“THE BODY SHOP”
1. Introduction
The Body Shop (TBS) is an internationally recognized organization that provides its wide customer base with original, natural and beauty products in 60 countries through over 2,500 stores (The Body Shop, 2012). The company highly believes in natural beauty from the heart due to which the company provides its customers with products to make them beautiful. TBS offers its customers with beauty products that are made with love and care. To protect the natural beauty of the customers, the organization sources the finest raw ingredients from all over the world. This has provided the organization with an opportunity to use its expertise and skills for the creation of products that are essential for the nourishment of customer’s beauty.
Being a subsidiary of L’Oreal, The Body Shop operates in cosmetic industry. The company was founded in the year 1976 in England, UK (The Body Shop, 2012). Despite the variety of products offered by the organization, TBS has also been known for its extensive marketing strategies to win the heart of the customers in the local and international market. Marketing strategies play a dominant role in attracting potential customers along with existing customers in any industry (O'shaughnessy, 1988) and same is the case with the cosmetic industry. Additionally, TBS tends to focus highly on franchises from the very first year into the cosmetic industry. Kiosk in Brussels was the first franchise of the company in the year 1978. Even though, the company is provided with variety of options to expand or enter new overseas market but the company’s reliance on franchise is prominently higher than the other strategies.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the company and its marketing strategies. As the marketing strategies of TBS are aimed to provide the company with an opportunity to witness growth in the overseas market, the study has focused highly on the marketing strategies of the company. Moreover, the strategic decisions into consideration by the company in order to expand in the international cosmetic industry have also been evaluated. This has provided significant insight regarding the company and its oversea expansion strategies.
2. Theoretical Framework
Every organization has certain objectives and the achievement of such objectives is essential for organizational growth and success. In order to achieve the pre-determined objectives, marketing plays an essential role within an organization (Piercy, 2009). Through effective marketing efforts, the organizations are provided with an opportunity to reach the target customers effectively (Gosnay, and Richardson, 2008). In addition, the effectiveness of the marketing activities also allows the organization to provide the customers with the right product at the right time and place to satisfy the needs and desires of the right customer (Kotler Armstrong, Wong, and Saunders, 2008).
Marketing could be defined as the process through which an organization arouses the needs and desires of the customers regarding certain products or services (Kotler, 2003). The ability to create customer’s interest towards products and services offered by an organization plays dominant role in making the customer shift from one product to another (Day, 1990). Marketing is an integrated process that allows the organization to build strong relationship with the customers by creating value for the customers and for the organization as well (Ghauri, & Cateora, 2010). Marketing plays a dominant role in the identification of the customer, satisfaction of the customer’s needs and desires and to retain the customers for long-term. This reflects that marketing is an important activity for an organization that focuses highly on gaining information regarding the needs and wants of the customers so that it could be satisfied effectively than the competitors (Kotler, and Keller, 2009).
Marketing is a cluster of activities. To understand the concept of marketing, the activities should be accurately planned. This could be significantly done through dividing the activities according to their nature. The marketing mix consists of 4 P’s i.e. Product, Price, Place and Promotion (Kotler, 2003). Each of the elements of marketing is separately evaluated below;
2.1. Product
The product offers the customers with bundle of satisfaction and dissatisfaction from time to time. This element includes the physical attributes and benefits along with the ability to differ from rest of the products in the market (Goi, 2009).
2.2. Price
The monetary value of the product is often regarded as the price that the customers pay to attain it (Goi, 2009). The price of the product depends highly on variety of factors such as market share, competition, product identity and the value associated with the product in the market (Baines, Fill & Page, 2010).
2.3. Promotion
This element focuses on communicating the benefits and other associated features of the product in the market which eventually helps in creating awareness and attracting customers towards the product. The aim of promotion is to persuade the customers to buy the products offered by the company and to retain the customers in the forthcoming years (Goi, 2009).
