Fading Beauty: A Breakdown of How Brands Lose Resonance

Brands build sustainable relationships with their

consumers through the stages of brand salience,

performance and imagery, judgments and feelings,

and brand resonance. The Brand Resonance Model

offers a framework that identifies why certain

skincare and hair care brands have faced challenges

maintaining growth. Beauty brands that experience

stalls or declines in growth, typically have failed to

move through these stages successfully. Marketers

can utilize the Brand Resonance Model to analyze

the decline of relevance brands face. Let’s explore

the key components of each step of the brand

resonance framework:

Brand Salience: Category identification; needs are satisfied.

Performance & Imagery: Primary characteristics and secondary features - product reliability,

style and design, price. User profile, purchase and usage, situations, values.

Judgement & Feelings: Quality, credibility, consideration, superiority.

Brand Resonance: Loyalty, attachment, community, engagement.

Notable Fame to Customer Fatigue

In the early 2000s, Proactiv became highly salient through marketing initiatives with celebrity

endorsements and infomercials. The brand positioned itself as ideal, go-to product for acne.

Unfortunately, Proactiv’s performance and imagery among consumers became weak over time.

The target audience became unsatisfied with the harsh formulas. Competitors CeraVe and The

Ordinary, have successfully captured consumers through products with gentler products and

innovation. Proactiv’s target audience once trusted their products but shifted to being skeptical of

ingredients over time. Ultimately, brand loyalty declined, and consumers caused the brand to

experience weak resonance.

Affordable but Forgettable

Household brand, Garnier Fructis, had significant brand visibility early on due to its vibrant

green packaging and creative campaigns. However, the brand remained labeled as drugstore

quality by consumers. This hindered Garnier Fructis’ growth as the hair care industry focused on

elevated, premium brands and natural hair care. Brands such as Olaplex and Shea Moisturebecame the popular choice among customers. This shift resulted in Garnier’s imagery decline.

The target audience recognized the brand as affordable but uninspiring. This caused a lack of

connection and brand loyalty for Garnier Fructis.

Iconic to Controversial

Unfortunately, some beauty brands have experienced the downside of reliance on a single

product making grown stagnant. St. Ives’ once high-performing apricot scrub, faced criticism

from dermatologists due to its abrasiveness. Comments regarding the product negatively

impacted consumer trust. This resulted in the brand struggling to build their community

resonance back. A once iconic product, never regained trust and interest from consumers,

hindering brand growth.

Proactiv, Garnier Fructis, and St. Ives were all beauty and skincare brands that showcased the

result a brand can face if emotional depth, consistent innovation, and aspirational imagery and

not prioritized. Growth for brands becomes limited and reliant on these factors. The reality is that

beauty brands can achieve recognition but ultimately have the possibility of failing to sustain

meaningful, long-term growth. Achievement of the progression from awareness to true brand

resonance can occur through marketers and executives considering the Brand Resonance Model

while developing brand growth strategies.