Consumers seek out all-natural brands
Consumers want natural products that are good for them, but what exactly is “natural” when it comes to health and beauty products?
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Sweeping claims and a lack of regulations can weaken the competitiveness of brands in this category. Outwardly, there can be very little distinction between brands that use “natural and organic” as a marketing ploy and those that embrace it as a core value. However, several natural and organic brands have managed to bridge the gap and connect with their fan base, while remaining competitive in the mass market.
Mintel’s report on natural and organic personal care points to some revealing statistics. In a survey of more than 1,100 consumers age 18 years and older who buy natural products, 45% said it was hard to tell which brands are actually natural, 40% said they wish there were stricter regulations and 31% said that products in the category are not as natural as they claim to be.
Mintel’s research also found that in the NOPC category, 57% of those surveyed purchased their products from mass market retailers, and 46% purchased from drug stores. This compares with only 21% for both online retailers and natural food stores, respectively, according to Mintel.
As noted earlier, several natural and organic brands have managed to bridge the gap and connect with their fan base. For them, building trust and having transparency is far more effective than splashy, multimillion dollar marketing campaigns.
One example is SheaMoisture, a beauty brand that turns to social media for marketing that is in line with its core values. The company enlisted several popular social media personalities on YouTube who strike a chord with their fan base and make their brand relatable. It’s the sort of grassroots effort that founder and CEO of Sundial Brands Richelieu Dennis has relied on from the beginning.
“We’ve engaged influencers such as MahoganyCurls, It’s My Raye Raye and SunKissAlba to educate our SheaMoisture community and their respective audiences about the ingredients and benefits of our products. As beauty experts, they take a unique approach to the way that they create content and deliver information, which aligns with our grassroots marketing initiatives that have built the brand over the last 20-plus years. Our goal is to always connect with people in a way that is meaningful and welcomes them in to our SheaMoisture family,” Dennis said.
Boutique retailer Lush Cosmetics has taken this approach a step further by actually inviting YouTube personality Samantha from the channel Batalash to come into its factory and create her own all-natural beauty products, documenting the entire process in a series of YouTube videos. It goes a long way in taking potential customers behind the scenes and explaining the brand’s ecofriendly practices.
As the Mintel report states, success in the NOPC market requires transparency and trust — particularly in the mass market — and social media can be a powerful vehicle.