GAP 1: WEAK BREADTH OF BRAND AWARENESS
Users
From the previous assignments, we found out that SK-II has very high top of mind awareness, indicating their strong depth of awareness. However, even with such strong depth of awareness, consumers do not seem to quite understand the purpose of SK-II. They could not identify well the various functions of the products and the situations, which they can or should use them. As for brand heritage, only our respondents from the focus group have mentioned the discovery of Pitera through the traditional Japanese heritage of sake brewing. Hence, we can conclude that there is a weak breadth of awareness for SK-II. This is evident among both users and non-users of SK-II.
From our quantitative research, users’ willingness to pay for the SK-II products they are currently using is surprisingly quite low. Despite SK-II satisfying functional aspects, current users do not quantify the worth of the brand value to the current price they are paying. From our qualitative research, even though users find the products effective for them, they do not seem to know the various properties of Pitera, which is the main essence of SK-II and has contributed to the high effectiveness. Furthermore, many of them are also unsure about the usage situations and properties for the Facial Treatment Essence.
Based on secondary research, there is high-perceived risk regarding high involvement goods such as premium beauty products. This is because consumers are paying a premium price in addition to the psychological impact where one is uncertain whether there will be any side effects from using the products. Therefore, consumers are still generally conservative about trying new premium beauty brands. This is also supported by our quantitative research where it shows that non-users have very low willingness to pay. They even claimed that it is too expensive, showing that they may not even try the products due to the price. This can be strongly substantiated by the low trial rates even with the strong depth of brand awareness. Hence, in spite of the strong brand reputation, non-users are still affected by the price and high-perceived risks, which prohibit them from trying SK-II products.
In conclusion, both users and non-users generally have relatively low willingness to pay for SK-II products. We believe that this can be due to the fact that brand value of SK-II is not communicated well enough to increase perceived brand value of SK-II for consumers. By communicating better, this will help build relationships with current users and lower perceived risks for non-users. Hence SK-II can improve their strategies or develop better ones to help increase their brand value for consumers in general.
Non Users