Brand positioning strategies of beauty therapy stores in South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACT The simple saying, „brands are made, not born‟ captures the essence of the study. Beauty therapy brands require informed positioning strategies due to the paradoxical nature of the industry, being either transformation of appearance (beauty) or transformation of the body and mind (therapy). Positioning is about creating a distinctive value proposition in the mind of the prospect. It follows, depending on the prospect‟s construal of beauty therapy, that a carefully crafted brand positioning strategy is required. The contextual playing field is the beauty therapy industry, for which there is a pronounced lack of empirical studies. The study sought to establish the brand positioning strategies associated with beauty therapy stores, from a customer perspective, within the South African context. This was done by customers evaluating the current relative positioning of franchise and non-franchise beauty stores accordingly to a theoretical brand positioning typology. The differences in perceived associations for the different organisational forms were thus also assessed. Perceptions of the different gender demographies were included, since the beauty industry in recent years is seeing an increase in male clientele. The study explored a quantitative research design using real-life beauty brands, and a multivariate descriptive statistical method, correspondence analysis, to analyse the data. The results, represented as a two-dimensional spatial variation, have shown the greatest positioning differentiators to be Top of range and Location, and the least to be Well-branded. The positioning orientations also illustrated a distinctive mass market, niche market segregation with respect to the brand positioning typologies in relation to the selected beauty brands. Mass market offerings, representing lower order needs, are characterised by common franchise brands and private unbranded salons. The mass market typology of positioning strategies includes, Location, Reliability, Social interaction and Value for money. The niche market positioning was characterised by Selectivity, Attractiveness and Top of range. The positioning strategy, Service quality, was uniquely associated only with private salons, independent of market. Interestingly, the findings did not indicate a preferential organisational form, that is, franchise or private, for a specific market. The study finds relevance in the crafting of positioning strategies for the various organisational forms of beauty therapy stores that would be tailored for different markets and genders.