Part One – The Current Strategic Position
Company Overview
The Body Shop International Limited, which is commonly known as The Body Shop is a British cosmetics, skincare, and perfume company that was founded in 1976 by a British national, Anita Roddick. Anita started The Body Shop just to make a living for herself and her family. Since its establishment, The Body Shop has been focused on producing products that are ethically sourced, cruelty-free, and that are only made with natural ingredients. The company has always been a fierce critique of animal testing. While the company started by selling 25 products, it now has over 1000 products that are available in 65 countries in about 3000 stores. Some stores are fully owned by the company, while some are franchised outlets. The company has its headquarters in London Bridge. The Body Shop is a subsidiary of a Brazilian cosmetics giant Natura. Previously, the company was owned by L’Oréal, which is a French cosmetics company since 2006. However, it is in 2017 that L’Oréal agreed to sell The Body Shop to Nature for £880 million. The takeover by L’Oréal was a source of controversy since the company had been selling its products in China and there was a law requiring that cosmetic products be tested on animals before being introduced to the mass market.
Mission statement
The Body Shop’s mission statement affirms the company’s commitment to making the world a better place by making it more equitable and attractive. As a company, The Body Shop is dedicated to balancing the demands of the company’s customers, employees, and the ecosystem.
Marketing Mix
Product: The Body Shop is an internationally popular brand that offers a variety of personal care products. Its focus is on creating environmentally friendly products with natural ingredients. The diversified product portfolio allows them to serve people with different skin types, of all ages, and either gender (Siti Jahroh, 2019).
Place: The Body Shop has more than 1000 products available in over 3000 outlets the world over. It has its presence in different countries either through fully owned stores or franchises. The company has a huge presence in France, Canada, Portugal, Japan, Korea, Romania, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and many more countries where the demand for its products is high. This huge international presence is facilitated by a strong distribution network, which makes sure all needed raw materials are available in the production center and those end products are available to sufficiently cater to the demand. Additionally, the Body Shop products are also made available through a multi-level marketing channel. This allows other people to market and sells the Body Shop’s products.
Price: The Body Shop recorded a revenue of $1.4 billion in 2018 which has grown over the past few years. Its products are targeted to mostly higher-income women and men in cities and urban areas who are conscious about health and beauty. The company has positioned itself as a premium brand that serves high-income earners. Because of its ethical and natural nature of production, The Body Shop products have higher price ranges. However, the premium category has many players which necessitate The Body Shop to implement a competitive pricing policy to keep up with price changes in the market.
Promotion: In its efforts to promote its products in different markets. The Body Shop utilizes various marketing policies. It uses a societal marketing concept and emphasizes the benefit of using natural ingredients. Most of the advertising is done through social media platforms, fashion magazines, and also through its website. Additionally, The Body Shop has partnered with other online shopping platforms where its products are available. The company also promotes its brand through its environmental and social campaigns. For instance, its huge involvement in the Forever Against Animal Testing campaign hugely promoted its brand.
Influence of Technology in marketing
It is through MarTech (marketing technology) that The Body Shop has been able to reach and serve so many customers globally. By implementing MarTech more in their marketing efforts, The Body Shop saves advertising costs and reaches more audiences (Syawaluddin et al., 2019). The Body Shop mostly advertises through fashion magazines and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. From these sites, the company can read customer reviews and feedback which helps them serve their needs better. The company has partnered with online shopping platforms that sell their products online such as Shopify.
Market Trends Analysis
As already mentioned, China is the world’s second-largest market for beauty products. So, it is a great opportunity for The Body Shop to take advantage of this massive market. Though The Body Shop has over 2000 products that can do well in China, the company will re-enter the market with a new facial product targeting male Gen Z consumers. The rationale for this strategy is the fact that most skincare products especially facial products are made for female consumers. While there are men’s products available as well, men do not have a wide variety of products to choose from. Marketing this new market will offer a new and inventive solution to this neglected group.
It makes sense to target Gen Z because The Body Shop products offer what they need and they have the money. According to Davis (2020), Gen Zers have over $1400 billion of spending power. Recently a lot of businesses have experienced stagnated growth as a result of changing tastes of Gen Z and millennial cohorts. Many players including some of The Body Shop competitors are finding ways to win Gen Z. The Body Shop is well-grounded to win this group of consumers because of its rich reputation of transparency. According to Strugatz (2020), Gen Zers are curious to know what happens behind the development of a product. Gen Zers want to understand what a brand stands for and whether they stand for what is right. Fortunately, The Body Shop stands for every right thing. Their products are eco-friendly and vegan, awaiting certification from The Vegan Society by the end of 2023 (Starostinetskaya, 2021). Additionally, The Body Shop products are cruelty-free and have been against animal testing since its founding. While selling good products matters, standing for something matters more (Strugatz, 2020).
