Getting Emotional Over Beauty

Women have a reputation as the more “emotional" of the two sexes; but whether or not that’s a generalization/stereotype doesn’t matter. What matters is women are emotional, comparatively or not; and women make decisions based off of those emotions.

What’s interesting is the recent attention that’s being paid to this reputation, as this year seems to be all about the connection between emotions and beauty—from The Beauty Company releasing its 2012 Pink Report® Let’s Get Emotional: Using “Emotional Science" to Segment the U.S. Beauty Consumer to presentations at HBA Global that also highlighted and emphasized the emotional connection between brand and buyer.

TBC’s 2012 PinkReport uses emotional-science to define five beauty consumer archetypes in order to explore “the conscious and unconscious chemistry women have with beauty, and reveals how this emotional segmentation can advance your beauty brand. Individual behavior means collective segment power. Understand how to engage her and how her decision-making process works, discover what role beauty plays in her life, steer clear of her beauty blind spots and so much more."

Donna Sturgess, president of Buyology Inc., also talked about conscious versus non-conscious buying during HBA Global, stating only 15 percent of decision making is done consciously.

But conscious or not, each woman (or buyer) differs from the next when it comes to beauty buys. “Extensive research showed that no matter the beauty related topic, there are several distinct spectrums within which beauty buyers tend to differ, and these five spectrums are an intricate part of how women connect with beauty, and how and why they form (or don’t form) attachments to their beauty brands," The Beauty Company said. “Simply put, where women fall within these spectrums dictates how they interact in the beauty category overall."

The Company designed its study around these Emotional Beauty Spectrums. Through factor and cluster analysis, the company was able to identify the key beauty consumer profiles.

Interesting research is going on in this field. I’d love to hear your thoughts or personal testimonies about how connecting emotionally with your consumer has affected your company.