Cameron Cler

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Celebrities have always been pillars of beauty in society and often the topic of debate for what values are being conveyed by unrealistic beauty standards. Campaigns for #realmodels rather than role models and the social media trend of ‘expectation vs reality’ bring to light the dangers of advertising espousing an ideal look. Different cultures have different contexts of beauty and advertising shifts to address those contexts and highlight the aspirations of consumers in their products and ads.

In the ‘Fair & Lovely vs Dark & Beautiful’ context the lightening/whitening products address the commercial ideal of a lighter skinned person. This ideal is based on celebrity actors and models even though it’s not representative of the societal make up. We start to see a homogeneous ideal that doesn’t foster inclusion for a large population.

Are you under the influence?

Next time you buy a product or use a service, ask yourself how you heard about it, why you want it, and how did you select it over a competitor. In the age of data-driven decisions, companies have gotten better than ever at understanding consumer preferences.

Using data, companies are able to nudge you towards personalized recommendations, complementary products, and deeper engagement.

-Spotify recommends a new ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist

-Amazon pairs products

-Email tactics remind you of your products in cart

Targeting specific personas and users and inspiring a cult following with very focused products is possible with deep understanding of consumer behavior. Like Black & Decker spun out their Dewalt tools for the tradesman category, they understood the need to serve a user group with specific needs and behaviors rather than lumping them in with others.

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Do not attempt at home. Black & Decker is an established brand in consumer and professional power tools. With little differentiation in their consumer and tradesmen segments, the brand name has been tarnished with tradesmen.

Makita has been outselling B&D due to brand image. Makita is known to make high-quality tools and has wide distribution in every professional channel, including membership clubs.

While B&D’s professional segment includes both tradesmen and industrial, the tradesen market share is half than of industrial. Industrials are being purchasd through warehouse channels and enterprise accounts. Tradesmen are purchasing through home centers and are tainted by consumer brand image of B&D.

B&D will need to relinquish the B&D brand for tradesmen while backing the brand with service, warranty and support. By creating a new brand entry and identity, B&D can target the tradesmen persona with a high-quality, differentiated, brand-specific, trusted offering.