Mumbai: Mintel has launched Asia Pacific: 2021 Beauty and Personal Care Landscape. Uncovering consumer behavior across Asia Pacific’s beauty and personal care industry, this collection of analyst-driven insights highlights how Mintel’s trend predictions have played out in the region’s beauty marketplace.
Sharon Kwek, Director of Consulting, Beauty & Personal Care, South APAC, Mintel, said “Beauty already sells on an emotional level and has had a great track record of creating confidence, imaging, and aspiration among their consumer bases. To mitigate the impact of COVID-19, and beyond the dramatic turn towards digital commerce, you will find that emotional selling in this age is a far more complex expression of consumer needs.
The customer journey is no longer linear, and with touchpoints both in the physical and digital spaces sometimes occurring concurrently, consumers have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it experience with brand discovery. In our annual Asia Pacific Beauty and Personal Landscape, we’ve focused on the evolution of consumer trends and market opportunities for brands.”
Key findings from Mintel’s APAC Beauty and Personal Care Landscape 2021 include:
- Beauty consumers are seeking emotional meaning
Sharon said “Consumer expectations have risen; they are seeking attractiveness brought about by features such as appearance, packaging, and interesting textures. Mintel has observed that these are now playing a strong role in people’s purchase decisions, a product or brand’s viral factor, or word-of-mouth awareness and the willingness to trade-up. For example, the feel-good moments of the not-so-distant past could also bring a positive impact, as 47% of Japanese consumers enjoy things that remind them of their past.
For brands, function and efficacy remain the core of new product development and are central to how consumers make their purchases. Rising in importance, though, is a new angle to leverage fun, eye-catching appearance, and diversified usage experience. Sensory payoffs are helping brands stand out amongst the fierce competition and appeal to younger generations.”
- Create positive associations with consumers
“Sunscreen has a strong historical association with outdoor activities and environments, as well as its reputation for preventing sunburn, but this only covers a small part of what the sun care category can offer today. According to Mintel GNPD, UV protection claims accounted for a consistent 8% of beauty and personal care launches in APAC over the last three years. In contrast, during the same period, according to Mintel GNPD brightening and anti-aging claims accounted for 47% and 23% of total launches in sun care, respectively. While Mintel data shows only 29% of Chinese sun care users cite brand as a consideration factor when buying sunscreen.
Mintel encourages sun care brands to go further and explore purpose-driven sun care – that is, sun care for wellbeing, that balances the need for vitamin D, plays well with color cosmetics, and doesn’t damage the environment.”, Sharon concluded.
