The brand The Aesop site states: “Our objective has always been to formulate skin, hair and body care products of the finest quality; we investigate widely to source plant-based and laboratory-made ingredients, and use only those with a proven record of safety and efficacy. In each of our unique stores, informed consultants are pleased to introduce the Aesop range and to guide your selections.” Their core principles are; Integrity, Respect & Intelligence.
The Australian luxury skin, body and hair care brand, Aesop, was founded in 1987 in Melbourne. It has grown to be a popular and well respected brand known for it’s high quality products. According to (En.wikipedia.org, 2019) as of 2019, the brand had over 320 points of sale across 25 countries.
Marketing Mix: Price Aesop products are available both in-store and online. They are more expensive than most skincare brands. They have a premium price to support premium products with high quality, consumers who regularly shop at Aesop will trust and understand than consumers have to pay a higher price for a high quality product.
Marketing Mix: Place An interesting thing you’d notice about walking into an Aesop store in any country is how it tries to merge local culture and history with its brand values. No two Aesop stores are of the same design, each store is unique to one another and have been deliberately designed to be different by architects who work closely with the Aesop founder who believes that there's a direct correlation between interesting, captivating store spaces and customer traffic within a store. Although all Aesop stores look different to one another they all have the same house scent which is ‘Jean’. As well as their own products many Aesop stores sell coffee, flowers, oil burners and one store even has it’s own library where book events are held.
Marketing Mix: Product The ingredients of the products are all made of plants sourced widely and made in the companies labs. The design of the packaging for the botanical-based products is simplistic, brown bottles with cream labels. Aesop utilises recycled elements in their packaging. The brand is very environmentally friendly and have reusable cotton bags for products.
Marketing Mix: Person Aesop's main target customers are intelligent, independent, educated, travelled and well-read. Aesop manager of the Greater China region Mr Yang said customers 'are more sophisticated in their consumer behaviour. They appreciate products from every detail. From product trial, packaging, store image to every detail in communication inside stores all need to be consistent to meet their criteria. Aesop's communication covers the five senses - taste, touch, sight, smell and sound. Aesop tries the best in its products and communication to exceed consumers' expectations. It is the best way to capture them,'
Marketing Mix: Promotion The brand mainly sells its products by attracting consumers to its unique and creative stores, through word of mouth (recommendations through personal experience), and also 'word of mouse' (through the internet) rather than through mass marketing and advertising. Although Aesop do not really advertise they have an online presence. They still stick to their colour palette with the images they upload to their Instagram and Twitter accounts. The content of the accounts consist of still life images of the products, illustrations and images of the stores. The brand do not have any celebrity endorsements, the focus is on the product itself, images very rarely have an actual person in it and if they do it is a close up of someone’s skin.
Who is the Customer? Unlike most skincare brands Aesop cross market to both genders. The simplicity of the look of the brand itself and its packaging means that it is not specifically targeting one gender.
Aesop products are organic and the brand is environmentally friendly. This attracts consumers who are interested in chemical-free and natural-based products. Aesop’s products are not tested on animals and are 100 per cent vegan meaning that the brand is appealing to the vegan market.
The age of the target market ranges between 25-44. The pricing of Aesop’s products is relatively high making the brand more of a lifestyle choice. Once people are in their mid-20s they begin to care more about skincare and are willing to pay more for a higher quality product which actually works. These customers are passionate in skin caring with interests in green organic products.
Aesop offer tea to their customers in their very clean, minimalistic stores and play soft calming music. Employees make customers feel welcome and make you feel no pressure to purchase anything. They really focus on the customers experience and let you test out products and offer as much help and information as they can.
Aesop’s best selling product is the Parsley Seed Anti-Oxidant Serum which is suited to most skin types, particularly combination and oily.
With the rise of millennials and young adults concerning themselves with good health and an active lifestyle Aesop is popular with consumers in their mid-20s upwards who are part of the ACORN group: Category 2, Group D, Type 14, Townhouse cosmopolitans. These consumers live in the city.
