This assignment serves as the finale assignment for the brand blogging. As such, it will be an integrative assignment of the researches and findings thus far and creative strategies will be delineated to solve the issues identified and bring the brand forward.

Dwelling deeper into the SK-II brand, several gaps have been identified and here’s a quick recap as we trace our steps and piece the puzzle together.

 

To find out more about what people think of SK-II, both quantitative and qualitative researches were conducted and these findings were further polished through the Brand Frenzy exercise, leading us to several insightful findings which were critical for the brand. We have divided the gaps into the following:

 

 

 

 

SALIENCE

Strong Depth 

SK-II has always been known as a premium skin care brand with extremely strong depth of brand salience as confirmed by our un-cued recall question in our quantitative research. Famous for its miracle ingredient, the Pitera, SK-II is undoubtedly one of the most well-known skin care brand in the market.

 

Weak Breath

Despite strong recognition of the brand and Pitera, the breadth of brand salience remains weak as non-users and even current users of SK-II have relatively limited knowledge of the functions and additional benefits the products would bring. The lack of this knowledge makes it challenging for the brand to convert consumers toward the highest building block of the CBBE pyramid.

 

PERFORMANCE

Low Trial Rate

Though products of SK-II are perceived to be greatly effective, the lack of knowledge on the value-adding benefits of products, coupled with high retail price of the products resulted in low adoption rate for the products. Consumers do not realise a need or are not justified to pay such a price for the products.

 

As the brand seeks to expand deeper into the current segments as well as into the other target groups, justifying and convincing consumers of the value such a need would bring remain the top priority of the SK-II.

 

IMAGERY

Rich Heritage and Gender Neutral Brand Identity

With a rich brand heritage, SK-II has successfully communicated these values to consumers, further reinforcing the credibility and quality of the brand.

 

Although SK-II started off with focusing on women as their main consumers, the association to feminism is not the most salient in the minds of both users and non-users as established by the surveys. This presents an opportunity for SK-II to exploit as they penetrate into the male consumers skincare segment. 

 

FEELINGS

Lack of Feelings

Feelings remain the weakest segment of the SK-II brand as respondents from the surveys could not clearly reflect their feelings towards the brand and not much analysis can be inferred from their correspondence.

 

JUDGMENT

Good Judgment 

Compared to its closest competitors; Lancome and Estee Lauder, SK-II are rated relatively higher than competitors in the overall attribute of the brand judgement. Its deep fundamental in the local market are justified and SK-II would have to regularly reinforce such attributes to remind consumers of their quality and superiority.

 

RESONANCE

Low Level of Resonance

Despite displaying strong behavioral loyalty, many of the main target segments of SK-II, the Madam, do not resonant with levels above attitudinal attachment. This only would means that they are attracted and are willing to pay for SK-II products but do not exhibit “love’ for the brand. As such, should the perceived performance of competitors improve, the loyalty of customers would be severely wavered, or worst, switching over to other brands. Therefore, more should be done to integrate its large pool of loyal customers.

 

 

 

 

 

To quantify the SK-II brand, we segmented the target market of SK-II into 3 segments; Madam (older more affluent ladies); Missus (younger ladies without much disposable income); and Gentlemen (working and affluent men). Taking into account factors namely SK-II’s estimated financials, growth rates of each segments, the role of brand index (RBI) and brand strength, the total brand value of SK-II is estimated to be S$26.5 million in Singapore.