Rimmel's Marketing Strategy: A Plan for New Facial Cleanser Launch

This report presents a comprehensive marketing strategy for Rimmel, focusing on the launch of a new facial cleanser. It begins with an environmental analysis, including a SWOT and PESTLE analysis, to assess the current market conditions and Rimmel's position within it. The report evaluates Rimmel's existing marketing strategies and competitive advantages, highlighting strengths in target audience identification and product distribution, while also noting weaknesses in product packaging. The proposed marketing plan outlines the product rationale and specifications for the facial cleanser, emphasizing its suitability for both men and women, sulphate-free composition, and hydrating properties. It details the segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategy, marketing objectives, and a recommended marketing mix, including considerations for influencer marketing. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to emerging trends, such as gender-neutral products, and innovation to maintain a competitive edge in the UK cosmetics market. Desklib offers a variety of solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY
Marketing Strategy
[Rimmel]
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Executive summary
The study conducts an environment analysis for Rimmel. It also evaluates the current marketing
strategy and the competitive advantage of Rimmel. The main purpose of this report is to design a
marketing plan for Rimmel to support the launch of a ‘facial cleanser’. In the marketing plan
segment, this report contains the product rationale and specification, STP, marketing goals and
objectives, and a marketing mix.

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Table of Contents
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Environment analysis...................................................................................................................3
3. Evaluation of current marketing strategy....................................................................................7
4. Analysis of the organizations' competitive advantage.................................................................9
Part 2..............................................................................................................................................10
5. Product rationale and specification............................................................................................10
6. Segmentation targeting & positioning (STP)............................................................................11
7. Marketing objectives and goals.................................................................................................13
8. Recommendations for a marketing mix to design the appropriate marketing strategies...........13
9. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................17

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Part 1
1. Introduction
Despite economic uncertainties, the UK personal and beauty care market continues to
hold a strong market position as it maintains another year of solid business growth in 2017
(Euromonitor.com 2018). Global players such as L’Oreal and Estee Lauder continues to
dominate the cosmetics industry. These global brands are increasingly growing with their
concerns for an improved consumer experience. As a result, these brands are trying to improve
both their online and in-store service quality. L’Oreal, for example, acquired ModiFace in the
earlier part of 2018 to enhance its online presence. The driving trends behind global brands
heading to online presence and the development of a range of new products are technology and
premiumisation; the influence of Millennials and social media; wellness and health; and
transparency and natural claims. However, the Brexit could have its impact on sales and slow
down the growth of few cosmetics categories like colour cosmetics (Euromonitor.com 2018).
Rimmel is being chosen for this report, which is headquartered at London, UK. It is now
owned by Coty, Inc. It prepares a variety of beauty care products like Mascara and Fresher Skin
Foundation (Rimmellondon.com 2018). Rimmel’s products hold good reputation and fan
following in the UK. The highest selling Rimmel’s products in recent years are eye make-up
products, lipsticks & lipglosss and nail care & nail varnish (Statista 2018).
The main purpose of this report is to evaluate the facial cosmetics industry in the United
Kingdom and the Rimmel’s current market strategy. It also analyses the Rimmel’s competitive
advantage in comparison to the industry’s leading brands.
2. Environment analysis

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SWOT analysis
Strengths  Ability to identify its target audience
 Range of beauty care products that are
a big attraction for girls
 Rimmel is very effective at
distribution of products
 Rimmel focuses on female beauty
products that are increasingly growing
in demands in the UK
 Rimmel’s products are available in
various parts of world
 It makes the high quality products
Weaknesses  Uncompetitive products’ packaging
 Unsuitable to people having kinds of
skin allergies
Opportunities  The booming beauty care industry in
the UK
 Driving trends such as growing
interest of Millennials in cosmetics
products, incrementing online
purchase of beauty care products,
premiumisation and technology etc.
Threats  Rising dominance from global leaders