2.4. Place
Place represents the location where the product would be made available. Meeting the needs of the customers at the right time and place is quite essential for an organization to enhance its growth and success
On the other hand, the organizations are provided with variety of strategic decisions to enter new overseas market. Expanding the business to a new market could provide the organization with an opportunity to enhance profitability by meeting the needs and wants of the new customers (Haberberg, and Rieple, 2008). Some of the most prominent options provided to an organization to enter new overseas market are as follows;
2.5. Internet
Internet has become one of the most prominent options for organizations to invade foreign markets without breaking a sweat (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Mayer, and Johnston, 2008). For some companies, internet has proved to be a dominant force in the elimination of traditional channels. Meanwhile, organizations are taking advantage of the internet to enter new overseas market effectively and in cost-efficient manner (Strauss, & Frost, 2011). It is important for the business to communicate through the right channels in order to be successful (Mulhem, 2009).
2.6. Franchising
Franchising has remained the most successful way to enter new overseas market. Through franchising, the organization is provided with an opportunity to control and manage the activities of the franchise in overseas market. In addition, it also ensures that the concept of cannibalization could be significantly reduced in the international business environment (Keegan, & Green, 2011).
2.7. Joint Ventures (JV)
Joint venture is often regarded as an act where two or more than two companies join their operations for the accomplishment of desired goals and objectives. This venture by partnership is designed in such a way that losses and profits are shared equally among the companies working together or at the rate decided during the contract (Kotabe, & Helsen, 2008).
3. Analysis – The Body Shop
The role of TBS in the international markets has significantly remained outstanding and majestic in terms of marketing. Being in the skincare industry, TBS has positioned its products in the market as environmental friendly through marketing activities. Marketing has been provided with stunning importance within the organization due to which the company is presented with lucrative opportunities from time to time.
The prominent marketing strategies of the company through which TBS has achieved significant growth in the local and international market are as follows;
3.1. Global Brand Ambassador
In earlier year, TBS signed Lily Cole as the global brand ambassador for its ‘beauty with heart’ campaign. This campaign was supported by the strapline ‘looking good, feeling good, doing good’. This significantly helped the organization to win the hearts of the customers as it promoted the brand core values; providing the customers with ethical products, high quality ingredients sourced from all over the world and TBS’s commitment to fair trade (Eleftheriou-Smith, 2012).
3.2. Social Media Marketing
Social media has provided TBS with everything it was hoping for. The customers of the company are women between the ages of 20-40 and with social media’s help, the organization is provided with an opportunity to interact and communicate with its target audience in the most effective and cost-efficient manner. The company had 20,982 followers on Twitter and 455,000 followers on Facebook. Additionally, with the help of social media, the organization has dozens of forums to interact with the customers with an aim to gain insights regarding the needs and wants of the customers in the international market. Moreover, the most prominent content sharing website (i.e. Youtube) is frequently used by the organization to upload videos regarding new products in the market along with the associated benefits and advantages. This marketing strategy of the company has created significant interests in the customers due to which more and more customers are visiting Youtube to gain valuable information regarding the products offered by TBS.
On the other hand, blogs and articles regarding the organization’s beauty and skincare products have significantly influenced the potential and actual customers to purchase the products. As a result, the organization has witnessed increase in sales and profit level in earlier years. Lastly, commercial mails have also been used by the organization to attract and influence the customers to take positive actions (i.e. purchase) in the market.
3.3. Competitions
3.4. The Body Shop iPhone Application
The recently launched Body Shop iPhone application is intended to gain customer’s attention in the market by providing them with an experience to browse through the exclusive product catalogue. Meanwhile, the application has also provided the customers with an opportunity to view the latest promotions of the company while being the first to gain pivotal insight regarding the exclusive offers over the internet. Additionally, the recently launched application has allowed the customers to shop securely from their iPhones while seeing detailed information regarding the products and the company (The Body Shop, 2013b).
3.5. Innovative Promotions
3.6. Environmental and Community Protection Strategy
TBS aims to protect the environment along with the communities. In order to do so, the organization sponsor events like ‘STOP sex trafficking of children and young people’ in earlier years. This effort to defend the rights of human allowed the organization to gain trust and customer’s confidence in the market. Moreover, the petition raised by the organization was able to gain over 7 million signatures from around the globe. In addition, the environmental protection campaign by the organization to reduce the waste and environmental impact provided the organization with significant results.
