand to connect with consumers, the lack of consistency in this area has substantially decreased the rating to 7.
As mentioned above, SK-II regularly communicates with its audience through channels like televisions, social media, print advertisement, events, ambassadors and their physical booths in departmental stores. To better engage its audiences, SK-II has decided to use the social media platform in its recent campaigns. Since then, SK-II regularly post news and updates on its brand and products through the social media channels to create buzz. Nevertheless, the discussions level in these platforms has been low as demonstrated in its Facebook page.
9. PRESENCE (8):
Though not actively discussed, the high-perceived risk involved in the products has made reviews on the user experience and performance of their products (by bloggers and customers) easily available over the Internet. Lastly, survey respondents’ moderate willingness to discussed and recommends the brand has prompted the team to accord a rating of 8 for its presence.
Though the recent emphasis on the history and its key ingredient; Pitera, has greatly improve SK-II’s brand knowledge, the lack of visible elements of P&G (its parent company) are certainly areas for improvement. As such, the understanding of SK-II brand is only given a score of 6.
Besides the common awareness of anti-aging functions and the use of natural ingredients in its product, SK-II series of collections each carries wider range functional benefits. However, as demonstrated by the survey results, consumers do not have an in-depth knowledge about their products, except for its popular Facial Essence Treatment series. A majority of the consumers depended on the beauty consultants to educate them on the knowledge of the products.
10. UNDERSTANDING (6):
As such, in SK-II’s purpose to the community, they aim to empower and deliver confidence by bringing healthier skin to women.
The brand’s capability to deliver against expectations is clearly affirmed by consumers in the survey, with high number of consumers pleased and willing to recommend the brand. As such, a high score of 8 is given with reservation over its performance in the Western markets.