RACE PROCESS
Background
At San Skin, we sell skincare products. Every skincare product has a shelf life, like food, and can be spoil or grow bacteria, fungi, and yeasts. The products could become harmful without the assistance of preservatives. All of my products use preservatives to protect the products from contamination and to keep them safe and fresh.
However, recently, there is a trend of clean beauty in which people tend to use fewer products that are not 100% natural. The clean beauty trend is the practice of people to use only products that are only derived from natural ingredients, no other synthetic ingredients. They believe that other substances are toxins and could harm their skin and create health problems because those substances are synthesized.
Obviously, preservatives are synthetic substances and they will be excluded from the trend. People, who follow the clean beauty trend, prefer to use products that do not contain preservatives because they think it is risky to use. According to the clean beauty trend, my company’s sales are dramatically dropped. Our customers have less trust in our products. We also lose credibility for not providing 100% natural products.
Research
According to situational analysis, for the problem analysis part, we found out that the clean beauty trend could be a problem for us because our products are excluded from the trend. People believe that our products can be harmful due to the usage of preservatives. The trend creates a reputation problem for us. As our audiences, people in Thailand including people in the clean beauty trend, use our products less than usual and our sales are significantly dropped.
However, for the opportunity analysis part, there is an opportunity for us as well. We have found out that the 100% natural products have a very short shelf life and will be expired too soon. The shelf life of natural products is only 3 months after opening the package while the products with preservatives could be last for 2 years after opening. Also, without preservation, natural products could be more dangerous than products that use preservatives because of contamination, germs, and bacteria.
Moreover, preservatives have been used since 1920 and there is no evidence proven that preservatives are harmful to users’ skin because the amount of preservative usage in skincare products is too small to create health problems. The product contains less than 1% of preservatives will not create any harm to the users. It seems to be safer to use preservatives in the products.
Clearly, the products with preservatives are better than products that not contain any preservatives. Therefore, 100% natural product does not mean the safer product for customers.
action
Goal
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To recover the sales and reputation
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To raise awareness of the usage of preservatives is a must and product with preservatives is safer.
Objectives
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To increase the sale among people in Thailand by 160% within 6 months
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To be recommended by popular skincare websites within 6 months
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To raise awareness of products using preservatives is better than products that not using any preservative in 2 months.
Strategies
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To inform people in Thailand about the harmfulness of 100% natural products without preservatives.
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To create awareness among people who follow the trend to aware of our products.
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To persuade people about how products with preservatives are safer and better than 100% natural products.
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To build the relationship with former customers and new customers.
Tactics
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Hold the special event inviting physicians, beauty specialists dermatologists as the speakers of the event talking about the preservatives in beauty products.
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Let the physicians and chemists publish the article about how preservatives help skincare products last longer and why is it better to use skincare with preservatives before sent the article to the journalist of online skincare magazines.
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Let the famous beauty Facebook pages, such as Madam Green Page, post about the harmfulness of products without preservatives.
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Hold the interview for physicians to talk about how products using preservatives are better and safer.
Communication
Sender: San Skin, physicians, chemists, Madam Green, beauty specialists, and dermatologists.
Message: Skincare products with preservatives are better and safer than 100% natural products without any preservatives.
Receiver: People in Thailand both follow the clean beauty trend and not follow the trend.
Channel: Social media such as Facebook pages of beauty specialists and our San Skin Facebook page, our San Skin website in the relevant blog section, famous skincare websites such as Allure, DermStore, Healthline, and Cosmenet, and online skincare magazine blogs.
We choose this online channel because the trend of clean beauty is viral via the online platform then, we will counter this argument back on the same platform as it is really fast to go viral. The reason that the trend goes viral is that nowadays, people spend time using social media and go online more often. People can quickly see the trend because social media influences people to connect to each other faster.
Social media become important to the business as people can aware of the products, trends, and new coming things easier. This platform will positively influence the awareness of our company and our products as well.
evaluation
To evaluate this campaign, the new trend of “preservatives in skincare are needed” will come out. People will show out that they prefer to use skincare products with preservatives more. They will talk more about preservatives and they can comment on the online platform that we use to publish our research as well. These can measure the awareness of preservatives used among people.
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Also, we can observe the value proposition of our market by observing if people buy more products with preservatives or the labels of “Free from preservatives” are lessened. It can imply that people are not scared of preservatives anymore or, at least, fewer people afraid of preservatives in skin care products.
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Moreover, we will measure our sales if there has been an increase within 6 months and how many percentages has it increased because this growth can imply that people are not afraid of preservatives as all of our products are containing preservatives.