Marketing Communication Strategies For The Body Shop: Segmentation, Competitor Analysis, Brand Positioning Essay.

1. Which elements of the MC mix do you plan to use to distribute this message to the target market? Explain and justify which would be best to achieve your marcom objectives for your target market using facts and research.

2. Explain the 6 types of creative message/ communication strategies and which you are using. Justify your decisions using facts & research where possible.

3. Choose at least one marcom theory on persuasion to illustrate how your message should influence your target market. Include a mock-up of your idea.

4. Provide details of the tactics (Include an action plan with timeline and costing). This will include vehicle choice, etc. Include a media schedule separately or as part of your action plan. Justify choices and decisions. Credible sources could include media pricing.

Situational Analysis

The renowned British beauty and cosmetics brand, The Body Shop International Limited was established in 1976 by the human rights activist and environmental campaigner, Dame Anita Roddick, (Thebodyshop.com 2018). The mentioned organization possess a current range of more than 1000 products which is sold over 3,049 owned as well as franchised stores internationally over 66 countries (Ampofo 2016). The headquarter of the mentioned organization is located at East Croyodon as well as Littlehampton in West Sussex. The Body Shop Company is currently owned by Natura, a popular Brazilian Cosmetics company. Previously, The Body shop was purchased by L’Oreal and was owned by the same between the year 2006 to 2017.

Brand Body Shop is a British cosmetics, perfume and skin care organization that was incepted in the year 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick. The mentioned organization possess a current range of more than 1000 products which is sold over 3,049 owned as well as franchised stores internationally over 66 countries (Ampofo 2016). Headquarter of the mentioned organization is located at East Croyodon as well as Littlehampton in West Sussex. The Body Shop Company is currently owned by Natura, a popular Brazilian Cosmetics company. Previously, The Body shop was purchased by L’Oreal and was owned by the same between the year 2006 to 2017. In the year 2017, the management of L’Oreal decided to sale Body shop to Natura for 880 million Pound (BARBER 2014). The product line of the Body Shop includes both cosmetics as well as skin care products. The cosmetics range of the mentioned organization includes foundation, BB Creams, Blushes, mascara, lip products that includes lipsticks, lip gloss and lip balm, eye products like liquid eyeliners and kajals. The market reorganization of the company is high and it is present at almost all the developed as well as developing countries of the world. The total number of countries where the Body shop is present is 66 currently.

In order to identify the target market of the body shop company, the segmentation strategy has been implemented. By using the mentioned strategy, the company is able to know about the specific needs of the each market segment (Cross et al. 2014). This made them analyze whether the resources of the company is capable of meeting the requirements of the target consumers. In the following paragraphs, geographical segmentation, demographic segmentation and Psychographic segmentation is discussed.

The products of The Body Shop are recognized to be a part of luxury brand. Therefore, the demography to which The Body Shop primarily caters comprise of upper class women from cities or suburbs.

Being positioned in the luxury category, the brand is quite culture conscious when it comes to distribution. As a skincare product it also puts emphasis on the weather of the particular country where its products are distributed. For example, while distributing in countries like Malaysia, which has a tropical climate with Islam as its dominant religion, The Body Shop sells only those products that do not have alcohol in its composition.

The Body Shop has structured its market distribution based on several fundamental characteristics such as gender, age, per capita income, occupation, religion, family life cycle, education, nationality, family size and race. 

• Age: The Body Shop delivers its wide range of hair care and skin care products and perfumes to the age bracket of 20 years to 55 years old.
• Gender: The target customers of The Body Shop primarily consist of upper-class women from high-income group background. However, these consist of facial hair and body care products along with perfumes. Body Shop has recently taken to producing a range of products for men as well.
• Income, Occupation, and Education: Occupation-wise, The Body Shop’s target customers comprise of students, housewives and working adults, especially women. Working women have to follow a stringent daily routine and a major number of them do not get much time for skincare. Therefore, the brand has designed its products specially keeping their demanding lifestyle in mind. Also, being in the luxury category it offers to only those who are willing to afford its unique results at a handsome price range.

Target Market

This particular segmentation is based on the target consumer’s personality, life-style and most importantly, social class. Different people may have different taste or interest in different products even though they are in the same demographic or geographic class.

  Women, being the major consumers, their lifestyle, personality as well as social class of women highly affects the mentioned segmentation (Grayson and Hodges 2017). The desire of looking pretty is the chief reason behind buying the beauty products. Mover the trends of using organic products like tea tree, seaweed and others also put impact on the business of the company.

The competitor analysis is done in order to understand the similarities, dissimilarity and brand equity of its competitors. This in turn helps the organization to understand access its competitor and gain competitive advantage from the same (Hopkins 2016). The major competitors of the Body Shop organization include L’Oreal Paris, Estee Lauder and Clinique. A better understanding of the competitors will provide with the help of the competitor table which is present in the appendix.