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of cosmetics products such as L’Oreal
and Estee Lauder
 Political threats in the form of Brexit
as it can expectedly slow down the
growth of few cosmetics products like
colour cosmetics
Table 1: SWOT analysis of Rimmel
(Source: Twigg and Majima 2014)
Rimmel needs to work on products’ packaging as it is one of the factors that influence the
consumers’ perception. Considering that the gap between premium and mass products have
broadened with customers mostly liking the premium products, it is an urgency to focus on
packaging (Yeo, Mohamed and Muda 2016). Considering that global cosmetics brands have
dominated the UK cosmetics industry in recent years, it is important for Rimmel to work towards
improving its value chain operations to remain solid in market (Yeo, Mohamed and Muda 2016).
PESTLE analysis
Political  Taxation can either have a positive or
negative impact
 Political stability may get affected
from Brexit
 Minimum labour wages
Economic  Economic growth rate of the UK is

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slowing down
 Cosmetics industry is expected to
witness a slight growth
 Premium products are in demands
Social  Consumers expect a variety of
cosmetics products from their chosen
brand
 Rise in the consumption of organic
cosmetics
 Rising trends for online purchase
Technology  E-commerce market has generated
substantial sales in recent years. It is
expected to go much higher than this.
 An incrementing use of innovative
technologies to produce the eco-
friendly and environmentally-friendly
products
Environmental  Rising trends towards ‘greener
approach’ to support a reduced or no
harm to skin
 Rising concerns to avoid the usage of
artificial substances like toxins,
parabens and petrochemicals

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Legal  Labelling and branding are regulated
 The UK regulations determine the
safety standards of cosmetics items
Table 2: PESTLE analysis
(Source: Prakash and Sharma 2016)
Political scenario post Brexit can bring the uncertain outcomes for beauty and skin care
industry. Operational costs will be a key area to work considering that labour wages is
uncontrollable. A cost-effective and quality-oriented approach is mostly needed to avoid the
impact of economic instability. A focus is also needed to improve the employment rate to boost
and encourage the purchasing capacity of consumers. An effective existence in the online
shopping will hold the key considering that global competitors like L’Oreal has been extremely
effective with its online and in-store shopping. Rimmel needs to work towards ensuring an
adherence to regulations for labelling and branding and also improving its packaging quality.
The ‘greener approach’ is trending. It must be taken care with effective strategies.
3. Evaluation of current marketing strategy
Rimmel is an established brand name in the cosmetics industry in the United Kingdom.
Apart from operational excellence, it also has been very effective with its marketing strategies.
One of its strengths is to appropriately identify its target audience. It has usually divided its
customers into segments such as primary and secondary. Girls aged 16-24 have mostly been kept
under the primary groups whereas women from 25 to 34 in secondary groups. Nevertheless,
Rimmel’s products are extensively popular among girls. It shows Rimmel’s ability to effectively
identify the potential consumers (Rimmellondon.com 2018). ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’ can

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help to understand why it is important to identify the target audience. Maslow classifies
employee satisfaction broadly into five levels such as follows:
 Physiological needs
 Safety needs
 Social needs
 Esteem needs
 Self-actualisation
At the physiological level, stable employment and salary is the minimum requirement, which
employee needs to survive. The next level is related with physical and environmental issues such
as pension, benefits, fair work practices and safe work environment. The next level requires the
fulfillment of social needs like social acceptance, cooperative colleagues and friendship
workplace. At the fourth level, there is a need for the fulfillment of esteem needs like positive
self-image, respect and recognition issues like job titles, impressive job assignments and nice
work spaces. At the final or fifth level, ‘self-actualisation needs’ are required. These includes
like autonomy, status of subject matter expert on a job and challenging work (Lee and Hanna
2015).
The above section just shows the kinds of needs and wants, which employee need or
expect from its employer. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is valid in marketing as well. Marketers
believe that a fulfillment of wants and needs of consumers can be used to influence the selling.
An extensive research on segmentation, target market and positioning statement is always a part
of marketing campaigns. A several number of factors like demographics, geographic, social class
and others are followed during the market segmentation. These factors actually help to have a
specific brief of who the target customers are and prepare the marketing strategy accordingly