The Aesop store located in Bath, England has its own library located upstairs. It is a designated area for consumers to read within the retail space.
Aesop have a unique focus on literature, architecture, history and design. They publish articles and interviews onto their site to stimulate their consumers thoughts. Aesop believe that those who read the content and visit the stores understand and ‘get it’. They believe the strength of their brand is in that cultural exchange. (Santos, 2020)
Consumer characteristics: • Cares about own health and well-being. • Big on culture, arts, history, architecture etc... • Enjoys reading and poetry. • Enjoys visiting galleries and museums • Environmentally friendly • Socially & aesthetically aware • Well educated • Successful • Spiritual
Consumers may also shop
Core customers would be Millennial Introverts - studies have shown that millennials are willing to pay more for ethical goods as they care about sustainability and the environment.
The older end of the age range of the target market would fall into the ACORN Category 1,Group A, Type 3 (Large house luxury). They are well educated and live very comfortably. They like magazines, reading and are interested in culture, antiques. They live a healthy active lifestyle, may play golf! Enjoy art. They are keen on travelling and immersing in different cultures. They can afford to do this.
Competitors & SWOT Analysis
Strengths: • Their stores are their marketing tool. Uniquely designed stores based on their location, gives the customer an experience like no other.
• Competitors such as Keihl's and L'Occitane have already gained a large portion of market share in the natural skincare market.
• Aesop have loyal customer base and there is strong word of mouth recommending their products. They don’t advertise but they have voluntary support from bloggers online.
• Pricing is high. An in-store facial £90 for an hour which is more than the cost of some of the products themselves, this isn’t affordable for many.
• Natural, organic, vegan friendly, plant based products with environmentally friendly packaging.
Threats: • Other competitors becoming involved in the social media influx and Aesop being left behind due to their lack of brand awareness and social media presence. This includes campaigns etc...
Opportunities: • Advertise more, educate people on the importance of skin care. • Digital marketing to create brand awareness through social media platforms, website, e commerce, videos and events.
• Other beauty brands offering natural products at cheaper prices for example -The Bodyshop.
Competitors: Competitors Kiehl’s and L’Occitane both advertise their products through print, video and online whereas Aesop do not. Aesop upload photos onto their instagram however did not upload anything festive like the other brands.
Weaknesses: • No advertising, they don’t create brand awareness through use of beauty influencers which could be beneficial.
Price Comparison
Aesop’s Competitors: The diagram below shows Aesop’s positioning compared to its competitors such as Kiehl’s, L’Occitane and so on...
Niche Market
In order to compare the pricing of each brand I searched for the same product on L’Occitane, Kiehl’s and Aesop’s website. L’Occitane priced their hair conditioner at £31, Kiehl’s was £32 and Aesop’s was £33. All similar pricing compared to Body Shop’s conditioner which is only £7.50, each of the bottles were 500ml too.
Lower Price
Higher Price
Mass Market
Event Concept
Aesop customers tend to be intellectuals who are very spiritual and care about their own health and mental wellness. Aesop have a section on their website about tarot readings and other spiritual topics. The brand are into architecture and have their own library in one of their stores. Common interests of their customers tend to be reading, writing, poetry, architecture and spiritual mindfulness.
To incorporate all of these themes I felt like the idea of a retreat; where consumers can get away from their hectic lives, put their phones down and engage in activities such as meditation, yoga, walking, writing and poetry workshops and listen to guest speakers on their favourite topics, would be really appealing to Aesop’s core customers.