Lastly, unlike other generations, Gen Zers are green people. Green represents sustainability Gen Z is passionate about the environment and the impact of climate change on the planet. Gen Z is organizing and protesting to demand greener products, including beauty products (Peters, 2021). This includes the ingredients used in the packaging of products. This shift to green also reflects on the beauty industry’s shift to health and wellness. The Body Shop was already practicing these things and has contributed to this heightened awareness of sustainability. The Body Shop products are made with natural ingredients, and they are packaged with recyclable materials. These attributes are expected to push Voy face scrub for men which is the new offering for Gen Z. However, the company faces competition from other reputable brands such as Lush, Yves Rocher, Weleda, and L’Occitane which also use natural ingredients and are keen on environmental protection and have also announced plans to enter China.
Recommendations on Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP)
Marketing strategies have been changing as market conditions keep evolving. Because of this dynamic nature of markets, developing a unique value proposition for a particular target group has become very challenging for most companies. This challenge led to the development of a modern marketing approach, the STP that is credited for improving efficiency and streamlining communications practice. The STP is aimed at enhancing commercial effectiveness by identifying the most valuable market segments and then developing a marketing mix as well as positioning strategy for every segment. With continuous development in Mar-tech, new opportunities for segmentation, targeting, and positioning will emerge (Jan and Victor, 2019). As such brands should make every effort to reach and interact with customers.
The Body Shop’s current business has thrived as a result of good ethical products and good marketing strategy. The company has its official verified social media accounts where they promote new products and conduct marketing campaigns. However, for the new product, Voy face scrub, the following marketing strategy will be most appropriate.
Segmentation: Under demographic segmentation, the new facial products targeted Gen Z men. Since it is a single product. The Body Shop should not have a lot of specialized segments. Customers will be segmented based on psychographics and income factors. In psychographic considerations, The Body Shop products are associated with wellness and sustainability. As such, customers can be classified according to their values. On income factor, customers should be segmented based on their income level since The Body Shop products have a high price range.
Targeting: The Body Shop has efficiently targeted its market in China. Gen Z has high spending power. The product should adequately address dead skin and rashes issues experienced by young men to better win Gen Z.
Positioning: People are conscious of wellness, sustainability, and the use of natural products for their skin. The Body Shop’s new brand is strategically positioned to meet these requirements. In marketing, we should associate this product with these needs.
Part Two – The Contemporary Environment
The People
A more extensive hypothetical viewpoint to dissect The Body Shop case is through the investigation of the corporate culture. It expects that the originators of the organization held a bunch of moral qualities that contrasted with the standard of the makeup business and fabricated the organization around those qualities. This viewpoint varies from the instrumental view in that it puts center around the inside association of The Body Shop, however, it doesn’t prohibit the likelihood that the organization’s qualities were alluring for specific gatherings of clients, acquiring the huge and faithful client base was an outcome, not an objective; arranging the organization on the specific philosophical plan was essentially the most regular method of activity for the authors. This point of view on The Body Shop was taken for instance by researchers who believed the organization to be an illustration of “inventive association” because of its way of life of “kindhearted turmoil”; and those who investigated the job of “limited emotionality” in the administration of the organization; who inspected the organization culture as the establishment of its push towards the worldwide authority in an “inexorably mind-boggling worldwide commercial center”. Individual records of an effective profession in The Body Shop and the direct impressions of the organization’s way of life and its projection into business tasks were also shared from research done.
The corporate culture viewpoint (rather than the instrumental one) was unequivocally upheld by Anita Roddick herself who reliably expressed that she was following up on her arrangement of qualities without really any perspective on prompt monetary returns: “right up ’til today we are thoroughly shielding ourselves from huge business thinking … by being trying, valiant – and not making too much of the things” (Lassk, 2019). Many creators noticed that solid corporate culture is identified with business execution and can frame a critical upper hand. On account of The Body Shop, the solid corporate culture converted into worker inspiration, prompting low turnover and high enthusiastic holding with the brand, which seemingly prompted more powerful correspondence with the clients. While how much the customers preferred Anita Roddick’s plan stayed a space of discussion, the organization was viewed as giving predominant in-store benefits by unequivocally elaborate faculty (essentially during the 1980s and 1990s).
The People
A proclamation of basis runs about as an organization’s compass: overseeing the organization’s selections to perform its core motive and justification it prevails. While the perception declaration elucidates the organization’s perspective attitude, the goal straightforwardly recognizes the perception by conveying the additional prominent rationale for why that conception counts.
The Body Shop establishment imagines propelling a gorgeous and additionally fascinating world, with splendor and a better impressive world; the group desires to intensify that human action struggles in a state of peace with essence, and an additional pleasant world that is inclusive and where people are handled with similarly with no predisposition. Notwithstanding, they had recorded down a few angles they had designated to satisfy Anita’s vision when she initially began the business.
The Purpose
The Body Shop additionally needs to establish a comprehensive workplace without sexual orientation divergence. Structure including individuals from assorted societies and advancing reasonable local area exchange, the organization likewise imagines making a work environment where everybody is dealt with similarly. The organization imagines making a half-sex balance at the senior level. The organization additionally imagines paying all representatives their living age by 2023.