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(Bačík, Štefko and Gburová 2014). Moreover, it also shows the validation of Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs in marketing.
Online videos, sponsoring of events and large number of girls have always been a part of
Rimmel’s advertising campaigns. However, few of these marketing stunts can now be skipped to
adopt the ‘Influencer Marketing’. ‘Influencer marketing’ is an emerging marketing trend in
cosmetics industry where influential people such as celebrities are endorsed for advertisements
(Bokunewicz and Shulman 2017). The need to adopt the ‘Influencer Marketing’ can be
understood from the ‘Marketing Mix’ theory. The theory says that equal importance needs to be
given to each of its four elements such as price, place, product and promotion (Datta, Ailawadi
and van Heerde 2017). Considering promotion is an integral part of marketing mix theory, the
adoption to influencer marketing can be suggested to Rimmel.
4. Analysis of the organizations' competitive advantage
Rimmel’s competitive advantage can be analysed by using the ‘Competitive Advantage
Model’. According to the model, competitive advantage can be measured along two variables-
cost advantage and differentiation advantage. Cost advantage means offering products at the
market price; however, keeping the operational costs low to attain a higher profit margin.
Rimmel unlike its competitors in the UK like L’Oreal and Maybelline aims to offer affordable
products. However, it is not as good as L’Oreal and Maybelline in terms of offering quality
products. Rimmel mostly targets the middle-income section of society. Despite these facts,
Rimmel is one of the three top selling cosmetics brands in the UK (Rimmellondon.com 2018).
These facts suggest that Rimmel is effectively placed with its cost-advantage strategy; however,
it might not continue holding the similar reputation in long-term. This is due to the emerging
trends in the cosmetics industry like the ‘gender neutral beauty products’. Such products can

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effectively reduce the costs of manufacturing, operational time span and also the wastages. These
variables are required to offer quality products at the most competitive prices and to cut down on
carbon footprint impact of companies (Ramli 2015). Since ‘gender neutral products’ are unique
products, it is more feasible to companies already adhering to the differentiation strategy. Hence,
it is important for Rimmel to adapt to the differentiation strategy to sustain the already gained
reputation in the UK market.
Part 2
5. Product rationale and specification
Rationale
As earlier stated in the aforesaid section, there is a need to match up with emerging trends
in order to retain a strong market reputation. One of the emerging trends is the rising popularity
of ‘gender neutral products’ (Nählinder, Tillmar and Wigren 2015). The trend should attract
industry leaders towards it considering the booming cosmetics industry in the United Kingdom.
Industry leaders must eye on gaining the competitive advantage by producing a more diversified
products. This is where Rimmel lags behind to its competitors like L’Oreal and Maybelline.
L’Oreal, in particular, offers a diversified range of products at premium pricing. Notably,
customers respond to the differentiation strategy being adopted by L’Oréal (Asgari and Hosseini
2015). Rimmel probably has no other ways than to go with a new product development to remain
successful in long-term considering the rapidly emerging industry trends. The importance to
innovate and adapt to the differentiation strategy can be understood by seeing how other
competitors are extensively focused on doing innovation. L'Oreal, for example, feels that
innovation is for good times not when change becomes critical (Loreal.co.uk 2018). Therefore,

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emerging trends and Rimmel's competitors like L'Oreals' aggressiveness towards innovative
strategies collectively create the necessity for adapting to the differentiation strategy.
Specification
The new product will be a ‘Facial Cleanser’, which will be suitable for both men and
women. Daily facial cleanser is a face wash cream, which is suitable both for men and women.
The product is sulphate-free and contains a cleansing agent to help impurities extract out and
also rinse off. The presence of hyaluronic acid ensures that skin stays hydrated.
6. Segmentation targeting & positioning (STP)
Segmentation
A number of variables can be used for market segmentation. Those variables are as follows
(Gengler and Mulvey 2017):
 Demographics: Segmentation is done based on factors like age, gender, education,
income, ethnicity, marital status etc.
 Psychographics: It includes emotions and personality based on different behaviours like
attitudes, lifestyle, risk aversion, hobbies, leadership traits etc.
 Behavioural: It refers to the pattern of consumption, usage rates, benefits etc.
 Geographics: Different countries, area, region, population density, climate and other
factors are considered.
Segmentation for the new product ‘Facial Cleanser’ should be done based on demographics.
The product is chosen to suit the rising trend for gender-neutral products. Gender-neutral
products are one of the emerging trends, which are beneficial for both consumers and cosmetics