Middle East’s obsession with premium brands reflected in high coverage volume
Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin in Media Report
The Middle East has emerged as a key market for retailers across the world, according to an RNCOS report published in January 2011. Retail has been one of the fastest growing industries in the region for the past few years. Favorable government policy frameworks and active participation of private sector have facilitated the region’s retail industry to become one of the world’s most desirable retail environments in terms of investments and revenue generation. Further, changing market dynamics, rapid economic development, balancing crude oil prices, rising purchasing power, and strong consumer confidence are strengthening the region’s retail industry.
The retail culture has evolved from traditional outlets to large shopping malls, hypermarkets, supermarkets, and organized chains. Changing consumer demographics in countries like, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, presence of large expatriate population, improving purchasing power, and abundance of petro dollar have attracted premium and luxury brands to the region.
Consumers in the region seem to have a bigger appetite for beauty products, compared with other markets. According to figures released by Euromonitor International in 2010, the beauty market in the Middle East, worth $7.2 billion in 2008, showed signs of resistance to the global credit crunch, while sales in Western countries slowed down.
The report, out in June 2009, states that the cosmetics and toiletries sector posted an 8 per cent growth, the highest in the last five years. Saudi Arabia recorded the biggest value of sales in 2008, at $2.2 billion.
Beauty experts in the UAE confirm the trend, saying that most consumers are not cutting down on creams, make-ups, and other beauty enhancers despite the economic downturn.
An article on DubaiBusinessPages.com says that Dubai presents one of the fastest developing markets in the world and the demand for cosmetics, perfumes and toiletries is growing at a frantic pace. Not only is there a huge pent-up demand for upmarket products from Europe and North America but also for the entire range of beauty and personal care products from major manufacturers around the world.
The perfumes and cosmetics sector is also one of the largest business sectors in Dubai as importers, exporters and retailers of cosmetics and toiletries in Dubai are not only meeting the demand within the UAE, but also supplying large quantities to several export and re-export markets like the GCC countries, Iran, CIS region, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Importers from Dubai’s re-export markets flock to Dubai to source their requirements for perfumes, cosmetics and perfumes on a regular basis. As a result, Dubai has acquired the status of a leading distribution hub for cosmetics and perfumes in the Middle East.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Facets of Coverage
We had a close look at 8 luxury cosmetics brands’ coverage in February 2011 in the MENA region; Bourjois, Chanel, Christian Dior, Clarins, Lancome, MAC, Makeup Forever and YSL. All eight brands achieved higher coverage than other cosmetics brands in the region.
Christian Dior achieved the highest volume of coverage in February 2011, relative to the other 7 cosmetics brands. Christian Dior also achieved the highest OTS (Opportunities To See) figures with 11.9M, as well as the highest NCS (Newspaper Coverage Size) figures with 225 cc (column centimeters).
Chanel came in 2nd place in terms of volume of coverage and OTS, but achieved higher MCS (Magazine Coverage Size) figures than Christian Dior with 44.7 pages relative to 40.2. Bourjois achieved the lowest OTS figures with 4.2M. It did not achieve any NCS figures in February 2011 and its MCS of 31.93 pages was the lowest. It was MAC that achieved the highest MCS figures in February 2011 with 107.44 pages.
Penetrations
Clipping Types Penetration (Feb 2010)
The general trend had it that the breakdown of coverage in terms of languages for all brands is placing Arabic in the lead, followed by English, French and finally Mandarin. The majority of the coverage was from Pan Arab publications, followed by UAE, Kuwait and Lebanon. The exception to this rule was Bourjois, which had higher UAE coverage then Pan Arab’s.
Chanel and Christian Dior were heavily diversified in terms of markets penetration, while Bourjois was the least diversified.
‘Lifestyle & General Interest’ publications, followed equally by ‘Celebrity & Society’ and ‘Fashion & Shopping’ were the most popular publication genres for the 8 cosmetic brands. Other genres had the attention of various brands. YSL dedicated little coverage in ‘Men’s, while Makeup Forever to ‘Students’ and ‘Teenage & Children’. Chanel and MAC dedicated some coverage to ‘Bridal Magazines’.
The vast majority of the coverage came out of magazines, while both websites and newspapers had very little contribution to none in some instances. Worthy to mention is that Christian Dior has the highest newspaper penetration.
Content Analysis
Chanel achieved the highest volume of advertorial coverage (124), while it was Bourjois that achieved the highest product placements in February 2011. MAC achieved the highest volume of photo captions, as well as Q&A’s, while Makeup Forever achieved the highest volume of press releases coverage. The press releases were on its participation at Cairo Film Festival.
Prominence Index (Feb 2010)
Interestingly for Makeup Forever, despite its relatively lower ranking in terms of crude media coverage measurements, it achieved the highest prominence values (taking into consideration content dedication, tonality and visuals size), relative to the other 7 brands in February 2011.
Lancome achieved the lowest prominence value, while YSL, Christian Dior and Chanel hung slightly above Lancome. Bourjois, MAC and Clarins achieved relatively high prominence values in February 2011.
CONCLUSION
Effective Reach (Feb 2010)
To properly evaluate effective reach, one has to take into consideration a host of variables, from content, prominence, penetrations’ breakdown, high volume of coverage and OTS figures, coupled with press releases coverage as further diversification.
Overall, market analysis indicate a booming industry and the media coverage indicates high competition and high media presence. It would take considerable boost in the variables mentioned above to truly stand out as the industry leader from the print/web media perspective.
