1.
We had identified a new product from The Body Shop, which is a new product range named Drops of Light that aims to brighten consumers’ skin’s appearance and even out the skin tone (The Body Shop 2019a). The product is introduced into the market in 2016, which is targeting large populations who desire lighter skin tone, because the brighter skin colour had become a trend to represent beauty and good health from the luminousness of skin (PR Newswire 2017). The introduction of this range of products was not inspired by new trends, because the assumptions of being in higher social class or being wealthier by having whiter skin had been long-lasted in the culture all around the world for centuries, especially Asians (Watson 2016). Therefore, the innovation uses natural ingredients such as Red Algae to improve the complexion of skin without irritating consumers’ skin with chemicals that may be harmful (Watson 2016).
To describe the diffusion process of the product range, we use the theory of product life cycle, which covers the stages that a product go through from Introduction stage to Growth stage to Maturity stage and proceed to the last stage of Decline Stage (Oliveira 2016, pp. 4548-4549). Since the product has been out there in the market since 2016, therefore the product had already passed through the Introduction stage where samplings and testers were frequently given to members of The Body Shop, so that more people would get to know about the new product range, but throughout the period of time, there were few imitations of products such as Laneige whitening serum and Kose whitening stick which functions were to brighten skin too (Safri & Bazin 2012, p. 143).
Now, Drops of Light are in the second phase of Product Life Cycle, which is Growth stage, and they are slowly stepping into the Maturity Stage soon. At Growth stage, Drops of Light is experiencing increased in adoption of the product, because people tend to view Body Shop’s Drops of Light as the pioneer in the market, which caused The Body Shop to be immune with the competitors’ efforts in diffusion process (Shankar, Carpenter & Krishnamurthi 1999, p. 269). Thus, The Body Shop had started to maintain their price without further promotion, as positive word-of-mouth are spread widely about its miraculous effect (The Body Shop 2019a, The Body Shop 2019b).
The main characteristic of the early adopters of the produce range is the high trust of the people, who are mostly the loyal members of The Body Shop, because they are willing to try out the new products after they got the samples from the store, even if there might be risks of irritating the skin or allergic reactions (Bauer n.d., Pike 2015). Moreover, the early adopters are people whose purchase intentions are driven by dream and hope, which they are willing to adopt the product to try to use it to improve own skin condition (Schirtzinger 2019). In another perspective, there are people who did not adopt it, because the late adopters do not see the potential of first-mover advantage in acquiring the product, which means that they do not care about the promotional efforts made by The Body Shop on selling product bulk with reduced price (Ozusaglam, Wong & Robin 2018, p. 1319). Next, it is found that late adopters are more risk adverse, which they are not willing to take risk to try new range of products, because they are afraid that breakouts or allergic reactions may occur, as their perceived risk is much higher than their perceived benefits (Ryu 2018, p. 546).
The feature of the product which makes it successful is the white product packaging which is simple and elegant, which helps to attract customers’ attentions when they arrive the store (The Body Shop 2019b). Moreover, the element of sustainability incorporated in The Body Shop’s strategies allow the production of Drops of Light with natural ingredients to minimize risks on consumers in terms of consumers’ health, beauty and also the wellbeing of the environment, thereby maximize the benefits of the products and encourage repeat purchases (Li, Li & Ye 2010, p. 1459-1461). Therefore, it is believed that the feature of the product does not stand alone, but it linked with the success of the company at the same time, which in this case, it is the sustainability and the attractive packaging of Drops of Light products.
2.
Assuming that we want to purchase a brand new luxury motor vehicle, thus we had made an evoked set of brands that only includes two models from two different brands, which are BMW 7-series and Audi A8. We need to consider several factors before we purchase the car, because as a group of wise consumers, we want to ensure that we fully utilize our resources such as time, money and effort on the right product (Hanaysha 2018, p. 7).
Firstly, we consider about the factor of perceived risk, which is the belief about the presence of possibility of uncertain and negative outcomes from the purchase of certain products or services (Gökcek, Çarikçioğlu & Yüksel 2019, p. 120). The negative outcomes that could arise in this case, is the safety of the car, because the reliability of the safety features of the car may endanger the life of driver and passengers in a traffic accident. According to Autoblog that compared both models, it is obvious that BMW 7-series have better safety features such as anti-whiplash head restraint that avoid whiplash injury from strong collision forces, which is the feature that Audi A8 don’t have (AutoBlog 2018; AutoBlog 2019).
Secondly, the media influence such as promotional messages, advertisements and even social medias campaign, are important in shaping consumers’ preferences towards one brand over another through the delivery of relevant information (Trivedi, Patel & Acharya 2018, p. 12). By reviewing the advertisements of BMW, it is shown that a mature man drives the BMW 7-series alone on an empty road with relaxed expressions, which triggers observational learning that the attractiveness of such relaxing and comfortable experience allow consumers to have the wants to imitate the behavior by owning the product, thereby attracting people to purchase the car (BMWBlog 2019; Chen, Su & Widjaja 2016, p. 61). Then, looking at Audi’s advertisement, which shows that a man met his future self when he boarded an Audi A8 driven by himself from the future, thus the future him gave him advice to stay hungry, which is encouraging him to purchase the more excellent brand of Audi in future (Audi 2016). Comparing both advertisements, we prefer Audi more, because the dramatic sense of it create higher positive customers’ impression on the brand.
Thirdly, we look at the factor of social and demographic characteristics, where our social networks are included in our consideration when we are deciding on which car to purchase, as our social circle as one of the social characteristics and the similar age of the social group as one of the demographic characteristics affect our preferences on specific brands (Qiu et al. 2018, pp. 3934-3935). By observing our social circle, it is found that more friends and relatives of ours prefer BMW more than Audi, because BMW engages with younger people through the more daring designs of the cars and the collaboration with Snapchat and Augmented Reality (AR) technology to improve customers’ perception on the brand as a fun and bold company (Long 2018).
In a nutshell, BMW 7-series had prevailed in terms of perceived risk, social characteristics, and demographic characteristics, thereby affecting our purchase decision to select BMW instead of Audi. It is also proven that there are many factors such as those stated above that may change customers’ perception on a brand or its products, which in the end affect the final purchasing decision.
Written by:
Melissa Lee Ka Mun (5619300)
Wong Zhao Li (5617649)
Simin Chen (5694450)
Lee Yi Sin (6316931)
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MBA 