From our research we found the brands website states: ‘Aesop offers skin, hair and body care formulations created with meticulous attention to detail, and with efficacy and sensory pleasure in mind.’ Looking into sensory pleasure we found that senses create the most memorable times. We thought we should look into the idea of considering the 5 senses and think of how to tie them into the experience. The 5 senses were smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing. We looked into activities that used the senses. As a group we decided on the following: Hearing: Meditation area. Sight: Art show / educational talks Smell: aromas throughout each room Taste: organic food Touch: treatments massages, facials, men's grooming. As we know that Aesop’s customers tend to be environmentally-aware it would be fitting for the consumers to stay eco-lodges during their stay at the retreat. Inside the eco-lodges would be a welcome package with a timetable of what is going on throughout the retreat. The interior of the lodge would fit to Aesop’s style and colour palette.
The activities above would be available to the customer to join in with at the retreat. It is a ticketed one-off event open exclusively to Aesop customers.
Photoshoot Preparation
Location
Photographer
We wanted an naturistic, outdoor location with wooden huts to portray that guests will stay over in eco-lodges during the weekend retreat.
Our photographer, Mia Hodgson, was from Newcastle and had previously graduated from UCLAN in photography. @miahodgsonphoto
Poplar Grove Farm was a fitting location as it is described to be situated in an idyllic rural location on the edge of the forest of Bowland with lots of unspoiled countryside and uncompromising views of the scenic Bowland fells.
She predominantly shoots on location rather than in a studio so this was good that she had experience with this type of shoot.
Props As we decided to wanted to have specific shots to portray what would be going on at the event we had to source props for the photoshoot such as: • Food, cutlery, plates & wooden boards • Plants • Interior decor (bedding, throws, etc...) • Basket with towels & welcome package • Books • Exterior decor (lanterns etc...) • Aesop products - we created our own labels to recreate the bottles
Type of shots We wanted to take photos to highlight what was going on at the retreat experience, we thought it was important to capture: • Models arriving at the retreat • A model reading a book • Still life images of food • Images of the models at a table with food • Images of a model meditating / yoga • Images of models on a walk
Styling We decided to stick to natural, earthy colours for the clothing. We wanted to incorporate different textures and fabrics too. Model Scouting For our shoot we decided we wanted a male and a female. Using both shows how the brand is used by both genders. We had a male model confirmed however he dropped out two days prior to the shoot. We then had to scout another model however he was inexperienced so we knew we had to plan to give a lot of direction. For our female model we used Holly as she is confident in front of the camera and we felt she fit the look well.
The Fabulist is Aesop’s literary blog, with essays and stories from some of the top writers from around the globe.
Development of Promotional Pieces My initial idea for a promotional piece was a leaflet which would be on display in-store and given to customers in their bag when they make a purchase. I designed a leaflet however felt it did not fit the brand so I recreated it to look more on brand.
As a promotional piece I thought it would be good to have a section on The Fabulist blog which advertises the retreat as people who are interested in the literary blog would most likely be intrigued by a retreat which has authors as guest speakers. I created a mock up of what the feature on the fabulist would look like using Adobe illustrator.
Another issue with this leaflet design is that the image I had chosen to use you could see the bench. From feedback from our presentation when we shown our images we were told as a group that the bench didn’t quite fit in with the brand as it looked like a bench from a pub. However this was one of my favourite images from the shoot, to work around this I decided to use the same image in another promotional piece however on Photoshop I blended the image into the background so that the bench was no longer visible.
In order to get more of an idea on what Aesop’s tone of voice was as a brand, I looked onto the @AesopAssistance Twitter page to see how they responded to customers. They were formal and used adjectives like ‘warmly’ and ‘kindly’ and always ended tweets with ‘Kind Regards’. I then decided to encorporate this tone of voice into my promotional pieces.
As established through my research into Aesop’s customers many customers are into literature and reading. I thought I could create a bookmark as a souvenir which consumers would receive in a ‘goodie bag’ as a welcome gift as they arrive to the retreat. I felt having a engraved wooden bookmark would fit the brand and the retreat idea as it is simple, crisp and naturistic.
Another piece of promotion would be a Thank You card which consumers would receive after attending the retreat to try and encourage them to come again.