Brand Domain	The target market of the company includes beauty a well as health conscious women who belong to the middle class as well as the upper middle class of the society.
Brand Heritage	The body shop is the first organization in the beauty and skin care industry that had campaigned for animal test (Hasan 2018). The company use organic ingredients as well as product in order to provide the consumer the benefit of nature in beauty products
Brand Values	· Defending Human Rights · Supporting the community fir trade · Protesting against animal testing · Protecting the planet · Active self-esteem (Epstein 2018)
Brand Assets *( the criteria that helps consumers to decide why to buy from body shop)	The Body Shop Company is a subject of public interest. Natural Ingredients and free from animal testing. By the year 2008, the Brand ensured that all its products are packaged in 100% PCR bottles. The Body Shop has designed a trendy store by the name ‘Shop me’ which displays its products in front of back-lit hemp fabric. The Target consumers, especially the members or subscribers of their newsletters and e-brochures, are always well-informed about the new launches, attractive seasonal discounts, winter treats and more offers that they could either avail from Social Media like Facebook or mobile coupons. The mentioned company also offers an active self- esteem workshop that helps the company to obtain the goodwill of the consumers (Hasan 2018).
Brand Personality	The business is ethical and is known to possess ample social responsibility.
Brand Reflection	The mentioned organization is highly committed towards its bra value. The base of loyal consumers as well as brand equity o the organization is strong. The organization takes environmental issues seriously and as a result of this gains goodwill of the consumers.

The strategies of marketing communication are aimed at enhancing customer base by communicating about the product knowledge to the target customers. The segmentation of market, which forms an important determinant of marketing communication strategies, is done on the basis of the target consumer’s gender, age, personality, lifestyle, income, religion and education. The target customers were mainly upper-class women from suburban area and cities. However, the brand has now targeted men as well, from high income category, and is designing products to cater to their needs. Culture and weather are important because the brand produces skincare products which are ideally different to suit individuals from different climate zones (Bendell 2017). 

The mentioned organization is highly committed towards its brand value. The base of loyal consumers as well as brand equity o the organization is strong. The headquarter of the mentioned organization is located at East Croyodon as well as Littlehampton in West Sussex. The Body Shop Company is currently owned by Natura, a popular Brazilian Cosmetics company. Previously, The Body shop was purchased by L’Oreal and was owned by the same between the year 2006 to 2017. In the year 2017, the management of L’Oreal decided to sale Body shop to Natura for 880 million Pound (BARBER 2014). The product line of the Body Shop includes both cosmetics as well as skin care products. The cosmetics range of f the mentioned organization includes foundation, BB Creams, Blushes, mascara, lip products that includes lipsticks, lip gloss and lip balm, eye products like liquid eyeliners and kajals. The market reorganization of the company is high and it is present at almost all the developed as well as developing countries of the world. The total number of countries where the Body shop is present is 66 currently.

The organization takes environmental issues seriously and as a result of this gains goodwill of the consumers. In order to identify the target market of the body shop company, the segmentation strategy has been implemented. The target market of the company includes beauty a well as health conscious women who belong to the middle class as well as the upper middle class of the society. By using the mentioned strategy, the company is able to know about the specific needs of the each market segment (Cross et al. 2014). This made them analyze whether the resources of the company is capable of meeting the requirements of the target consumers. In the following paragraphs, geographical segmentation, demographic segmentation and Psychographic segmentation is discussed. Being the major co summers, the lifestyle, personality as well as social class of women highly affects the mentioned segmentation (Grayson and Hodges 2017). The desire of looking pretty is the chief reason behind buying the beauty products. Mover the trends of using organic products like tea tree, seaweed and others also put impact on the business of the company.

References

Ampofo, B.A., 2016. STAYING AT THE TOP; BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. International Journal of Management and Scientific Research, 1(1), pp.1-14.

Bendell, J., 2017. Terms for endearment: Business, NGOs and sustainable development. Routledge.

Butler, F., 2014. Valuing unpaid labour in community Fair Trade products: a Nicaraguan case study from The Body Shop International. Gender & Development, 22(3), pp.533-547.

Chesters, A. (2018). A brief history of The Body Shop. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2011/nov/21/brief-history-of-body-shop [Accessed 29 Sep. 2018].

Cross, D., Kanellis, B., Rega, J. and Smith, M., Strategic Analysis Report.

Epstein, M.J., 2018. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. Routledge.

Global Cosmetics News. (2018). THE BODY SHOP - Company Profile - Global Cosmetics News. [online] Available at: https://globalcosmeticsnews.com/the-body-shop-company-profile/ [Accessed 29 Sep. 2018].

Grayson, D. and Hodges, A., 2017. Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make corporate social responsibility work for your business. Routledge.

Hasan, R.A., 2018. CONSUMERISM IN COSMETICS INDUSTRY: THE CASE STUDY OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PRACTICES OF THE BODY SHOP IN PAKISTAN. PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 3(3).

Hopkins, M., 2016. The planetary bargain: corporate social responsibility comes of age. Springer.

Isaak, R., 2016. The making of the ecopreneur. In Making Ecopreneurs (pp. 63-78). Routledge.

Thebodyshop.com. (2018). About Us | The Body Shop. [online] Available at: https://www.thebodyshop.com/en-gb/about-us [Accessed 29 Sep. 2018].

Young, A., 2014. Brand media strategy: Integrated communications planning in the digital era. Springer.