How Wellness and Technology are Changing the Beauty Game

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How legacy brands respond to evolving technologies and products will determine which thrive, survive or fail.

Tech Impacts

According to a recent Diagonal Reports analysis notes that "the challenge is that millions of consumers globally are unsentimental about many elements of the legacy beauty market [including] the brands, the technologies, the retailers, and the advertising."

The report notes that consumers' relationship to beauty brands has evolved in response to online, mobile and social information and retail platforms.

"The online is now the first source [consumers] consult for brand intelligence," Diagonal notes. "It is a retail proxy."

This proxy directs purchases and offers suggestions for alternative products and brands. The depth of information is what attracts this growing audience. It also provides peer-to-peer feedback on products, creating another level of relevance.

The Wellness Angle

There are ways to respond to these trends, according to the analysis.

"Scientific skincare is an example of how different developments from 'outside the legacy beauty box' have converged to create 'new beauty,'" notes the Diagonal report. "Scientific products and treatments are marketed as medical (rather than as cosmetic). They benefit not only from the credibility of the 'white coat' (science), but also of alternative (natural) medical traditions from around the world."

There is a growing sense that "wellness delivers beauty," according to the report. In the beauty industry, wellness has manifested as a heightened awareness of ingredients and their impacts, both positive and negative, particularly for synthetic materials.

Devices

The at-home beauty device market has heated up in recent years. Technological advancements have allowed consumers to gain high-quality benefits in the home, boosted by increasing affordability.

Diagonal concludes that brands that successfully respond to these non-traditional market forces are the ones that will survive the changing beauty dynamic.

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