Reimagining a Brand with Soul

REIMAGINING A BRAND WITH SOUL

In this newsletter, I will be dedicating some of them on brands I have not worked on, but respect from far as a consumer and share my views and suggestions about them.

So, I thought none better than a brand that I grew up with and fondly remembers – The Body Shop.

In my book: Building Brands with Soul: A CMO’s journey to humanizing growth and creating lasting impact, I talk about the 5 principles of what makes a “brand with soul” and I believe THE BODY SHOP ticks the box.

The pillars are:

1.????? A meaningful purpose that lasts the testament of time

2.????? A purpose that is built on a universal global and penetrating human truth

3.????? Keeps reinventing with time to stay relevant

4.????? A consistent visual identity

5.????? Is driven by internal brand passion and belief of the employees, communities

My first encounter with the Body Shop started when I was 16 years old as a teenage girl going into high school. It all started when the brand makes its entrance into the Singapore market. I was attracted to it as I love the “Anita Roddick’s” story and how the brand champion ethical responsible ways of doing business with no animal testing and most importantly, the quality products. My first bought product was the white musk eau de parfume / toilette. In fact, that was my first perfumery product that I came across as I enter my adolescent years of high school. The product kickstarted my entry into the world of Body Shop. Since, then I started adopting the different products e.g. Ginger Shampoo, Tea Tree Oil. I love the refillable bottles – which were pioneering in those days, when recycling and sustainability are not often mentioned, nor concept understood and often make it a ritual to bring back the bottles to the retail shops after each of my consumption. In addition, I love the affordable gift packs that are always available during Christmas that I can buy them as gifts for my friends due to their affordability and great packaging.? Well, I found out that these are the formula of how the founder – Anita, manage to take the brand to success in the early days – a combination of strong purpose, striving to innovate on the brand, products and the ‘cause’ marketing efforts. All of which were pioneering and had first mover advantage within the category. A combo of the ingredients of good business management.

Whilst this brand stayed in my repertoire for a good many years in my early teenage years to even when I first enter the working world, it slowly drops out of my purchase basket, despite still being a brand lover of this brand and watch fondly from the outside.

A couple of reasons driving this. The context of the competitive field and category has moved on aggressively with influx of not only western brands, but Korean and Japanese beauty products in many parts of Asia. The needs of personal care and beauty has also evolved drastically with the role of technology. My needs have also evolved through the different life stages.

REIMAGINING THE BRAND

I was glad that Body Shop recently was bought by the Aurea group who saved them from near liquidation and the new owners seems to be willing to invest to turn around this well-loved brand ( after a much published potential administrative phase ). ?A brand with soul in my opinion- but one which needs reinvention and reignition of its soul, and some reimagination.

As a brand lover of the BODY SHOP brand, I thought I share a few suggestions of opportunities where the brand be reinvented into the future.?? These are just some of my own personal thoughts.

Potential Areas of Reinvention

1.????? Re-ignite the ‘soul’ of the brand - A new Anita Roddick story with their 50th anniversary, answering a universal truth.

The body shop purpose is to ‘exist to fight for a fairer and more beautiful world’. Its ethos and its commitment to doing good for business and commitment to natural and sustainable products has been its USP.

Whilst these were pioneering when it first started, they are no longer differentiating especially in this time of competition. The beauty category has fast moved on fast and furious. The needs are getting sophisticated into different motivational emotional needs, with complex segments evolving and types of psychographic needs and segments. Competition is heating up with not only western brands, but Asian brands from Korea, Japan have evolved fast and furious.? Whilst the positioning of being a ‘green’ brand and one that is known to fight for a fairer and empowered world, clearly the brand needs to reignite its soul and bring back a more contemporary take of the ‘Anita Roddick’ story and purpose that helps connect with their future customer base. This year is the Body Shop’s 50th anniversary, I thought it will be apt to reposition its brand and retell their story in a contemporary way.

I guess the trick to this, in my POV, will be to go back to their customers base and aim to find a global universal human truth that help unlocks their positioning and purpose in a compelling way in a way that helps the females from all ages they serve to feel empowered – to “feel good, be good (authentic & real ) and do good” to fully empower their voice! My working hypothesis is that it has to start with a human tension that cuts across all age groups that starts with answering an innate inner motivation and needs that radiates externally to meet both their physical, emotional and even pyshcological needs.

?2.????? Recruiting a new group of consumers – the young generation of brand lovers

It is written in many documents that the target audience for the brand is females between 20- 55 years old. Beauty and personal care start young. Recruiting the consumers when they are young in their adolescent years is critical and will drive loyalty ( just like my own encounter with this brand) . With the lack of activation in the last few years post Loreal’s acquisition, I am sure the Body shop has not been able to recruit the younger generation. Targeting the group of younger gen Alpha? ( as young as 12 onwards) ?and genZ in my opinion should be one of its core marketing strategies to re-energize the brand, bring more vibrancy and widen its customer base. I also believe that the brand can be position for the female group from as young (12-13) as their teenage years to 55 given its wide appeal of consumer range.? However, the young consumers buy into brands especially differently, so an intentional strategy that gets the brand back into culture, connect emotional and a social media led digital and community strategy is required.

