More than two-thirds of South African consumers feel that health and beauty shopping would be greatly improved by personal shoppers and self-indulgent treatments, according to a recent study conducted by Synovate.
Synovate tackled a range of health and beauty issues in a survey of over 7,000 people in nine markets (South Africa, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Korea, India, Singapore, Spain and the USA).
Key findings
The survey picked up some intriguing attitudes across cultures and across genders:
- South Africans (43%) and Bulgarians (43%) were most in support of the view that beauty comes from within;
- Compared to the rest of the world, South Africans (32%) were also most confident that they are beautiful just they way that they are;
- 54% of South African women felt that beauty advertisements make them feel inadequate.
The effect of advertising
Nearly half of all people thought that beauty advertisements make women feel inadequate, and 28% agreed that beauty advertisements have the same effect on men. In South Africa, a worrying 56% of women agreed that beauty advertisements negatively affected their self esteem, with 34% of men also agreeing.
But, according to Synovate, the good news for marketers is that there is still a world of 'believers', as two-thirds of the consumers surveyed thought that facial or beauty products could make a person more attractive, and 72% of women around the world believe this to be the case.
The effect of money
Some 38% of South Africans said that if money were not an issue, they would buy expensive, branded facial and beauty products to improve their appearance. At the same time, 42% of Koreans said they would sign up for skin whitening products (61% of Korean women) while only 7% of Spanish consumers thought that these products would improve their looks.
Compared to the rest of the world, South Africans were most likely to try a personal shopping service to improve clothes or style (59%). Intriguingly, men in both South Africa and India were just as likely, if not more likely, to think that such a service would make a difference to their shopping behaviour.
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