Digital writing skills, Assignment 1

How to define your target audience?

The company's(Lush) current target audience is 18-45 year-old women (Casey et al., 2014). The cosmetic company also offers product lines for men and children but the main audience remains women. On my blog, I will try to focus on improving the branding of the company I have chosen and its communication to a wider audience of consumers in a way that it will fit the company's ethical values. I will research about the company and present different techniques that the company applies in order to gain popularity among consumers. I will try to find different places of improvement in the company's communications.  

Organisation’s current online activity? 

Lush's current activity on digital media reconstructs of their own social media platforms such as youtube, Facebook and Instagram account. On these different platforms Lush single-handedly advertises their new products, campaigns and projects. The company also has an inclusive website/store that appears in many different countries and in different languages. Lush doesn't use any paid media outside of it's own social media platforms. Lush doesn't advertise online or in printed media or television. This means that anyone who visits the store or the online store has to have already heard about the company one way or another.

How’s the competition behaving online? 

There is no visible evidence of competition online because Lush as a brand is so unique that it doesn't have many competitors yet. Smaller organisations surely sell organic cosmetics but they have not been able to reach the number of loyal customers as Lush has. 

What trends may influence your online relations? 

Lush wants to present itself as an ethical brand and not using paid advertising itself is already a statement against the system of sellers and buyers. Lush as a company stands for sharing, happiness and positive things and thats why the company avoids advertising in an ethically questionable ways. 

Most favourite subjects? (clicks, shares, retweets)

The favourite subjects online regarding Lush are product reviews on youtube. Some of the product review videos of popular Youtubers reach thousands of views and consumers of the products re-tweet news about new products coming up on twitter or on their Instagram accounts. 

Company: Lush

Goal of the company: Manufacturing and retailing vegetarian, ethically produced, hand made and environmentally sustainable cosmetics. 

Message of the company: Buying cosmetics can and should be environmentally sustainable.  

Target audience of Lush: The main target audience is women aged 18-45, but the target audience is expanding because interest towards cosmetics among men seems to be rising.

What/who is LUSH?
LUSH is a company specialised on producing and selling luxury self care and bath products. The ideology behind all the practices of the company is that are that all their products are ethically produced with no animal testing or cheap labor in developing countries. Lush's products are also handmade and the majority of the ingredients used in them are fresh and natural. 

The ethical values are deeply rooted in every practice of the company. Values are reflected through different ethical campaigns that the company supports and organises. Not only does the company sell ethical cosmetics, but it also it sees its place in protecting humanitarian rights and the planet.

So far, Lush doesn't have a long list of competitors because it's ethical values are very high and very few companies so far have been able to keep up with them.
One of the biggest competitors of Lush however, is The Body Shop. The Body shop is also specialised in luxury bath products but doesn't have as high ethical practices as Lush does. Also, after The Body Shop was sold to L'oreal in 2006, it lost a lot of its loyal customers because it was seen as if the Body shop failed to fulfil its promises as a company that doesn't test their products on animals.

Surely Lush should be expecting new arising competitors because ethical values such as protecting the environment and animal and human rights are becoming more and more popular in the society. This arising demand of being able to do something good by buying means that more and more companies have to readjust or reinvent their practices towards more sustainable production. 

Improve - what would I do differently?
Lush pushes it values very strongly to the consumers. As soon as the consumer opens their website, its filled with charity projects and animal right campaigns. When you visit the stores, the sales representatives always introduces you to a product that supports a campaign or an NGO and asks you to donate for some good cause. Maybe Lush could make their communication more universal and interesting for regular consumers who just want to buy a luxurious bath products and don't necessarily care about having a positive impact through a product purchase.

This aggressive way of marketing through a strong ideology attracts a certain audience but might push away another. This might also be what lush wants, but then again, isn't the main goal of any company (including Lush) to make as much profit as possible?  


Paid marketing
The company does not use paid marketing and doesn't advertise in any media such as TV, radio, magazines or newspapers. Almost all of the company's advertising is based on word-of-mouth advertising and success is secured so far due to a strong target-group of like-minded people who believe in the the values that Lush stands for. I agree that this is a good strategy since so far the company is very successful, with more than 800 shops in 51 countries. However, Lush, representing good values in all of its practices would not lose its values if it spent some money on paid marketing. This way, Lush could reach out to a whole new target audience. 

Earned marketing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EDnv15VQ5E

As already mentioned, Lush doesn't use paid marketing but the brand is widely popular among its customers who like to share their personal experiences with their favourite products. Some of the consumers that have a lot of influence on a big audience, such as Youtubers, act as gatekeepers and do free reviews on company's products. This is great when the reviews are positive but it's not as good if the reviews are bad. However, even bad product reviews can be beneficial for Lush since hearing feedback, wether is positive or negative, can be used to improve and develop more user friendly products. 

Owned marketing

http://www.lushusa.com/ 

The Website is designed to be visually very attractive to a consumer but also in a way that the ethical values are strongly presented. You have to go through a maze of campaigns and advertisement to get to the actual products and at the end of your online shopping when purchasing, they ask you for a small donation. This can be unpleasant for certain audience that came just to buy a product, not sign up for a charity project. The campaign segment could be more clearly separated in the website lay-out. 

The way that Lush markets through their youtube channel and website and face-to-face at the store, seems exclusive. Almost like they have chosen only one certain type of consumer that their trying to sell to. An ethically aware, upper-middle class, 18-25 year old woman with extra money to spend on spa-like products.
Lush could benefit massively from opening their view regarding their target audience, which it has tried so far by expanding their product lines to men and kids products.


Sources:https://storify.com/kwilkison/lush-target-market
https://storify.com/kwilkison/lush-communication-mix
https://www.lush.com/
https://uk.lush.com/article-type/news
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/apr/13/retail2
https://prezi.com/xocm8fc6xjqg/copy-of-lush-fresh-handmade-cosmetics/
https://www.audiense.com/battle-the-brands-on-social-media-lush-body-shop/