Essay on Marketing

There are several parameters which have invested for the growth of retails stores such as quality of the products, accessibility, varieties of products, price of products etc but out of all the parameters the major parameter is branding and marketing campaigns.

Purpose of this report is to analyze the brand effectiveness of a retail firm known as “Body Shop”. This is a retail giant who specializes in the field of cosmetics as well as products for good looks. This is not the only brand in this sector but there are several other brands which are highly popular like L’Oreal and Grainer. These are the companies which serve the same market segment and thus are chief competitors in the brand.      

The retail store “Body Shop” was first opened as an outlet in the year of 1976 at Brighton. The company Body Shop is into selling of body as well as cosmetic products. From the beginning of the business operations, this company was determined to produce and sell only those products which are made of ethical functions and processes. The products sold have high ethical and moral values attached because of environmental friendly processes and policies followed by the company Body Shop. Founder of this company, Anita Roddick, quickly understood that the customers are willing to pay for the products which are made through environmental friendly procedures and these types of products have high customer loyalty.

Body Shop considering the values of the founder started to research and develops only those products which not only help in looking or feeling good but also help customers in doing well. This values and belief of the company Body Shop is communicated through their tag line which is “Feel Good, Look Good, Do Good”. In fact every marketing campaign addresses the unique selling proposition of this brand as a highly responsible brand.

Mission statement of this company is “to the pursuit of social and environmental change”. Body Shop always followed the principle of environmental sustainability and social issues follow. This brand identity has to be maintained for long time but as the time changes, the brand positioning should also change. The brand image of the Body Shop was fixed as a socially and environmentally responsible company but in 1990’s the environment protection and several other social factors became part of political movement. Thus this image of Body Shop never remained as key differentiating factor. Soon the brand lost its aura among the target group as every other company as well as government institution started to flout environment, social and ethical behavior. Thus there was a need for the company to re-juvenile its brand image by changing its marketing campaign as well as branding style.