Japanese luxury cosmetics brand POLA says customers acquired through its cultural assets are delivering up to 10 times the lifetime value of those acquired through traditional advertising, as the beauty brand increasingly turns to art over conventional marketing to reach wealthy consumers.
Speaking at MAD STARS in Busan, South Korea, POLA CEO Takuma Kobayashi revealed the commercial impact of a strategy that sees the Japanese beauty company eschew celebrity ambassadors, barely show products in some of its advertising, work with artists instead of traditional advertising creatives and use everything from its own museum to art fairs and ballet to reach high-net-worth consumers.
Kobayashi said affluent consumers are becoming increasingly important to POLA but are also “extremely difficult to acquire through advertising”. Instead, the company is using cultural assets to introduce consumers to POLA before moving them closer to its products and ultimately into its stores.
“There is a fivefold to tenfold difference in lifetime value between customers acquired through traditional advertising and those who discovered through these cultural assets and subsequently experienced the brand’s products,” Kobayashi told the MAD STARS audience through a live English translation.
“Considering the current and future macro-environment and economic situation, I believe that approaching the affluent class, which cannot be reached through advertising alone, will become increasingly important.”
POLA’s approach is a striking departure from many of the conventions of beauty marketing.
The company does not employ celebrities as traditional ambassadors, with Kobayashi arguing that presenting a famous face as the definitive representation of beauty runs counter to the way POLA wants consumers to interpret the brand.
It has also spent years collaborating with renowned Japanese flower artist Makoto Azuma on creative for flagship brand B.A.
In one execution shown at MAD STARS, the product itself was relegated so far into the background that Kobayashi admitted “almost no one notices it”.
“We are not at all obsessed with showing the cosmetic bottles,” he said.
“Since the focus is on expressing ideas and thoughts, collaborating with artists is a better fit than collaborating with advertising creators.”
Kobayashi said POLA deliberately avoids celebrity ambassadors.
“Rather than presenting celebrities as the definitive answer for beauty, the intention was to allow viewers to interpret it in their own individual way,” he said.
“We collaborate with artists with a sense of purpose and invest in them.”
Perhaps the most unusual weapon in POLA’s marketing arsenal, however, is its own museum.
The POLA Museum of Art sits within Hakone National Park and has become an important cultural asset for the company as it looks to reach high-net-worth consumers.
Kobayashi said cultural experiences can provide a way into the brand for audiences who are difficult to shift directly from a traditional product message to purchase.
“Cultural elements such as museums serve as important touchpoints,” he said.
“Moving forward, I believe that its importance will continue to grow in marketing aimed at acquiring high-net-worth individuals.”
The strategy extends beyond the museum. POLA opened its art-led global flagship POLA Ginza in Tokyo last year, produces a VIP lounge for Art Fair Tokyo using its premium B.A. brand and is title sponsor of Ballet The New Classic.
Rather than simply sticking its logo on the latter, POLA has used the partnership to give VIP guests backstage experiences before continuing the relationship through photography exhibitions at its Ginza flagship.
The idea is to create a series of cultural touchpoints that eventually lead consumers towards POLA’s beauty products.
And Kobayashi said the numbers suggest it is working.
“Instead of focusing on numbers, if we can expand our target to a segment where the lifetime value is ten times higher, we can achieve growth,” he said.
“As a result, I believe that added value will be further recognised, and the profitability of brands and companies will continue to increase.”
The art strategy sits alongside what Kobayashi described as POLA’s three foundational pillars of “Science, Art, Love”.
And if its approach to marketing is unconventional, its approach to product research might be even more so.
Kobayashi told the audience that POLA spent 15 years researching its Wrinkle Shot before creating what he described as Japan’s first cosmetic product able to claim wrinkle improvement.
One of the researchers behind it has subsequently spent 10 years applying the cream to only one side of his face to demonstrate its effectiveness.
His wife, Kobayashi revealed, repeatedly asks him: “Why don’t you apply it to both sides?”
The researcher, apparently, remains committed to the cause.
Cairns Crocodiles content director and B&T contributor Pippa Chambers was on the ground at MAD STARS in Busan, scouting the region’s best and brightest talent and potential speakers for Cairns Crocodiles 2027. Stay tuned for more.