?3.????? Product Innovation to drive growth, with local relevancy

The body shop is known for its high-quality products with unique usp on sustainable, ethical production and natural ingredients. However, we have not seen much innovation in a category with high velocity of innovation. To succeed, the Body shop needs an intentional strategy of product innovation with regional tastes adaptation to bring back energy, excitement and drive growth and even relevancy. Product innovation should also be part and parcel of their repositioning strategy for growth.? I will also suggest moving beyond functional benefits but into emotional benefits, tying back to their USP of sustainability, natural and ecofriendly benefits to drive recruitment and growth. A relook at their range and even having regional local tastes adaptation, with cultural nuance taken into consideration is highly recommended eg. Local natural ingredients, allowing variance of different emotional benefits.

?4.????? Focus on new emerging markets e.g. Asia Pacific

Whilst the brand has global presence, it has huge opportunities in emerging market, especially in Asia Pacific where there is a huge young population and willingness to spend in this category eg. it has little presence in India and China.

However, to compete in this market, where it has not only global western presence, but it also has strong Asian brands – from Japanese and Korean heritage. A deep customer segmentation strategy, coupled with strong innovation pipeline and marketing muscles is required to succeed in this region, together with a regional supply chain business support. ?Building these capabilities with Asian talent is essential to win this war. Not an easy feat, but a critical geography to win, if the Body Shop wants to reignite its soul!

?5.????? Marketing – getting into the culture of beauty marketing – social digital, technology, omnichannel

The beauty industry category norms are fast driven by marketing tactics that lives within the social digital and omnichannel space. The successful players are those who really gets the ‘beauty’ culture, who connects with the GenZ and emerging GenA in the tik tok, instagam, social media space and utilize a culture driven. A coherent innovative and bold strategy that gets the brand 'back into the beauty culture' that connects with their future new and current users is essential – one that needs to leverage off their strong retail footprint but put them back into heart of the culture of beauty. Exactly how Anita Roddicks uses ‘cause marketing’ to gain traction in its early days. This will require investment in the marketing and brand which has not had much activation in the last few years except only relying on its retail footprint.

6.????? Expansion into ecommerce – a holistic omnichannel strategy

I believe expansion into ecommerce is essential to complement the Body Shop strong retail footprint, but it must be done in a way that has a holistic omnichannel strategy. It is critical not only that it is a white space. But because its target consumers are already shopping in the digital channels. It will also help with its operating cost. I believe a holistic omnichannel strategy defined by market where its strengths and weaknesses is critical as part of its growth strength.

?7.????? Harness its power of communities

One of the amazing strengths of the Body shopis its strength across its communities – or multiple stakeholders. This ranges from their ever-loyal employees base, the franchisees, the communities they serve and its many brand advocates/ loyalists. All these are the residual impact of the human-centric efforts led from its early days. One that has transcended across continents and not to be underestimated, but to be leveraged. I believe once its positioning and marketing plan has been landed, leveraging these communities intentionally as a key competitive advantage is critical. In addition, adding to this list, will be to recruit its brand loyalist and even ‘influencers’ to be part of their marketing engine will be key to unlock exponential growth.? As written in my book- multi- stakeholder approach has an exponential ‘rippling’ effect, if leveraged well.

In summary, the brand ticks many of the boxes as a brand with huge soul. It needs a coherent approach to reignite its soul. In my opinion, this will require a combination of repositioning (by reimagining the Anita R’s story), a well planned product innovation strategy aligned to the positioning, clever digitally led marketing efforts rooted into culture and expansion into new markets ( eg Asia ) and channels ( omni-channel), and a ruthless focus on listening to the customers. Reigniting these many ‘intangible’ assets of the brand will help propel its growth!

?(p.s. These are just my own thoughts and non-conclusive and based on what I have observed.)

#buildingbrandswithsoul #leadershipwithsoul

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Siew Ting Foo is a future — focused, human- centric transformation growth leader. She has delivered growth across diverse industries, through helping organizations re-imagining brands, businesses and organizations. Siew Ting is highly energetic, purpose-driven collaborator, who believes in harnessing people’s potential to build brands, business and people. She combines “art” and “science” in marketing and harness community to build powerful brands. She believes in the power of building business growth through building brands with #SOUL, with the customers voice at the core and through the powering of the people across corporation.

She has recently published her first book titled: “BUILDING BRANDS WITH SOUL: A CMO’s JOURNEY TO HUMANIZING GROWTH AND CREATING LASTING IMPACT”. It has been named as top new release by amazon in global marketing category. You can find out more about it on www.soulforprofit.org or purchased in Singapore Kinokuniya and Popular bookstores. Alternatively, it is available in amazon: ?https://a.co/d/1nMB4rw

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