3.7. Loyalty Scheme
The introduction of loyalty scheme by TBS is one of the most prominent marketing strategies of the company to gain customer’s attention in the industry. In addition, the reward cards system initiated by the organization has also provided the organization with outstanding results in terms of awareness creation and increase in sales. This reflects that the organization still focuses highly on relationship marketing strategies rather than profit-oriented strategies within the cosmetic industry (The Body Shop, 2013c).
On the other hand, the strategic decisions that the organization might take when entering a new overseas market are as follows;
3.8. Franchise
Franchising would be the primary decision of the company to enter new overseas market. This could be witnessed from the very first franchising decision taken into consideration by the company just after 2 years of establishment. TBS has taken the option of franchising into consideration for more than once in terms of international expansion. The company operates in 61 countries and all on the basis of franchising as the benefits associated with such an option are far greater than others. Some of the benefits include;
- Minimum capital investment is required at the time of starting a new business in the international market
- The organization is provided with an opportunity to penetrate and expand in the market more easily
- The organization is provided with two-fold benefits i.e. initial fees along with the percentage of sales
3.9. Internet
Internet has also remained in the spotlight when it comes to enter new overseas market. Internet has become an important platform for businesses to offer products in other countries (Fill, 2009). The company’s webpage allows the organization to provide the customers with essential information regarding the company along with the products and services offered by the company in the local and international market. Moreover, internet being the most cost efficient and effective way has been used by the organization to attract the customers for competitions. In addition, the newly introduced iPhone application is an example of internet to capture the attention of customers in the international market.
4. Recommendations
For TBS to significantly enhance its sales and to enhance customer’s interaction with the company, following recommendation should be taken into consideration;
- The company has focused highly on commercial mails in earlier years as well as in current year. The commercial mails have allowed the organization to gain customer’s attention but the frequent commercial mails have frustrated the customers. The rising number of sales has negatively influenced the customers in the local and international market as they are forced to think that the quality of product might be compromised due to which they are frequently provided with discounts and sales.
- In earlier years, the retail stores in US were culturally disconnected due to which the customers were frequently ignoring the TBS’s retail stores. In order to attract the customers in US, the organization should work on connecting with the customers through traditions and customers. For instance, the concept of graffiti is on its peak in US. By using it to organization’s advantage, TBS would be provided with an opportunity to attract the customers in the local as well as international market.
- The emergence of social media has provided the organization with variety of benefits (Hazlett, 2010). With the help of social media, organizations around the world are continually able to communicate and interact with the customers in different parts of the world (Smith, and Zook, 2011). This reflects that the organization should enhance its social media activities by focusing highly on SEO and SMM as it would help in the identification of target audience’s needs and wants. However it is important for the firm to prepare a proper promotional and marketing plan to achieve the desired objective (Thackeray, Neiger, and Hanson, 2007). Unless the organization has formulated proper objectives and plan, it would not be able to measure the success of the marketing campaigns (Zenker, & Martin, 2011).
- Customers are continually looking for products that could provide them with the desired benefits in terms of beauty. Rather than just advertising over the TV, the organization should advertise its products and services on the smartphones as well. This would provide the organization with an ability to reach to mass audience in the market which will eventually help in attracting potential customers along with actual customers in the local and international market.
5. Conclusion
Being a subsidiary of L’Oreal, The Body Shop has to consider every factor before entering a new overseas market. Although, the products offered by the company are well known in 61 countries but the company has a long way to go to achieve its desired goals and objectives and to become the world’s leading cosmetic brand in the international world.
The marketing strategies of TBS have played a dominant role in earlier years due to which the organization has been continuously provided with opportunities to increase its sales. The marketing efforts of the company have somehow provided it with superiority over some of the fiercest rivals within the industry. The most prominent marketing strategy is the use of social media to attract and retain existing customers along with potential customers within the industry through social media. Even though, the organization is well known for its quality products, but the level of followers over the internet are quite a few. This reflects that the organization has to work regularly in gaining customer’s confidence and trust over the internet. Moreover, the use of competition has also allowed the organization to attract variety of customers from all over the world.
On the other hand, in earlier years the organization has remained on the desired track due to its franchising decisions. With operations in 61 countries, the organization focuses highly on franchising due to the variety of associated benefits. One of the most prominent benefits is the level of profits (i.e. franchising fees + percentage of sales) from the franchisee.
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