An anti-ageing promise, tested by women and doctors
The brief
A European luxury skin care brand had developed an anti-ageing product built on a new insight into how skin ages: lifting and restoring the volume the face loses over time. Before launch in China it needed two answers: how to position the product, and what its main promise should be.
Why it was hard
European and American brands still lead China’s premium skin care market, but it grows more crowded every year. The women who buy at this level are sophisticated and well informed, and have heard every anti-ageing claim before. A promise has to survive weeks of real use, not just a first impression, and dermatologists increasingly shape what these women believe about their skin.
How we did it
Sixteen women used the product at home for a week while taking part in an online bulletin board. Each day they recorded how their skin felt, uploaded photos and reacted to positioning concepts as their experience built up, which caught the moments when first enthusiasm turned to doubt, or doubt to conviction. Our team translated the posts every day, so the client could follow the women’s experience as it happened.
We then interviewed dermatologists in depth by phone: who their patients are, how they advise them, how ideal facial beauty changes with age, what women need from anti-ageing care, and whether the product’s promised benefits are something their patients actually ask for. Putting the two views side by side showed where women’s own beliefs about ageing matched expert advice and where they parted company.
What the client got
A clear view of the product’s strengths and weaknesses against competitors, what its benefits meant to women of different ages, regions and occupations, and a direction for its positioning and main promise.
What it shows
Premium skin care is one of our most frequent categories. We know how to pair real consumer use with professional opinion to test a claim properly.
Services: online research · in-depth interviews · translation
