Olay Men – Launch in France

HELMES Jens
HERNANDEZ
Diego
HOCHART
Arnaud
HU
Yuzhen
HUANG
Mengqi

French population is paying more attention to its appearance. Based on our questionnaires, which choose different people from different age groups, and other document analysis, we found some attractive phenomena that can contribute to marketing strategy of OLAY in France. We start from consumer insights.

Consumer insights According to our surveys, it is surprising that almost all women are using skin-­‐care products every day and are willing to spend more money on this purchase than men. But what is beyond our expectation is that the need of skin-­‐care of men is increasing. All of our men respondents are using skin-­‐care products and 45.4% of them use skin-­‐care products regularly. This outcome of investigation reminders us a question: should OLAY develop the skin-­‐care products particularly for men? The industry situation is described in five stages: development, growth, shake-­‐out, mature and decline. Apparently, the industry of skin-­‐care products for women is staking in mature stage. Strong buyers contribute to high market share while higher entry barriers formed and numerous competitors occupied the market. According to the secondary data from NIELSEN website, we found that in recent years, there is a low growth in innovation and a high standardization in skin-­‐care products for women markets. On the contrary, skin-­‐care for men is an emerging industry in growth stage. With the increasing needs of skin-­‐care products for men, the supply falls short of demand, which means the market is quite potential. In terms of the distribution, 46.7% of our male respondents choose to purchase the skin-­‐care products in supermarkets while none of them purchase the products on the Internet. However, 21.2% and 27.3% of female respondents purchase in pharmacies and special stores (e.g. Sephora) respectively. This discrepancy is resulted by the different budgets of skin-­‐care products between men and women. 63.6% of men can afford the cream between 5 and 10 euro while 52.6% of women spend more money, 10-­‐30 euro.

Currently, in French market, Yves Rocher and L'Oréal Dermo-­‐ Expertise take the highest market share, 9.2% and 6.9 respectively. It is interesting to notice that he market share of L’ Oréal decrease slightly while that of Yves Rocher and of Roche-­‐Posay is increasing from 2012.

TOWS analysis

Opportunities 1.French Population is using new types of personal care products. (i.e. CC creams, BB creams). 2.Digital apps, e commerce and retail stores. 3. Increasing public awareness in green issues 4.Men are more worried about their skin care.

Threats 1.Global Economic Conditions. 2.Global and Local Competition. 3.Counterfeit products. 4.Increasing cost of raw materials

Strengths 1.Professional R&D department. 2.The ProX Global Derm Alliance. 3.Strong financial strength. 4.Global exposure. (180 countries) 5.Leading Brands with global recognition. 6.Sustainability and Social Responsibility. SO Strategies 1.Create more green products and keep their programs to reduce waste and emissions. (S6,O3) 2.Special apps to interact with the consumer and personalize the use of the product. (S1,O2) 3.Campaign “Men also care” (S5,O4)

Weaknesses 1. Lack of importance of Olay in France. 2.Dependence in supermarkets (Walmart,Targetc,etc.)

ST Strategies 1.Lower the price. (S3,T1) 2.Investment in R&D to create new products (S1,T2) 3.Innovation—> P&G´s lifeblood. (S1,T2)

WT Strategies 1.Give average prices to the French market (W1,T2) 2. Innovate in the interests of the local market. (W1,T2)

WO Srategies 1.Make powerful local strategies to attract the French market. (W1,O1) 2. More presence in new markets. (e.g.Sephora) (W2,O2)

Strategy of launch in France Based on our strategy derived from our TOWS-­‐matrix, we aim to target the young men population in France (age: 15-­‐35). We strongly believe that this market potential is huge, due to the fact that this segment is in the growth stage of the market life cycle. Our market research (done in Lille) supports this opinion. Also the men market is less differentiated than women’s one. We are able to put more energy and resources into the product we want to launch. To launch a brand in a new country can be very expensive, thus we recommend to focusing on one product first. At the age of 15, young men reach the puberty and our product tries to support both, mitigate pimples (dermocosmetics) and provide affordable skin care in the early age. Thus, we tie our costumers early to our cream. They will still be able to use that cream in the following years as a moisturizer and skin refresher. The idea is to create a product that could accompany them during their growth in order to create a strong loyalty regarding the product. In terms of the launch of Olay in France, we developed the “4P’s – Marketing-­‐Mix” (Product, Place, Price, Promotion). As we already mentioned above, we are going to launch a multi-­‐effect product (dermocosmetic product & moisturizing product). Indeed, knowing that skin care is not a priority for men, providing them a single product that could resolve most of their problem would be an advantage in our sense. The fact that the product will not be absolutely specialized in all the fields it covers does not appear as problem for us. As we said before and regarding our surveys, men are

more looking for a convenient product which could cover most of their problems and are not concerned as much as women to special problems. In addition to that, we believe that the best way to distribute our product is in supermarkets such as Auchan, Carrefour or Leclerc. Based on our primary data, we think that we should not distribute our products exclusively online. As mentioned above, 46.7% of our men respondents purchase facial skin care products in supermarkets while a little number purchase online. We emphasize that men should physically feel the product and then come to a decision. Moreover, the product should be easy to handle, not too light in terms of weight (150ml, because as we said before, skin care product are not on the top of men's shopping list s it will permit them to keep their products a long time) and preferably a push type product in order to dispense the right quantity. We also revisited the colours of the product compare of ones already existing on other markets. We will change the colours to blue with transparent background in order to see the cream (cf cover page for a prototype). In spite of the price, we think that giving our product a high-­‐quality presentation is the best way to enter into French market.

In terms of price, we have developed a low-­‐end price strategy. We think that our product should be an affordable item to use, since our consumers have low switching costs (large variety of products) in the beauty section in France. It is likely that men do not spend much money on skin care products as we saw in the questionnaires. We propose a price spectrum between five and twenty euros. We explicitly want to target the price-­‐sensitive consumers in France due to the low budget when our consumers reach the puberty. L’Oréal pricing skin care products for men in a similar range. Our promotion strategy deals with Television, men magazines, sponsoring and social media. It is likely that the younger generation today is heavily influenced by the internet. We want to focus on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Apps, sports websites, etc.…) in order to create a BUZZ. Additionally, we emphasize to create an educational website to present the function/ingredients of our products, demonstrate them the usage and provide consulting. Even in stores we will be present with free samples to encourage trials and attract more consumers. We will offer our consumers a money-­‐back guarantee system to encourage purchases. The idea is to change the approach of men regarding skin care products and, most of all, presenting Olay as the reference of this market. We could for example present Olay as "The new specialized brand for men which break into the French market", which would permit to bypass the weak that Olay is new (but could be a problem if Olay wants to create other products especially for women). Creating a French factory to give its products the "Made In France" label or creating partnership with French companies (such as Phyt's, Coslys or Altéarah) could also help the company to implement. Finally we want to present our positioning statement for Olay in France. From our point of view, France is a crucial market in skin care because the French population is very proud of the beauty section in France and its “leading” position. Thus, if we have success with Olay in France it will have a positive impact on the whole brand. We want to position Olay as a young, fresh and affordable brand with its highly innovative products. Our USP (unique selling proposition) is the dual strategy in one product with dermocosmetics (repair skin) and skin care (refresh skin).