In Asia, the new colour of money is white. Just ask any skin care company that brought a slew of skin-whitening products to the huge market of Asians obsessed with having fairer, whiter skin.

 

Local companies in Asia were among the first to tap into the whitening segment of the skin care market in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But multinational companies quickly got on the bandwagon when they saw the dizzying double-digit sales growth enjoyed by the companies that went ahead.

 

For Beiersdorf, the Hamburg-based multinational company that manufactures and sells Nivea products, among others, the foray into the market started in the Philippines in 1996. Nivea used to stick to its core products of creams, lotions and moisturisers, until it was convinced that it could provide the market with a whitening line that meets its stringent quality standards and would make an impact on the market.

 

It developed its whitening line just for Asia, and the first products were launched in the Philippines and other parts of the region in 1996. Since then, it has been enjoying immense growth, and is looking to take the concept to other markets such as the Middle East, Latin America and the United States, with its huge immigrant population.

 

Rica King, Beiersdorf marketing director for the Philippines, who was instrumental in convincing the company to introduce a whitening line, said in an interview that the Southeast Asian market alone for whiteningproducts reached US$200 million last year, and was growing at a fast clip of 12 to 15 per cent year on year. This does not include the super whitening markets of Japan, China and Korea, which are also fanatic buyers of whitening products, despite their already fair skin.

 

There has been a sustained growth across all categories in the region, although it was not as steep as five years ago, says King.

 

L’Oreal, the world’s biggest cosmetics company, also found a substantial and growing market in the whitening segment. L’Oreal data showed that Korean and Japanese consumers have more advanced/demanding skin care needs, using at least seven skin care products in their regular skin care routine, against one to three products for markets such as the Philippines.

 

Seeing the dynamism in these huge markets, plus the growing markets of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, L’Oreal was prompted to launch 10 products in the whitening category over the past three years. The segment was described as among the most competitive in the skin care industry today

 

A whiter shade of pale

Fuelling the sustained growth in Asia is simply the desire to have whiter, fairer skin in the same way that most Europeans with fair skin soak up the sun, load up on tanning lotions and line up in tanning salons to get darker skin. This is because most Asians feel that having whiter skin makes them look younger and more attractive to the opposite sex.

 

An April 2004 Synovate study on the popularity of skin whitening products in the region found that three out of five women surveyed in Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Taiwan feel that they look younger with fair complexions, while two out of five feel they are more attractive with fair complexions.

 

Despite 41 per cent stating that they have used products to little or no difference, it looks like skin whitening is a strengthening trend in Asia, notes Daisy Sam, associate director of Synovate Hong Kong.
It is a classic ‘want what you don’t have’ part of human nature. Many people with Asian complexions want to be fairer, and many people with fair complexions go to a great deal of trouble to tan their skin darker, she says.

 

The data showed that the Philippines had the highest usage among the countries included in the survey, with one out of two women saying they use skin whitening products, followed by Hong Kong with 45 per cent, Malaysia with 41 per cent and Taiwan with 37 per cent.

 

Francis Flores, senior product manager of Ponds, which carries the whitening line of the Unilever group, says another reason for the growth was that most Asians associate beauty with having white skin, which was likely a holdover from their colonial past when white was might.

 

Unilever’s consumer insight also showed that women associated white skin with cleanliness. They also felt that it gave them an edge in their career as having white skin made them look ‘more rich.’
The manufacturing giant’s data also showed that Japan and Korea led the Asian market in the whitening line, with Thailand leading the way in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines markets were about the same size.

 

Flores estimated that the need for whitening products was always there, as the aspiration for fairer skin has always been at the back of Asians’ minds. However, it was only about five years ago when the market started to really boom, prompted by the entry of big players in the market selling affordable, quality whitening products plus the advertising that came with it.

 

Affordability is a major issue for Asian consumers, with 61 per cent of the persons surveyed in the Synovate report saying that it was the most important issue in determining which product to use, with effectiveness coming in a close second and brand preference coming in third.

 

This would explain why multinational brands in most markets still come in second to the local companies that have targeted the mass market with cheap whitening products.
Nivea’s King, however, says that consumers were becoming more discriminating and are looking for products that actually deliver on their promise to lighten skin and still keep the skin healthy.

 

Unilever in the Philippines, for instance, has embarked on a campaign to highlight the fact that not all whitening products are safe to use, thus, consumers should look for products that lighten the right way. There have been horror stories of buyers that spent money on cheap products but ended up with patches of heavily pigmented skin.

 

Despite the stories in the Philippines and elsewhere in the region, Flores of Unilever says that the whitening industry would continue to grow. As long as Asians feel that they should have light skin to look good, there will always be a market.