‘Turning heads’ the Silkygirl way
Under the ACG Cosmetic Group (ACG), the Silkygirl brand was first launched in 2005 by founder, Tan Thiam Hock. While the group was initially a cosmetics and personal care products distributor, upon realising that the mass colour cosmetics market was dominated by international brands, Tan decided to launch a home-grown brand.
“The launching of the brand was done simultaneously across Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The founder’s vision is to have a local brand that can cater to Asian consumers and Asian skin.
“Understanding our needs for colours and shades that match our skin tone is of paramount importance,” said ACG’s chief executive officer, Ng Chee Eng, noting that the company had aims to become a key regional player in the Asean market. It has since made plans to make Silkygirl products available in Indochina countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.
The CEO pointed out that, while Silkygirl was a fairly young brand within the market, he remained confident in the possibility of the brand growing in terms of prominence as the products were ‘well targeted to work with Asian skin tones’.
Ng noted that the Silkygirl brand began by offering a complete range of colour cosmetics, formulated especially for Asian women. As it added more and more products to its collection through innovative R&D, Silkygirl now has a comprehensive range of make-up products, from lip colour to eye shadows.
Following the success of its colour cosmetics, Silkygirl also launched its fragrance line in 2006 and has since introduced up to seven different perfume products for women.
While the market is fickle and trends change fast from season to season, Silkygirl maintains its grip on the market by keeping up with the changing trends and tastes.
“Our team attends international beauty exhibitions, communicates constantly with our key suppliers, keeps a close eye on the beauty trends around the region and most importantly, communicates with customers to understand their preferences and choices,” Ng said, adding that the company also conducted consumer study groups to get feedback from the users of Silkygirl products.
Silkygirl has managed to achieve a faster-than-market growth of 13.8 per cent year-on-year two and a half years into its launching, indicating effectiveness in its strategies. It prices itself are approximately 15 per cent to 20 per cent lower than its international counterparts and Silkygirl has managed to capture its own niche market.
The brand markets itself with a different approach, banking on its fun, young, colourful image and vibrant personality. Aiming to ‘provide quality and innovative products at accessible prices for the Asian women’, Silkygirl products are available at major pharmacies, departmental and beauty stores across the nation.
Silkygirl has carefully positioned its brand with heavy emphasis on emotional appeal, believing that this could help solidify its stand in the market. It uses youthful local and regional celebrities for its marketing campaigns which are largely made up of in-house television commercials and print advertisements.
It also makes use of social media as a promotional tool. The company has aptly marked social networking sites such as Facebook as a bridge to reach the intended target market, made up mostly of teenagers. Currently, Silkygirl’s Facebook page has reached up to more than 91,000 and counting, indicating the existence of a steadily growing fanbase for its products.
The road towards establishing a prominent local brand was not without its own set of challenges as Ng said, “One of our biggest challenges was to break the barriers of consumers who had a perception that local products did not have international quality.”
Ng stressed that local products were ‘definitely on par’ with their international peers. He revealed that the company benchmarked itself against international players, encompassing all aspects.
He also noted that some of its advantages against the international brands included speed of delivery, product innovation and market understanding as the brand rooted in Malaysian culture is also headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.
When asked on the future plans for the brand, Ng pointed out that, “Men’s grooming is taking off seriously across the Asian markets as men start to become more sensitive to their overall image.” As such, the SG Men brand is aimed at catering to the male market.