GONE are the days when consumers would have no other option but to go to brick-and-mortar stores to purchase their favorite cosmetic brand.
This is because the rise of digitization has overturned the $532-billion beauty industry—thanks to easy access to the Internet, mobile technology and social media.
Such is highly evident in the Philippines, known worldwide for having the biggest presence online.
Meltwater’s latest report, titled “Beyond Skin Deep: Understanding the Shopping Journey of the Southeast Asian Beauty Buyer,” shows the top trends in the region and provides key insights for brands looking to explore this new, transformative path-to-purchase process.
In a nutshell, it is found out that social-media influencers are now preferred over celebrities for beauty collaborations; Instagram is the channel of choice for talent-led partnerships; and lip products were the most talked about items on social-network sites.
Asean cosmetic market’s makeup
ASIA Pacific (AsPac) is a force to reckon with, as far as the beauty industry is concerned, being the largest and one of the fastest-growing markets globally for cosmetic and personal care.
In fact, Euromonitor Research reported that the region now accounts for 32 percent of the global beauty and personal care market that is projected to continue growing 6.7 percent in the next five years.
Within AsPac, Southeast Asia is at the forefront of the online wave as more and more consumers now make purchases online than ever before.
Based on the media intelligence firm’s new study, Indonesia represents 38 percent of social-media chatter around beauty; followed by Malaysia, 29.3 percent; the Philippines, 27.5 percent; and Singapore, 5.2 percent.
Filipino netizens are active Instagram and YouTube users, looking for quality content, from trends to tutorials, with regard to beauty.
Read their lips
PER category, lip products were the most raved about items of Southeast Asians on social media, taking up 49.2 percent.
They dominated the face (26.3 percent), eyes (23.5 percent), and cheek (1 percent) segments.
Such trend is apparent in the Philippines, wherein 70.5 percent of beauty netizens were most vocal about all things lips, followed by face (14.8 percent), eyes (13.7 percent), and cheek (1 percent).
Brand-wise, Estée Lauder lorded over the online conversation, followed by L’Oréal.
The report, therefore, concluded that consumers in the region think of lipstick as the most important beauty product to get their desired look.
Within the category, moisturizing qualities, fair skin, and long-lasting effects were the most mentioned features, indicating that consumers look for these attributes when choosing products.
Consumers online seek for products by colors, with “orangey red” (13 percent), “pinkish brown” (9 percent), and “real red” (8 percent) emerging as the Top 3 hues searched on the web.
Product finish was, likewise, hotly discussed with matte finish (10 percent) seeing an upward spike in recent times, followed by glossy (9 percent), and satin (5 percent).
Majority of the conversations on social media also focused on the various applications of lip products, including mixing up and layering products to create personalized looks.
The rise of influencers
CELEBRITY Intelligence, a separate report supporting Meltwater’s findings, shows that social-media influencers play a pivotal role in shaping opinions and buying decisions for 80 percent of beauty shoppers.
They have overtaken celebrities as the top pick for beauty brand endorsements and commercial collaborations as 83 percent of survey respondents believe that they are key to making beauty trends, looks and products “cool” to consumers, specially the millennial segment market.
Also, they deliver return on investment (ROI) well for beauty products. According to the report, brands get an average ROI of $11.80 for every $1.30 spent on beauty influencers.
Factoring all of these, the study identified key strategies that cosmetic firms in the region can adopt to fully leverage how customers are consuming beauty-related content.
These include creating an immersive experience on digital platforms to help surpass existing barriers toward online sales, and focusing on personalized experiences to cater to customer demands of greater inclusivity.
As consumers become more demanding and discerning, it’s important to take advantage of artificial intelligence and social-listening tools to predict and forecast trends to better serve the customer.
Grab the ’Gram
MELTWATER’S research tracked and studied mentions of the top beauty and cosmetics companies across millions of posts from various social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or ’Gram among millenials, and YouTube, as well as blogs, review portals and online forums.
The most preferred medium of choice for talent-led tieups is Instagram, with eight times more beauty influencers on it than on Twitter and YouTube.
Primarily, this is because the ’Gram appears to deliver the strongest metrics and highest level of ROI for influencers and brands.
The Social Influencer Discovery tool of Meltwater was also used to identify the top influencers and content in each country surveyed in Southeast Asia, based on their popularity, content, social media presence, audience, and engagement rates.
Receiving a score of 94 out of 100 possible points, Anna Cay (@annacay) is a top vlogger and makeup aficionado in the Philippines.
Her ’Gram account shows that she has 583,000 total fans to date, 114,000 true reach, and 24,000 engagements for every post.
Beauty tips, tutorials and reviews, as well as fashion and lifestyle content relating to her everyday routine, are mostly seen on her daily status.
Collaborate and multiply
GIVEN the immense power of social media in mind, Meltwater recommends collaborative efforts between social-media influencers and beauty brands.
According to Meltwater Asia Pacific Regional Director for Media Solutions Mimrah Mahmood, today’s consumers know what’s being sold to them and would likewise choose to hear from real people.
“As such, brands need to be more strategic in their talent collaborations, looking not only at vanity metrics like follower numbers, but also incorporating deeper insights such as average engagement per post, true reach, and demographic data to determine whether an influencer appeals to the right audience,” he said.
“As the market matures, influencer marketing budgets and future collaborations will only grow bigger, pushing the $500-billion beauty industry to become even more creative, transparent and accessible,” Mahmood added.
To get consumers’ attention amid a cluttered and noisy digital space, an integrated influencer marketing strategy is non-negotiable, opined Bea Asavajaru, global senior manager (Social Media and Influencer Marketing), Clé de Peau Beauté, a Shiseido brand.
“By carefully selecting and collaborating with influencers, in addition to continuing our traditional marketing efforts, our brand can be culturally relevant to consumers,” she said.
“Establishing authentic connections with our audience is of great importance. Since we have curated and worked with influencers who command considerable influence over a sizeable population, we have seen a direct increase in brand awareness and share-of-voice among our competitors,” Asavajaru added.
Analyzing shifting attitudes, priorities and behaviors of the Southeast Asian beauty market, Meltwater gathered contents across millions of posts from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, blogs, review sites and online forums. The tracking period was the second half of 2018.
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