Innovation challenge - Making skin products for baby boomers

If you are going to make it in the cosmetic business you have to know your consumer. And if you are like most cosmetic companies, your consumer is a woman. Woman buy far and away more cosmetics than men.

So here is an interesting survey about what women want from their cosmetic and skin care companies. Some useful findings.

1. Women in their 50’s use different products than they did in their 30’s and 40’s. Brand loyalty is completely up for grabs.

Which means that this group of consumers would make an excellent target for a new cosmetic brand.

2. Women in this age group want products that “protect skin from damage” and “make skin look healthy”.

This means that you have to create a product that has some obvious benefit. Just creating a product with a neat brand name and pretty packaging will not be enough.

3. Women believe skin changes more at age 50 than at any other time.

Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter but what is important is that when formulating for this group, you test your products on this group of women.

4. This consumer group is more convinced by scientific data of efficacy & they want online consumer information.

This is great news for new brands because you can compete online against the biggest corporations out there. The Internet is still competitive.

The big guys still have a big share of this market with leading brands including Olay, Clinique, Estee Lauder, Lancome, Avon and L’Oreal Paris. But small brands have a chance in this market. You just need to figure out how to make yourself stand out.