La Prairie – The Leading Luxury Skincare Brand
About|
La Prairie began as a clinic in Switzerland in 1931 where its prestigious clientele made the Clinique La Prairie internationally recognized. The brand has now established itself as one of the leading luxury skincare brands, with two of its core competitors being La Mer and Orogold Cosmetics.
FIGURE 1 | LA PRAIRIE
FIGURE 2 | LA MER
FIGURE 3 | Orogold Cosmetics
Website Effectiveness and Competitors|
Luxury brands use their official website to effectively attract and inform customers, whilst positioning and delivering their products and messages, according to Simeon’s (1999) AIPD framework. La Prairie as well as La Mer and Orogold, are no exception. All three websites have focused their atmospherics on attracting customers with capturing visual content on their home page and positioned their brand logo in a central location. Incorporation of their brand identities is evident in the websites through the use of relative colour co-ordinations, which McKinney (2004) believes, impact customers’ purchasing behaviours. La Prairie delivers an informative website by providing adequate information regarding the products, stores’ location, the ability to contact them and an option to track orders. No advertisements are evident in any of the websites, positioning the brands’ focus on portraying a luxurious image. La Prairie provides the largest product range and offer free chosen samples with purchases, comparably to La Mer. Regarding delivery, the trustworthiness provided by all three bands reassures secure payments. Customer support is available in all of the websites, however La Prairie and La Mer provide complimentary assistance through live chats. Finally, it is important to note that all three brands and especially La Prairie and La Mer provide an effortless flow in their website usability, allowing customers to fully engage.
Market Segmentation and Personas|
La Prairie exists in the top results when searched into Google by the brand’s name. As a leading skincare brand, La Prairie has established its products around the concept of preventing signs of aging, therefore markets its products primarily to a global female target audience, above the age of 35, that aims to eliminate signs of aging without invasive procedures. The rare nature of the materials used result to high price levels excelling up to $2,250, thus targeting an audience of middle and upper-class individuals. Considering this, two buyer personas have been developed to provide a thorough understanding of La Prairie’s market segmentation. Mulder and Yaar (2006) define personas as a fictional character developed by a company to depict the primary characteristics of a target group, based on target segmentation. The first persona is Amelie, a 36 year-old woman, who represents young working mothers, which are able to purchase lavish products that will protect their youthful skin and ultimately enhance their everyday confidence. Similarly, the second persona is a woman named Susanne, who is 72 years-old. She is committed to looking as you as she feels. Susanne, represents the older generation of women La Prairie targets, who want to nourish and preserve as much of their youthfulness as they can. Detailed descriptors of the personas can be found in the Appendices.
Customer Journeys|
La Prairie’s website is a straightforward user interface, allowing for a more practical navigation for the customers. Clarke (2013), defines customer journeys as the experience of customers describing the multiple touch-points that illustrate their interaction with the brand, its products and services. Two examples of customer journeys can be found in figure 4 below.
FIGURE 4| TWO CUSTOMER JOURNEYS
Amelie represents the younger audience of La Prairie, which is more likely to engage with the brand digitally. This is illustrated through her customer journey; social media is the driving factor of attracting her to the brand, which she explores further using her mobile app. She completed her purchases after careful research and conversion from her desktop and through the company’s website. On the contrary, Susanne represents the older generation of La Prairie’s customers who were introduced to the brand through WOM and complete their purchases in the brand’s stores.
References|
Clark, D. (2013) Using social media to map the consumer journey to the customer experience. My customer report, 3 May, available at <http://www.mycustomer.com/feature/experience/ keys-engagement-mapping-customer-journey-customer-experience/164707>, [Accessed 22nd November 2018].
La Mer (2018) Home Page [Online] < https://www.cremedelamer.co.uk/ > [Accessed 18th November 2018]
La Prairie (2018) Home Page [Online] < https://www.laprairie.com/ > [Accessed 20th November 2018]
McKinney, L.N. 2004, “Creating a satisfying internet shopping experience via atmospheric variables: 1”, International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 268.
Mulder, S. & Yaar, Z. 2007, The user is always right: a practical guide to creating and using personas for the Web, New Riders, Berkeley, Calif.
Orogold Cosmetics (2018) Home Page [Online] < http://www.oro-gold.co.uk/ > [Accessed 11th December 2018]
Simeon, R. 1999, “Evaluating domestic and international Web-site strategies”, Internet Research, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 297-308.
Appendices|
APPENDIX 1 | PERSONA 1
APPENDIX 2 | PERSONA 2
