Brand | The Body Shop – Evolution Of A Brand That Could Be A Force For Good

The Body Shop International Limited, trading in the name of “The Body Shop,” is a British brand of cosmetics, skincare and perfume products. Founded by Anita Roddick, 45 years back in 1976, the company has had a roller coaster ride. Being a gigantic subsidiary of the Brazilian cosmetics group Natura & Co., it is currently operating successfully in over 3,000 locations, with an impressive number of more than 10,000 workers and net revenue of over 800 million pounds sterling.

Read the Annual Report of The Body Shop here.

Anita Roddick says, “My passionate belief is that business can be fun, it can be conducted with love and a powerful force for good.“ Her firm ideation commits the brand to the world. It aims to be an ethical and sustainable global business by enriching the devastated areas of extraordinary natural value, promising to utilize 100% natural ingredients for preserving the natural habitat and by rejecting the clichéd idea of beauty.

Origins of the brand

The Body Shop is an offspring of two extraordinary brands of the same circuit- beauty and body care. Initially, it thrived under the name of L’Oreal for around 11 years, i.e., 2006 – 2017. However, the deal to sell the brand to a Brazilian company, Natura, a subsidiary of Natura and Co. Group, was sanctioned and sealed in September 2017 for 840 million pounds sterling.

A company selling over a ravishing range of a thousand products had commenced its journey with a small number of 25 products. Facing the hardships to mold the company into a leading global business, its founder had to rely on the local press instead.

Brand Strategy adopted by The Body Shop

The Body Shop gained remarkable attention and recognition as a brand when it metamorphosed itself into an initiator of human rights and fair trade.

While the most renowned brands of those times invested money into models and endorsements to advertise their technologically valued products and emphasized how the female shoppers can attain beauty and youth by consuming their products, it entered into the limelight. It stole the show by guaranteeing their waste-free and natural ingredients.

It showcases five of its core brand values-

Stand against animal testing – The products of the company stand for the fact that they are all vegetarian, pose no threat to animals, and have also not been experimented on animals. They claim to be safe for the environment and that they possess no harm to animals.

Community Fair Trade – The Community Fair Trade is the company’s personal verified program to assist the disparaged communities to grow and thrive under them to deaden poverty, promote better livelihood and provide an additional source of income. The fair trade saw exponential growth over the years and presently works with over thirty suppliers in more than twenty nations. It has sold over three million kilograms of ingredients till now in collaboration with its over 2500 producers and farmers.

Defend human rights – The brand has consistently shown continued efforts for the last 40 years to prevent scapegoating and assist the victims of domestic violence and child abuse to foster and stimulate fundamental human rights such as freedom of speech, life, and property security, etc. The suppliers associated with the brand also labor to expand ethical trade practices to respect workers’ rights.

Promote self- esteem – The company propagates its activities to ensure gender equality, dispirit discrimination, and let people accept themselves as they are. It puts off the notion of a person being beautiful solely by looks and declares a person as attractive for who they are and what they do. It also lets its consumers know that the brand does not beautify the physique of its models by the usage of unnatural means and neither promotes body-shaming for any reason. It also points out the fact that it uses slight graphic modifications to tap the minds of customers by improving the effectiveness of visuals.

Protect the planet – The Body Shop has been a trailblazer of green and sustainable business ever since and still looks for ways to expand the market in the most non- toxic ways. It commits to the environment by its “Enrich Not Exploit” program to nourish the environment’s strengths and work to abolish its weaknesses. It also works for the burgeoning of the renewable resources of energy.

It was 2010 when its performance graph saw a drastic decline, and hence, it rebranded the company by launching a movement in 2012 known as “Beauty with Heart.” Several customers eventually supported it and, in the course of a few years, restored its initial pride and basis of its brand loyalty.

Adoption of Marketing Strategy

The Body Shop is known to have its customers’ trust and loyalty rooted firmly on the grounds of its excellent and environment-friendly products. The products accommodate an underlying message of safeguarding nature and its heritage along with the needs and requisites of its suppliers, customers, franchisees, shareholders, and employees.

They pay back each pound the customer spends on their products by the impressive quality of their products and highlight it by showing a square meter of faux- a garden on the checkpoint so that it helps the customers realize the contribution they make.

However, it has a “non- advertising” strategy, which initially lowered brand awareness and visibility. It also encourages Corporate Social Responsibility and is the front runner as a green company.

Its campaign, “Enrich Not Exploit,” is much favored by the people, which helps to invite more customers to the brand. The very fact that it has excellent terms on which the entire brand functions makes it a center of everyone’s attention in the beauty and care market.

In addition to all this, the products are sold through “The Body Shop At Home,” which is a Multi-Level Marketing network established in 1994 and is currently operational only in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning Analysis

Segmentation- Under demographic segmentation, the company develops products for both the genders being men and women, but mainly targets women between the age range of 15- 60 years. It further develops products for women from a wide range of occupations such as teens, working women, and homemakers. The products are usually purchased by middle-high to high-income earners.

Targeting- The products are mainly aimed at working women who want to boost their confidence as a by-product of the usage of the products. There are products for homemakers too. The brand flaunts its wide range of products according to the needs of the skin, the hair, and the body as a whole.

Positioning- It owns a very standardized and idiosyncratic positioning strategy that encourages health and sustainability over charm and beautification. This strategy fits in perfect synchronization with its nuclear facilities for health and well-being and solid stand against animal testing.

Also Read: Oriflame – Selling Cosmetics Through Networking Marketing

Corporate Social Responsibility

The CSR activities of The Body Shop is fragmented into three sections under the name “Enrich Not Exploit,” dealing with enriching the people, products, and planet.

Under the initiative, “Enriching the people”, the company declared an increase in the Community Trade Program suppliers to 40, provided work or sustainable projects related to their supply chain to 40,000 people from economically weaker sections of the society, to make “Enrich Not Exploit” the most significant campaign by drawing over eight million people into it and to invest over two lakhs fifty thousand hours to augment the biodiversity of local communities.

Enriching the product claims to preserve ten thousand hectares of forest and ensure that the ingredients are hundred percent organic and sustainable, diminish the environmental footprint of its products over the years, publicize the use of biodegradable, green and natural ingredients and to develop an innovation pipeline to deliver organic ingredients from biodiversity hotspots and enrich those areas.

Enriching the planet announces to construct bio- bridges and regenerate 75 million square meters of habitat to help communities survive, to reduce the environmental footprint through refurbishing and redesigning, to create three innovative sustainable packagings, to ensure that over 70% of its product packaging does not consume fossil fuels, to transform 100% power supply into carbon- balanced and renewable energy and to reduce energy consumption by 10% in all its stores.

Conclusion

The Body Shop has grown tremendously over the years. It has launched several stores in different parts of the world that are running successfully and are turning into enormous demands by the customers. Led by a charismatic leader, the brand is continuously thriving and developing by studying the consumers’ behaviors and needs with proper and legal testing on voluntary staff. It has a vast scope beyond recognition and will surely be one of the leading brands of cosmetics for the coming generations.

To read more content like this, Subscribe to our Newsletter