The firm’s Brand Passion Report shares insights into the consumer social conversations of 7 global brands: Avon, Clinique, Dior, L’Oréal, Maybelline, Neutrogena, and Olay. By keying in on 5 particular attributes of skin care products, the data highlights what socially engaged consumers believe each of these brands does best.
Characteristics
The 5 aspects of skin care that matter most, judging by the findings from NetBase’s two-year study of global social media, are: great scent, natural looking, great moisturizer, value, and anti-aging.
The report sorts out which product attribute each brand is best known for and which resonate most with consumers, regardless of brand. NetBase’s proprietary tools make use of a metric called Net Sentiment that sizes up just how much consumers like or dislike a given brand or product.
Post worthy
“On average, Natural Looking emerges as the attribute with the highest amount of positive brand conversation at 91.1 [out of 100 possible Net Sentiment points],” reports NetBase. And among these top seven skin care brands, Neutrogena is best known for natural looking skin care, followed most closely by L’Oréal, and Avon.
Consumer terminology is interesting here too. Of course variations of “skin care,” with and without a space or hashtag, appear frequently. But social consumers use forms of the term “beauty care” often as well, and “face care” shows up a lot too. While simpler words like “lotion,” “moisturizer,” and “toner” are used less frequently.
Beneath the surface
Looking more closely at the findings for Olay, it’s clear the brand has a terrific number of loyal, social consumers chatting about its skin care products. More importantly, the NetBase data on Olay reveals a significant trend emerging for the skin care business: consumer interest in anti-aging is dwindling.
Olay is famously a “strong driver of conversation on…anti-aging,” observes NetBase. Nonetheless “There was one decrease attribute area [for the brand] in terms of Net Sentiment in the past year: Anti-aging dropped from 91 to 85.”
This reinforces the understanding that consumer thinking is shifting more towards wellness and flat-age living, and that younger women increasingly care for their skin with an eye toward preserving good looks rather than correcting damage later.
Beyond beauty
Evolving consumer views are reflected elsewhere in the NetBase Brand Passion Report. The firm’s findings show a shift to whole lifestyle thinking and that conversations about beauty align with tech and fitness brands Apple and Nike.
The survey ranks skin care and beauty brands according to social consumer posts. And, Nike appears at number 27 on the list, because, “whether within the context of feeling beautiful or as a complement to beauty items, [Nike] is seen as the perfect match in daily conversation,” explains NetBase.