WOW Skin Science was launched in 2015 with the objective to provide consumers with natural, safe, and affordable beauty products. The brand has come a long way now and it has become a household name in the beauty and lifestyle space. 

It was established during a period when the beauty industry in India was dominated by conglomerates, WOW Skin Science crafted its own niche by saying no to parabens, sulfates, and other harmful ingredients and giving consumers nature-inspired and research-backed beauty products. From then on, the brand has been growing exponentially. 

From launching popular actors like Disha Patani, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Bhumi Pednekar as brand ambassadors, to entering the sustainability bandwagon through their Vitamin C Paper Tube launch, to brand film that portrays the importance of natural products, WOW Skin Science has WOWed its customers with their innovation, research-backed products and being the brand with the highest review on Amazon. 

Elaborating on the journey of the brand, Manish Chowdhary, Co-founder, WOW Skin Science said, “Our journey was built with a lot of perseverance and belief that we will be building something large over time. Our journey has just started and there is a long way to go. You will see us transition from a product-led journey to a brand-led journey. We were very top-heavy in most of our products but didn't have an emotional connection with the consumers. However, this journey will evolve over the next few years.”

“We are in the phase of institutionalizing as a company where we can take these early wins or early playbooks and make it into a large execution playbook journey from there on. 

From D2C to an Omnichannel Brand

Initially, the brand opted for a D2C route as it helps to get closer to a consumer. A brand can always rely a lot more on feedback from the consumers. It gives brands the freedom to advertise to a cohort or a set of audiences, which are looking for similar products. So it's a great place for brands to get their product fit, align what consumers want, and do a lot of testing, and innovation and that process takes a lot of time  

“It's a great way for you to introduce a product. It's a great place for you to sell your products online. A lot of consumers who buy our products are informed consumers as they know what they're looking for. So, D2C is a very good place to get started, but when you hit those metrics, the brands should opt for going omnichannel. At the end of the day, a brand should be available everywhere and anywhere, and not only sold on one channel. It should be available easily to a consumer. And that is something that we are delving deeper into,” he asserted.

“At present, we don't have our own brand stores, however, we are present in more than 25,000 offline stores. We will soon be launching our own brand stores and those will be mostly used as experience centers,” he further added.

WOW Skin Science is planning to have a presence in more than 1 lakh physical stores in the next couple of years. 

Distribution Strategy

The brand is available on all the marketplaces along with its own D2C website. 

“Offline where we are investing deep into distribution. We've got more than 120 distributors who are aligned with us, and who also cater to modern trade. We've got into D-MART, Reliance Retail, and a few other supermarts.  We are also working on a shop-in-shop model,” he added.

The brand is also available in Walmart, USA, and 10 other foreign countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Malaysia, and Singapore to name a few. 

Marketing Strategy

As far as digital marketing is concerned, the brand is planning to go ahead with top-of-the-funnel, mid-funnel, and low funnel activities. This year, it plans to go more aggressive on ATL because that's a new set of audiences that the brand will be reaching out to.

“Apart from this, social commerce, influencer marketing is something which we'll continue to go ahead with. However, now we'll do it a little bit more with a granularity of data to ensure that we have an efficiency of capital on these spends. We will also be focusing more on brand marketing than performance marketing,” he stated.

Matching Changing Consumer Expectations

WOW Skin Science is a digital company, so it has a lot more understanding of what consumers are searching for and what they want. 

"However, as a segment where we are today (naturals), it's a very small part of Indian consumers buy that category. So there is an opportunity lying ahead, and there is still a long way before we saturate ourselves. A lot of potential consumers still don't know about us but it's very important how we improve the experience as well as expectations. That is something which we continue to do every day when we are at work. It's always customer powered and how do you be more relevant to a consumer’s need is the most important factor at which we work,” he explained.

“We are very popular in the hair care segment. Going ahead, you will see us getting a little bit more bullish on our skincare range of products. We will also be foraying into makeup and hair colors. Along with this, we will be launching 3 new brands this year. It is a very exciting year for us, at least on laying a great foundation for the next couple of years,” he further added.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

When any brand enters any category, it's very important to define what is competition. The larger incumbent peers are the ones who like to benchmark with their names, but obviously today, the barrier to entry in the beauty category is very small. 

“Products are made in a factory and brands are made in a consumer's mind and to get into a consumer's mind is expensive today. You have to have that kind of product and fit to know when to trigger it,” he asserted.

“Brands take many years to be built and in that journey, there are a lot of ups and downs, but at our end, it's very clear that you'll see us at least for the next decade. It's all about how you start positioning yourself more on brand versus product, which obviously gives you a little bit more leap from towards another side. We do two things -  what we communicate and what we create. We are always under pressure for innovation and that is something which will continue to help us stay ahead of the curve than our competitors,” he further added.

Technology Integration

WOW Skin Science is marrying tech with the brand to elevate the consumer experience by incorporating AR filters into its D2C website.

“We are also experimenting in the Metaverse. We love to be closer to the consumer by trying new avenues of interacting with them. However, we are at a very early stage and not too sure if we will use it for commerce or brand building.

Building House of Loved Brands

The brand is soon planning to launch three new sub-brands this year.

“We would prefer to concentrate on a lesser number of brands and make them big. So instead of having 40-50 brands under our portfolio, we would prefer to have 10-15 quality brands. That's the reason why we redefine it and call it as the house of loved brands than the house of brands,” he asserted.

These three brands will be in three different verticals and they will be clutter-breaking from the rest. These brands will not be competing with WOW, rather they will be complementing it. 

Future Plans

The year 2022-2023 promises to be a year of collaborations, brand films, newer launches, and expansions for WOW Skin Science. The number of ads has been the testimony to its spending increasing day by day as the brand aims at reaching its branding budget of Rs 100 crore by 2023. This has resulted in the brand's total awareness growing to 54 percent.

The brand, which has been targeting around Rs 750 crore this year, is looking forward to launching its IPO soon.

Explaining it further, Chowdhary said, “Yeah, that's shot in the dark for us, but the plans are there. Won't be able to comment when, but, as soon as we have some thresholds at our end, that is something where we look at having a conversation at our end. IPO is a big responsibility and companies have to be ready for that. Whenever we hit one of these criteria, this is obviously something which is our ultimate milestone, at least, to have executed.”

“Going ahead we'll acquire new brands, we'll build products which consumers want for decades to come as a strategy. Long-term we are looking at it for 20 years play at our end minimum, at least as founders,” he further added.

The brand has been growing at 100 percent year-on-year and the founders are planning to build a brand that is sustainable. “I trade-off growth interim for some of the good practices for the long term,” Chowdhary concluded.