In this month’s Brand Strategy magazine – out next week – we look at Unilever’s Dove brand with its global brand head Alessandro Manfredi and examine how the company is attempting to balance its ‘real beauty’ message with remaining aspirational in an industry where Kate Moss is held up as perfection. The brand is constantly examining how to balance responsible messages about reality with the truth that women want to look like supermodels.
So we thought we would draw your attention to a new service, Latest in Beauty, which aims to attract the same type of cynical consumers who no longer believe beauty claims but still want to spend cash to look their best. The service’s marketing material asks: “How are beauty companies supposed to engage in a dialogue with these savvy and sceptical consumers who on the one hand want to know about beauty, but on the other hand are refusing to be influenced by advertising methods which they have come to think of as intrusive and patronising?
Latest in Beauty is a ‘tryvertising’ service that aims to do some sampling with female consumers in the beauty market. The website gets women to sign up and answer a list of questions about their appearance, needs and preferences to determine their beauty profile. They are able to browse the site for products matching their profile, read new product reviews and then pick a few samples every month to try at home. Upon returning to the site, users are asked some questions about their experience of the product, then view a page with special offers relating to the product and the brand.
‘Tryvertising’ has been a big marketing trends over the past few years. Although the more cynical of us might suggest it isn’t really a new trend – just good old fashioned ’sampling’ with more access to wider audience thanks to the internet – it really works in some product areas. Do you think this one will be a success?
In the spirit of all things new media, we notice that Latest in Beauty has a Facebook profile too.
