Brand loyalty running very high among skin care product users

Drug Store News, Dec 11, 1989

Brand loyalty running very high among skin care product users

Eighty-six percent of all people who buy a face, hand or body lotion report they have a favorite brand they normally purchase.

As one would expect, the loyalty factor is much higher for skin care product users than it is for fashion categories like lipsticks or nail polish.

Women are much more prudent when they buy a skin care product. They want to feel confident that the brand will perform as promised, and will not irritate or redden their skin.

Among those polled who bought facial skin care products, 75 percent regularly buy a major brand. Only 11 percent shifted brands.

With the loyalty factor so high, only 6 percent of skin care buyers can be tempted by price reductions.

Brand shifters were most likely to try a brand because it was new: 10 percent vs. 1 percent of the entire sample.

Not too many skin care buyers seem to notice any major differences in product benefits. Skin care buyers seem to take it for granted that all brands in the category deliver the benefits promised, but feel their favorite brand simply does it better than the rest.

The best-advertised skin care brand to date is Oil of Olay, and 12 percent of all skin care users picked Olay as their favorite facial skin care product. Runners-up Noxzema, Ponds and Neutrogena are all strongly supported by advertising and promotional campaigns.

Of all the facial skin care brands, Olay has done the best job of positioning itself as effective, but also as easy and pleasant to use. It also has habit on its side, since many women grew up with Olay on their mother's vanities.

Seventy-two percent of all hand and body lotion users said they chose a brand because they trusted it, habit or good past experiences; 14 percent mentioned price as a factor. Twenty-four percent of all brand shifters said low or sale prices did influence them; this was also the case with six out of 10 consumers who said they had no brand preferences.

Vaseline Intensive Care is the category leader in advertising expenditures, and it has also been a staple on the market for many years.

Lubriderm has been able to carve a niche for itself through clever positioning. It is the leading therapeutic skin care brand; women may pay a little more for it, but they feel they are getting additional moisturizing benefits. Lubriderm is thought of by women as just as effective doing double duty as a facial moisturizer.