Marketing Analysis of The Body Shop: Needs, Wants, Demands, Marketing Orientation, Marketing Environment and Marketing Mix

Introduction
The Body Shop is a British skin care, cosmetic and perfume company founded in the year 1976
by Dame Anita Roddick having its headquarters situated in London, United Kingdom. It started
its business as a small outfit in Brighton selling just 25 products. Currently, it offers a wide range
of 1,000 products which are sold in more than 3,000 stores in 66 countries. The Body Shop
employs over 22,000 employees who make their best possible efforts for the purpose of
achieving the objectives of the organization. The company was owned by L’Oreal between 2006
and 2017. However, it was further sold by L’Oreal to Nutura in the year 2017 (The Body Shop,
2018).
The company is committed towards the achievement of its mission i.e. to enrich their products,
planet and people. They adopt fair strategies while working with the suppliers and farmers and
take every possible step for the purpose of helping communities thrive and protecting the animals
by being against animal testing.
As a marketing executive of The Body Shop’s marketing team, this report has been prepared
with the basic purpose of addressing the importance of needs, wants and demands of the
customers, marketing orientation, analyzing the marketing environment of the company along
with its marketing mix.
Needs, Wants and Demands
a) For the success of a business, it is important to understand the needs, wants and demands of
the customers so that right products and services can be offered to them. Therefore, it is
important for The Body Shop to conduct proper analysis of the needs, wants and demands as
its customers belong to diverse category of middle to upper class. Their needs and demands
are different and is required to be identified for the purpose of catering them properly.
Nowadays, almost every customer of beauty care products believe in choosing the retailers
who take environmental and social issues seriously. The customers are increasingly getting
concerned regarding the importance of sustainability (Ghazali, Soon, Mutum & Nguyen,
2017). The Body Shop have been able to maintain its sales as it takes a number of steps for
addressing social and environmental issues such as it protects the planet by producing

products with the help of natural ingredients. Moreover, it supports community trade and
activated self- esteem, acts against animal testing and defends human rights. In this way, it is
able to meet the demands of the customers. Moreover, the customers also want a brand which
has a strong brand image associated with the beauty products (Armstrong, Adam, Denize &
Kotler, 2014).
b) Marketing orientation/ concept can be defined as the philosophy of the company that focuses
on discovering and meeting of the desires and needs of the customers with the help of its
product mix. A number of marketing policies have been adopted by The Body Shop for the
purpose of promoting its brand name in the consumer market. Societal marketing concept has
been adopted by it in which it emphasizes that plant- based materials have been used in the
products. It advertises its products main through the use of social media platform and fashion
magazines (Grant, 2016). Its products are also marketed on its own website. The brand has
also established tie- ups with a number of online shopping portals for selling its products
online. The latest incentives and offering of the brand are updated from time to time on the
website of the company. Social and environmental campaigns are also used by The Body
Shop for the promotion of its brand in the consumer market. It targets those customers who
appreciate the use of eco- friendly products even after its high prices (Homburg, Jozić &
Kuehnl, 2017).
Marketing Environment
a) The marketing environment can be defined as the combination of the force and factors (both
internal and external) which affects the ability of a company of establishing a relationship
and serving its customers. Marketing environment analysis is of great significance to the
organizations. Environment has an enormous impact on the organizations and there is a need
to understand the events and trends of the market for satisfying the needs of the customers.
The functioning of all departments is affected by the changes in environment. Therefore, it is
necessary to screen the environment on regular basis for overcoming the challenges arising
from changes in environment (Pudaruth, Juwaheer & Seewoo, 2015).

b) The social and environmental factors can have a great impact on the business operations of
The Body Shop. The most important social factor in case of The Body Shop is the brand
loyalty of the customers. The products offered by The Body Shop are all relevant to the
beauty industry. Customers try a number of products till the time they find the product that is
best suitable for them. After that they become brand loyalists. There are a number of
companies which constantly fight for getting the attention of the customers (Lim, Chae &
Jeon, 2014). They make changes in the packaging of the products, sizes of containers, etc. to
win the battle. Furthermore, the battle expands to the internet and forums. Bad reviews can
had a bad impact on the sales of the products of The Body Shop.
The economic factor having effect on the business operations of The Body Shop is the
recession- resistant industry. The industry was capable of surviving the great recession of
2008 but it ultimately resulted in making the customers more conscious regarding prices.
Beauty products have become a necessity for the consumers these days due to which the
industry is capable of generating higher revenues (Anderson, Grose, Pahl, Thompson &
Wyles, 2016).
c) There is a great relevance of The Body Shop in conducting a competitor analysis. The
competitor analysis helps The Body Shop to frame its strategies in accordance with the
strategies adopted by the competitors such as Lush. Other competitors such as Weleda,
L’Occitane and Yves Rocher are also focusing on environmental protection and natural
ingredients. Competitor analysis will also assist in analyzing that brand like Maybelline New
York, who are not the direct competitors, it also a threat as it has also positioned itself for the
protection if the environment and against animal testing (Jin, Ji & Gu, 2016). Also, the
analysis will help in concluding that different consumers are being targeted by the
competitors by making the use of low price policy (SI & Praveena, 2015).
d) Competitor Analysis-
Basis Lush Weleda L’Occitane
Number of Stores Lush has 105 stores in
UK and greater than
Weleda has 253 stores L’Occitane has 74