Women Empowerment
One of the significant dreams of the organization is to enable ladies through instruction, new job openings, mindfulness, and missions. The organization needs to sow the seeds of self-assurance and confidence in ladies from across the world, which will give them the mental fortitude to battle and stand firm for themselves (Asfiah et al., 2018)
Cruelty-free items
The Body Shop has consistently followed the vision of making and creating items that are not barbarous to one’s skin and the climate. They have effectively presented a few item classifications for magnificence markets, scent markets, and others which are a copy of nature’s miracle and advantages.
Sustainability
From the assembling system to its stores, the Body Shop has guaranteed that its items are made utilizing manageable strategies, and its stores likewise take action accordingly (Ranganathan, 2017). The economical Body Shop stores utilize no virgin plastic; they use FSC guaranteed wood or reused wood, LED lighting is utilized provided that required, and FSC ensured paper or lowlifes are utilized. Truth be told, even the ink that is utilized is water-based.
The Purpose
Other than advancing reasonable exchange and enabling ladies, the organization likewise battles for basic liberties as it worked for ladies experiencing abusive behavior at home, HIV, and AIDs. Moreover, the organization likewise advances moral exchange practices and regards the specialist’s freedoms.
From the assembling system to its stores, the Body Shop has guaranteed that its items are made utilizing economical strategies, and its stores additionally take action accordingly. The maintainable Body Shop stores utilize no virgin plastic; they use FSC ensured wood or reused wood, LED lighting is utilized provided that required, and FSC affirmed paper or creeps are utilized. Truth be told, even the ink that is utilized is water-based.
It spearheaded a reasonable way to deal with a business that we presently perceive is fundamental assuming we are to slow down environmental change, contamination, and neediness. Furthermore today that vision is being increased. As one of the world’s supportability pioneers, The Body Shop remains consistent with its obligation to maintainable and moral strategic policies, meshing them into each part of the brand – regardless of whether it’s item plan and bundling, client experience, or store plan. While reasonable store plans have been demonstrated to make critical in-store encounters for clients, The Body Shop is exploring the idea of sustainability as an imperative part of its business – where benefit and reason go connected at the hip to drive significant change on the planet (Ranganathan, 2017).
Section Three – The Recommendations and Conclusion
The instance of The Body Shop is exceptionally important in the political and social setting of the mid-2020s, with the conversation of private enterprise being a “harmed ideology” turning out to be progressively noticeable worldwide. Private enterprise was presumably untrustworthy by plan, a portion of the unmistakable business visionaries of the nineteenth century took solid moral standing, the peculiarity was noted by Max Weber in his popular The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Tragically, it worked out that those industrialists who are loose on close-to-home moral plans regularly are more serious in the unrestricted economy climate.
The Body Shop mission and vision center around reasonable exchange rehearse best working guidelines, advancing ladies and networks, and ensuring the climate. Above all, the organization dismisses the excellence norms set by the business and advances accepting oneself how one is normal.
The Body Shop has an extremely compelling style of executives with Anita Roddick still in charge of the preparation, driving, sorting out, and settling on choices for all the establishment stores. The overall administration perspectives and culture are receptive to the requirements of their workers and their clients. The Body Shop is a worldwide organization that is a pioneer in the unfamiliar exchange office (Lassk, 2019).
Countless organizations utilize cold-bloodedness free practices, and one of them is The Body Shop. Body Shop International is a worldwide association that fundamentally sells excellent items and hair items for skincare. The Body Shop is focusing on a specialty industry. It has spoken to customers with moral worries by guaranteeing that it isn’t trying its merchandise on creatures and by claiming to have an environmental profile. In the nearby market, being the only shop in the retail outlet that sells biological products has given it a benefit.
By offering a little amount of pay, the Body Shop offers monetary and beneficent administrations. We came to know dependent on the review we have done that there are so many individuals who know nothing about this viciousness against creatures. The Body Shop is an effectively-made picture of being a guardian who helps in ensuring the climate furthermore native individuals while selling ‘regular’ products and forestalling creatures languishing. The Body Shop was the primary worldwide magnificence organization to challenge the utilization of creature testing in beauty care products, prompting the 2013 European Union-wide restriction on animal testing.
The Body Shop and client devotion expanded after The Body Shop effectively repositioned its image, separated itself from other corrective lines, and demonstrated that they truly utilize the best practice as far as a treatment to creatures in the restorative, design, and food ventures (Lassk, 2019). The Body Shop was as yet considered a notoriety brand in the Middle East and Asia which involves 25% of the worldwide restorative and toiletries market which should use the brand’s needs. Expansion in Sales and Profits Repositioning helps in making the deals and benefits take off as a solid corporate picture permits the organization to charge more for the items. Most clients trust that they “get what they pay for”. Better quality regularly partners with more exorbitant costs. This can prompt further development, increase edges and benefits of the firm. Simultaneously, worldwide restorative and toiletries were developing at a sound rate beginning from the year 2000 additionally went about as an impetus during the time spent repositioning The Body Shop‟s brand.
References
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Davis, D., 2020. Gen Zers have a spending power of over $140 billion, and it’s driving the frenzy of retailers and brands trying to win their dollars. Business Insider.
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Starostinetskaya A., 2021. The Body Shop Commits to Going 100-Percent Vegan by 2023. Available at: https://vegnews.comStrogatzthe-body-shop-vegan-by-2023
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