The moisturizing segment was the first one to appear in the beginning of the 20th century. Thanks to this long historical background, this market brought about brands with high brand equity such as NIVEA or Mixa. We will use the brand Mixa to have a general overview of this segment before going into deep regarding consumer insights.
[Mixa]
Mixa products are split in 3 categories: Regular moisturizers, Organic moisturizers & darker skin moisturizers. Similar to NIVEA's procedure, Mixa uses a colour code in order to differentiate the skin type the product targets (pink, blue or green product packaging).
By the end of 2010, Mixa innovated and launched the first organic-labelled moisturizers in the retail industry. They were followed by Garnier (Bio-Active range), NIVEA (Pure & Natural range) and Diadermine (Bio Expertise range). L'Oreal remains the only major brand resisting to the green movement. Basically this range is the same as the regular moisturizer range but it's made using organic ingredients. We will go back to this green movement of cosmetic consumers later.
(TV Add, France 2008)
[Mixa]
Mixa is a brand of the LaSCAD group which belongs to the L'Oreal group. The brand's positioning is based on the tagline "The expert of dry skin", consequently its range contains products for all types of skin: dry skin, senstitive skin, very sensitive skin and reactive skin. The brand is #2 of the face moisturizing market with 14% of market sharein value in 2010 (behind NIVEA and its 48,9% of value ms)
As you may see this brand values are close to the ones of NIVEA. Consequently these two brands are often mixed up in the consumer's mind.
By the end of 2010, Mixa innovated and launched the first organic-labelled moisturizers in the retail industry. They were followed by Garnier (Bio-Active range), NIVEA (Pure & Natural range) and Diadermine (Bio Expertise range). L'Oreal remains the only major brand resisting to the green movement. Basically this range is the same as the regular moisturizer range but it's made using organic ingredients. We will go back to this green movement of cosmetic consumers later.
Last but not least Mixa is well known for its darker-skin oriented products. As until now any brand didn't answer to this special need, Mixa is clearly a leader in this particular niche market. With its egery Sonia Rolland, the brand stands for ethnical cosmetics. Women in this market have the highest amount of annual expenditures: they spend 240€/year on the face care market, 5 times the average of the market. In general LaSCAD brands (Mixa, F.Provost, Gemey etc..) are the only brand in the beauty market to target darker skin types.
Sources:
[Advertising strategy]
Even though its brand values are close to NIVEA, there's a slight difference regarding the communication strategy. In general NIVEA has 2 or more non-famous models on its adverts, MIXA always uses two specific models: Estelle Lefebure & Sonia Rolland.
Estelle Lefebure is a muse since 1996: a long-lasting relationship
- A natural woman who looks human
- A woman who looks nice and sympathetic
==> Simple scenes and straight-to-the-point speech
- Everyday life situation: a woman in front of her mirror in her bathroom
- Intimate family moments: a woman playing with her child
- Use of real customers statements: “My skin is dry and tight, I feel uncomfortable…”
(20 Minutes, French Newspaper, 2011)
Sonia Rolland, new muse since 2009: A medium to reach women of darker skin
[NIVEA, Market leader for a century]
Since NIVEA products emerged in the market a century ago, the story was always about moisturizing.
Today NIVEA's market share is still about one third of this market.
The moisturizer market is divided into two types of segment. For a long time basic low-price moisturizers represented the large majority of the market. However many industrials were worried about private labels that could have easily taken a large market share if consumer involvment and differentiation didn't increase. Consequently NIVEA decided about 10 years ago to launch "elaborated" moisturizers. This segment contains more specialist products, which are higher priced and with a more sophisticated packaging.
Elaborated moisturizers are represented by product ranges such as Aqua-Sensation, Natural Beauty or Pure & Natural.
But this segmentation about elaborated/basic moisturizers is more an industrial point of view. When women are purchasing moisturizers, they are looking for products that fit their skin.
Consequently NIVEA divides all its basic moisturizers into 3 categories: one for dry & sensitive skin (pink label), one for normal skin types (blue label) and the last one for oily skin types (green label).
This use of colours is the same for other product categories such as face wash in order to offer a complete product range of face care for certain skin types. This strategy aims to make the consumers be aware of the special value the products offer and consequently increase their perceived value of the product to fight private labels.
[L'OREAL]
The clear leader in this market segment is NIVEA with a market share of 34,8% in value. Mixa (14,8%), Garnier (14,2%) and L’Oréal (7,5%) follow with a huge gap to the leader. This segment is clearly not a priority of L’Oréal offering two products in this area:
- A gel-crème moisturizer for women over 20: “Hydrafresh”. This is a daily gel-crème moisturizer, enriched with vitamins (C, E and B5) and essential minerals (Magnesium and Calcium). For a better nutrition of the skin it delivers freshness and moisture to leave the skin hydrated all day long, thus increasing auto-protection. This product is not available in France.
- Another product for all ages is the multi-protection moisturizer range “Triple active”. This product range combines long-lasting hydration (Improvement of skin’s ability to retain water), protection (Reinforcement of auto-protection against free radicals and sun radiation) and increases radiation by the use of Ceramide and Vitamin B5. The skin benefits of hydration throughout the day and is less fragile towards external aggressors.
