World view China, Japan & South Korea Applying research Research to analyse attitudes towards beauty in China, Japan and South Korea has found that the role of beauty is evolving. By Steven Naert 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 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 images using an interface that resembled an Instagram feed. We requested 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 or their career. We grouped the women into six brands remains narrow focusing almost exclusively on a very standardised diversity of the needs we observed, we challenge beauty marketers to disrupt the evolve narratives, brands, products and experiences corporate social responsibility and overall partnerships that remain true to the values and needs these women express consider the risks if you do not. 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. 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 the experience of being a woman today in these countries their aspirations, motivations, struggles and triumphs. Based on two survey questions 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 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. Steven Naert is global solutions leader at Ipsos In 2019, the cosmetics market was worth: 425.6bn yuan in China ($66.3bn) 2.65tn yen in Japan ($24.4bn) 10.11tn won in South Korea ($9.1bn) (Source: Statista) towards the natural, China is more focused marketers? The beauty narrative for most 14 Impact ISSUE 34 2021_pp14 WV Asia.indd 14 18/06/2021 13:00