Local brands have already become top of mind in Indonesian, replacing the position of Korean skincare brands.
Skincare is Everyone’s Essentials
Currently, skincare has become a basic need for Indonesian people. People have started paying attention to the health of their skin by using several beauty products that can address their skin concerns and support their image and style. Skincare is not a taboo subject for Indonesian people—whether men or women—as they include this in their daily routine. Especially with the growing trends in K-Beauty that are present in Indonesia, K-Beauty has become standard for most Indonesian people. They prefer Korean skincare with the hope that their skin will shine and glow like Korean idols.
COVID Changes People’s Perspective about Beauty
This K-Beauty trend began due to the high development and usage of social media in Indonesia. Social media has a great impact on increasing the consumption of skincare in Indonesian society. Especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been required to stay at home and carry out all activities in the comfort of their homes. This situation pushes people to do all their activities virtually. Due to these circumstances, their dependency on social media escalates as this is one of the mediums of communication and entertainment both personally and for work. Instagram is one of the social media platforms that is always used and visited by many people because they can socialize with their friends regardless of distance. On the other hand, people also use Instagram to seek information and inspiration regarding the self-care they need. Based on this situation, brands promptly took advantage of this opportunity to upgrade their performance in fierce competition, especially local Indonesian brands.
Local Brands Become Threat for K-Beauty
This has an impact on the threat to the Korean brand's position in the local Indonesian market. Local brands managed to capture the problems felt by the Indonesian people in the use of Korean skincare. A few of them feel that the price of Korean skincare products is too expensive for the average income in Indonesia. Not only that, using Korean skincare can't guarantee that people will have glowing skin like Koreans, because the results of using skincare depend on their skin conditions and types. The fact that Korean skincare is made and adapted to Korean skin conditions is definitely different from the Indonesian skin type. Also, local brands can show that they understand the skin problems of the Indonesian people. Local brands are positioned closer to the Indonesian people and know exactly what they need and what they want. One way that local brands introduce and bring their brand closer to the Indonesian people is through Indonesian influencers who have Indonesian beauty standards with Indonesian skin types and skin problems in general.
The Power of Social Media Marketing
Based on their collaborations with Indonesian influencers, local brands realized that they had succeeded in getting closer to and overcoming the skin problems of the Indonesian people, assisted by the role of social media. In this case, Instagram plays a big role in increasing awareness of sales. People trust reviews from influencers who they can relate to rather than ads that are too hard selling. This can be proven by influencers' growing numbers of followers after doing Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) marketing.
Seeing the enthusiasm of the audience on Instagram, brands don't want to miss this opportunity to expand their channels on other social media platforms that are trending in this pandemic, such as TikTok. Since the trend of TikTok has become a hype among Millenials, a bunch of creators are showing off their beauty through 15-second to 3-minute videos. This causes other audiences who watch their content to be amazed and motivated to get bright and glowing skin just like them.
The Existence of Local Brand
This situation makes both local and global brands compete to attract audiences who want healthy, bright, and glowing skin. From there, many brands have created campaigns on TikTok with "insecurity" as the theme, with the aim of making Indonesian people more confident in their skin. A local brand that is able to capture people's hearts is Avoskin, with its tagline "Inspired by nature, created for nurture." Avoskin is one of the most trusted local skincare brands in Indonesia because of the benefits of its skincare that are able to address their skin problems. Additionally, Avoskin is well-known for its campaigns, which consistently manage to win the hearts of its target audiences, bolstering their support. One of the campaigns with the highest engagement in 2022 is their collaboration with Paola Serena, a well-known influencer locally. Through this campaign, Avoskin shows that they will constantly listen to input from their audience and deliver innovative products that meet their needs.
Local Ads, Korean Faces
On the other hand, another local brand is able to rank above Avoskin, namely Somethinc. In addition to its products, which have many variants and can overcome various skin problems, Somethinc is also very aggressive in marketing. In early January 2022, they collaborated with one of the prominent Kpop groups, NCT Dream. This collaboration received a lot of enthusiasm from Kpoppers, especially Dreamies, or NCT Dream fans. It can be proven from the sale of Somethinc x NCT Dream, which is always sold out until it opens pre-orders until the 3rd batch. It didn't stop there—Somethinc continued its success by collaborating with Han So Hee, one of the rising Korean actresses. This shows that the use of Korean artists as brand ambassadors has succeeded in increasing interest and sales of Indonesian local brands. One of the reasons is because the image of Korean artists makes Indonesian people, both Kpoppers and non-Kpoppers, also want to use local brands. Indonesian people are proud of local products and prefer these over Korean or foreign brands.
Local Brands have Indonesians Heart
From this, it can be concluded that the role of brands in marketing activities, both offline and online, has a great influence on sales growth and people's enthusiasm for brands and products. In addition, the use of Korean brand ambassadors as the image of a brand is the right choice to increase interest and sales. Since local brands use Korean artists as brand ambassadors, the popularity of local brands is getting higher and higher until they become top of mind for the people of Indonesia. Apart from being more affordable, the formulas and effects of local products are also more suitable for Indonesian skin. Indonesian people have started to switch to local skincare brands from only previously using Korean skincare brands. This is what makes local brands the main choice for Indonesian people when determining skincare.
Written on June 13th, 2022 by Digital Stark
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