Trust and targeted marketing will be key for beauty-based digital media
In January this year, Google announced that by 2022 third party cookies in their Chrome browser will be gradually phased out. This means that digital marketing as we know it today is set to change dramatically, and with this, it’s predicted that advertisers will increasingly move towards media sources that have particularly established trust with users.
The post-cookie era will see a massive blow dealt with DSP-run ads that target users through third party data. Thus, it’s thought that for gaining potential users, media sources that own first-party data will become more valuable.
Team Manager of Cyber Communications Inc.’s Media Division, Takaaki Funayama, thinks that “we’ll return to the previous direction where content-based media gains a larger presence.” In order to find users who can potentially become fans of their brand, companies are likely from now on to increase opportunities to approach users through digital media. As they do so, the mediums that provide the clearest image of users will be the ones they turn to, Funayama anticipates.
In this new era, instead of trying to reach a large volume of users by advertising on portal sites or curation media, companies will look at whether there’s trust between the media source and their users (or readers) — in other words, the quality of the media source will be a defining factor.
As an example of a “trustworthy media source” in Japan’s beauty field, Funayama mentions the social media-style cosmetics and makeup review searching app “LIPS ”. LIPS’s PV (page views) and UU (unique users) figures are made up overwhelmingly by those in their 20s and under. Cosmetics-loving users post photos and people who are interested in these users gather to the app, inducing communication. This makes for a highly passionate community — one of LIPS’s distinctive features.
@cosme, a platform similarly based on user reviews, has a stronger following with those in their 30s and 40s. @cosme works as a way for users to search for and read reviews before making a final decision on purchasing, and along the way they have branding that leads users in a natural way to tie-up articles and applications for samples.
Targeting users in their 40s and 50s, “Tsuyaplus ” deals especially in aging skincare and has a highly loyal userbase.
One reason for the rise of both LIPS and Tsuyaplus is that there hadn’t previously been any such blog sites that specifically targeted their respective generations. This shows, says Funayama, that beauty media can still target new demographics in terms of generation or stance.
Women’s beauty magazine-styled online media also has an established reputation thanks to the high quality of its content. More and more are producing tie-up ads of equal quality to those in paper magazines and using DMP (data management platforms) to extract attributes of users who visit their pages or using services such as Macromill to conduct brand lift surveys. They can then allow brands the option of outputting a report that shows how much these tie-up ads affect the behavior of users.
Among quality media sources, many take on ‘boosting’ measures (posting content on mediums other than their own, such as ad networks, social media, or web portals) that aim to increase PV. However, with ad planning suited specifically to individual projects, there are concerns that if they don’t reach users familiar with the medium, the original purpose of the tie-up ad becomes lost.
“The issue remains of despite trying to reach people with similar traits to fans of a particular medium, we reach irrelevant people and end up coming back to trying to make something with as strong a pull as possible”, says Funayama.
He believes that “from here on, mediums that share values with users and are trusted by them will be the ones that remain” and points out that currently non-beauty-related media sources and apps have come to be chosen frequently by brands as places for promoting their cosmetics.
One example of a unique matching is a tie-up between Nivea Kao and minne to monozukuri to , a “reading-based media” specializing in craftwork that’s run by Japan’s largest handmade goods market minne.
This tie-up featured a campaign called “Fortune Deco-Can” where entrants decorated the iconic blue Nivea Cream can and posted about it on social media. This took the form of a contest where various awards were given to users who’d decorated their Nivea can in their own way. Despite requiring entrants to buy a Nivea Cream, decorate it, and post photos of it, 419 works were received along with the story behind each. It was a campaign that matched Nivea Kao’s concept and its brand image.
What the presence of these media shows is the importance of having connections to their strongest fans. If each and every fan can be seen as a micro-influencer, the media can become a means for drawing in new fans. If companies ignore this and only look at the effect of tie-up ads in the PV and UU figures, they’re likely to lose sight of what’s essential.
For future brand promotions, what will be necessary is cooperating with media sources that are firmly trusted by their users and that have common values with the brand. There’ll be no correct answer or “safest option”. From now on, meticulous promotion planning for each brand and product will be a must.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Kikuko Yano
