Developing a new skincare product for ethnic-minority women

This global cosmetics brand wanted to garner evidence about the skincare concerns and unmet needs of women from ethnic minority backgrounds in order to scope the potential for developing a new luxury skincare product for these customers.

Our Solution

The team devised a comprehensive programme of work which included:

• Ethnographic observations in stores: to map out the offer from the client’s brand and key competitors and to measure the amount of time ethnic minority women spend browsing for each key brand
• Post-purchase interviews with ethnic minority women to find out what they bought, how much they spent, whether they found what they were looking for, their views on the service they received, etc
• An online research community with a sample of the brand’s sales representatives who are themselves from ethnic minority backgrounds to draw on their extensive experience, greater sensitivity to and contact with ethnic-minority shoppers
• An online research community with ethnic minority women to understand their skincare concerns and needs, product usage, spend on cosmetics, brand perceptions, etc.

The online qualitative research completed on Further’s platform, combined a range of methods, including surveys to get top-level information about usage and attitudes; blogs and group discussions to map out experiences and needs; picture books to capture photos of ethnic-minority women’s beauty bags and self-selected ‘top ten’ beauty products; projective techniques to delve into brand perceptions; MarkUp to gather reactions to advertising and packaging, among others.

The Results

Further made it possible to engage with ethnic minority staff and consumers across a wide geography and in a multifaceted, cost-effective, speedy and agile way. The findings identified a clear gap in the brand’s product range and suggested the development of a serum designed to address the most common skincare concerns of ethnic minority women. The online qualitative research also identified the key messages to support the marketing and advertising campaign.