Limit Layering in Makeup Marketing

The financial success of e.l.f. Beauty and The Body Shop—vendors that offer only vegan cosmetics and skincare products—is evidence of consumer interest in makeup free of animal products, byproducts, and derivatives. Other companies such as Ulta Beauty offer a selection of vegan items along with conventionally formulated items.
     Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University and COSMAX BTI Inc. employed the full portfolio of Ulta to explore what product attributes are associated with the most positive user reactions and how this differs between vegan and conventional products. The dataset comprised 255,023 user reviews collected from the Ulta Beauty website.
     The researchers’ inquiry was guided by past studies showing how consumers are attracted to vegan beauty products via perceptions of them containing fewer harmful chemicals, being manufactured with less environmental harm, and being unlikely to have been tested on animals.
     One finding from the current study relates to sustainability labels. While conventional products can benefit from highlighting sustainability claims such as safety or environmental friendliness, doing so provides little additional benefit for vegan products. Sustainability cues are already common in vegan marketing, so repeating them does little to further differentiate the product. Such repetition carries the sort of risk associated with a consumer putting on too many makeup layers. Instead, brands may benefit from emphasizing other product features and benefits.
     The study also found that vegan skincare products tend to receive slightly higher ratings than conventional ones. An explanation is expectations—many consumers believe vegan products are healthier, safer, or more ethical, and these beliefs can influence how satisfied they feel after using them.
     This pattern was especially clear for moisturizers and creams. These products mainly provide hydration, and consumers can usually feel the results quickly. As a result, positive expectations about vegan products often translate into higher ratings.
     Serums, however, showed the opposite pattern. Conventional serums received higher ratings than vegan ones. Because serums promise long-term benefits such as anti-aging or wrinkle reduction, their effectiveness is harder to judge immediately. When expectations are very high but visible results take time to appear, consumers may feel disappointed.
     For mists and oils, there were no meaningful rating differences, likely because these products are judged mainly by immediate sensory experiences such as texture and absorption.
     Overall, the findings suggest that evaluating consumer satisfaction across a product line can be complex because evidence of effectiveness emerges at different speeds and with different levels of certainty.

Successfully influence the most prosperous & most loyal consumer age group. For the specific strategies & tactics you need, click here.

Click for more…

Visualize Beyond Three Claims 

Post Dramatic Tales for Post-Experience Goods 

Beware Open Sell 

Earn Trust by Supporting Sustainability

Compound Interest in Financial Self-Confidence

Among heterosexual couples, the woman is twenty-five times more likely to leave the pair’s financial management to the man than is the man to leave it to the woman.
     This difference might be largely attributed to gender norms regarding abilities and control. Financial self-confidence also matters. Many women avoid situations like car shopping, financial planning, and tax preparation because the women fear salespeople will try to cheat them under the assumption that the women have limited money skills.
     Sharing duties of daily life makes sense. Yet it becomes problematic when the one managing the finances is impaired. Women with dementia were generally agreeable to their husband’s assumption of the household financial decision-making, while men with dementia generally resisted relinquishing their financial authority.
     Researchers at University of Edinburgh and University of Central Florida note the prior research characterizing females as exhibiting lower financial self-confidence than their male counterparts. Based on such findings, the researchers propose that increasing the financial self-confidence of high school girls will serve them well throughout their lives. The researchers’ study provides evidence that a promising technique for increasing this self-confidence is financial education by teachers who themselves have solid financial self-confidence.
     The one-day training program for teachers responsible for providing financial education was designed by Young Money in the United Kingdom. The training was geared to teaching 16–18-year-olds about financial planning and budgeting; financial implications of work; seeking financial advice; choosing financial products; and fraud and identity theft. Students received their training from these teachers over the duration of a school term.
     Enhancing teachers’ financial self-confidence narrowed the financial self-confidence gap between the female and male students. The additional financial self-confidence was associated with economically meaningful actions by the students, such as increased savings of available funds.
     The researchers interpret the findings in the context of social learning: Teacher self-confidence has previously been shown to shape teaching practice and improve student engagement, especially for female students. When a teacher gains self-confidence, not only is the course content likely to be better, but the students also gain self-confidence from imitation of the solid financial self-confidence of their teachers.
     In presenting this interpretation, the researchers say a common concern expressed by financial literacy educators is that they feel unprepared to competently teach the material. I’d say this implies parents—who constitute another major resource for mentoring financial literacy—would benefit from building their self-confidence in the task.

Successfully influence the most prosperous & most loyal consumer age group. For the specific strategies & tactics you need, click here.

Click for more…

Stem the Tide of Female Shopper Discomfort 

Sandbag Senior Swindles 

Include the Kids in Financial Literacy Talk 

Invest in Financial Literacy Overconfidence