Marketing Cosmeceuticals and Speaking the Natural Beauty Language

In the July 2007 survey, the same general pool of women ranked similar words. To show how certain words have increased in popularity, consider how the following terms were favored in the Age of Naturals survey published in January 2008 compared to July 2007:

• Hypoallergenic—64 percent in Age of Naturals vs. 58 percent in Survival of the Prettiest.

• Mineral—41 percent in this survey vs. 25 percent in Survival.

• Botanical—40 percent in this survey vs. 24 percent in Survival.

• Antioxidant—65 percent in this survey vs. 45 percent in Survival.

Testing not just the words, but also the phrases that appeal to both the natural beauty buying woman and those who usually buy traditionally made beauty brands, the survey took seven bits of descriptive language from well-known beauty product makers and asked respondents to rank their level of believability in the claim after reading it. Women were asked to rank each statement on a one to five scale, with one being the least believable and five being extremely believable. The results were bundled by claims that received combined percentages of “somewhat believable” (four on the scale) and “extremely believable” (five on the scale).

Below are samples of the most believed and least believed claims:

Results of the claims provided additional insight:

1.      The words women favored most were in fact those that they believed most readily in a claim;

2.      Women who normally buy natural/organic beauty products were more likely as a whole to believe each claim; however, both groups of women had parallel believability experiences regarding the claim samples.

3.      The claims they felt were most believable were those with a clear explanation of nature’s benefits to her skin using soothing, fresh and natural language. Claims using clinical terms and statistics left them cold. 

While women don’t necessarily want to read or hear the terms "dermatology" or "science" in their marketing, advertising or on a label, they would like to know there is legitimacy behind a product, preferably from environmentally friendly dermatologists or other medical doctors. Sixty eight percent believe this to be extremely or somewhat important. Interestingly, only about 60 percent care if the founder of the beauty company has been in the business for a long time. In addition, only half of all women surveyed care whether clinical trial data is available for them to review prior to ingesting a nutricosmetic product; 44 percent would like to see data from participant groups testing a supplement before taking it.

The bottom line is that the strength of medical credentials plus language evokes emotion combined with nature’s innate healing powers (without harmful chemicals) equals a very happy buyer.

Alisa Marie Beyer is CEO of The Benchmarking Company (TBC), a beauty research and brand strategy firm. For more details on The Age of Naturals report, visit www.BenchMarkingCo.com.