“The growing demand for value-for-money products is one of the major emerging trends in the market, where consumers in an economic environment desire better value for money on their purchases of products and brands, by trading down to low-priced items,” the firm’s analysts confirm.
According to the report’s market forecast, the skin care category is set to grow at a CAGR of 2.45% up to 2018.
Cutting costs
Multi-functionality of formulations is a key market driver highlighted by the analysts, with consumers showing increasing enthusiasm for the trend, which originated in Asia.
The category is recording slightly underwhelming growth despite this, with analysts suggesting the impact of the Eurozone crisis on is one of the key challenges in the market.
“The crisis led to rising debts, bailouts, and loss of jobs, sluggish growth, and a decrease in the consumption of basic skin care products,” they note.
To entice consumers back to skin care, it looks as if brands will needs to increase the perceived value of their skin care offerings.
The multifunction trend
Mintel says it is all part of the ‘Mixologiste’ trend, which it predicts will impact global beauty consumers in 2014 and beyond.
“Mixologiste is fast becoming the stand-out trend that spans all beauty and personal care categories,” Jane Henderson, analyst at Mintel, observed late last year. “This is a key mega trend, in development for the last year or so, but we are set to see it really accelerating.”
“While manufacturers have worked with multifunctionality for a number of years, we are now seeing them take inspiration from completely different categories to create new products and marketing messages,” she added.
The trend has now made its way over to sun care too; according to latest Euromonitor International figures, 21% of women in the UK and in Spain use a moisturizer with added SPF on a daily basis, with these numbers set to rise thanks to the increasing dominance of alphabet creams.