How beauty is changing in China, Japan & South Korea

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When it comes to beauty, Asia is large, growing and innovating. Asian beauty consumers are leading the way in propagating beauty beliefs, habits, preferences, and products – and acting as trendsetters for the region and the world.

Increasingly, women across Asia are living through an accelerated evolution of their roles in society. This greater fluidity and choice enables a shift in mindset from ‘What is expected of me?’ to ‘What do I want to do and be?’ As the realities and lives of these women change, beauty brands want to know how the role of beauty is changing.

To capture the diversity and the commonalities across beauty consumers in China, South Korea and Japan, Ipsos conducted segmentation analysis using a visual metaphor elicitation technique.

Respondents were asked to react to a set of pictures, with each picture representing specific values or emotional benefits. They first scrolled through the images using an interface that resembled an Instagram feed. We requested respondents select up to five pictures to help them express how they felt about beauty products. Next, we asked them to explain what these pictures represented for them.

We translated the data into the base language and used text analytics to extract key themes. These were analysed in conjunction with the visuals themselves. Finally, we conducted a factor analysis and crossed the factors with segments.

While the three cultures share much in common in terms of what beauty is, there are differences: Japan is more oriented towards the natural, China is more focused on freedom and independence, and South Korea is more oriented towards health and wellbeing.

Looking at the three countries collectively, beauty is not just about appearance, but also about health, freedom, motherhood and calmness. For example, some women cited the need for positive mental health in how they lived and dressed, and others described how their beauty regime would fit in around motherhood or their career.

We grouped the women into six segments: the ‘well-grounded’; the ‘want it all’; the ‘striver’; the ‘struggler’; the ‘upholder’; and the ‘fabulous’. We found each of these segments – in greater or lesser proportions – across China, Japan and South Korea.

The segments were driven by the extent to which women had a traditional versus modern perspective on beauty, and whether they wanted to be beautiful for themselves or be beautiful for others.

We created a profile for each segment. Based on two survey questions – ‘Which five pictures express what you are looking for in a product?’ and ‘What kind of feelings, moods and emotional experiences do those pictures represent?’ – we were able to identify values and uncover the real language that consumers use.

We learned that beauty, while previously considered as a way to impose strict gender roles, has become a tool to enable women in China, Japan and South Korea to support their own choices.

What do these findings mean for beauty marketers? The beauty narrative for most brands remains narrow – focusing almost exclusively on a very standardised definition of beauty. Bearing in mind the diversity of the needs we observed, we challenge beauty marketers to disrupt the industry on multiple fronts:

• Innovation: consider holistic beauty, and evolve narratives, brands, products and experiences
• Partnerships: think about sponsorships, corporate social responsibility and overall partnerships that remain true to the values and needs these women express
• Organisation: manage your organisation differently; empower women and consider the risks if you do not.

Beauty companies must rethink what they deliver to consumers, how they deliver it, and how they relate to and communicate with consumers in China, Japan and South Korea. The first step is to understand the experience of being a woman today in these countries – their aspirations, motivations, struggles and triumphs.

Steven Naert is global solutions leader at Ipsos

This article was first published in the July 2021 issue of Impact.