“Vanity thy name is woman” is an adage which has few followers in this era. Everyone has the right to look good and people across society want themselves to be beautiful or handsome. The global world we are living in sets stereotypes that become models. These models are a part of the ambience that we thrive: in magazines, on television, in the fashion shows, in the commercials, in the streets and even at work or at school. It is a fact that everybody in this world, men as well as women, want to look like the magazines’ figures since a perfect skin and a healthy body leads to a perfect life. The generation X and Generation Y have distinct personality traits. Many companies have seen the market potential in these veritable goldmines. In the cosmetic world the concept of women cosmetic market is running since decades whereas the idea of men cosmetic market or selling the cosmetics to men is booming since last couple of years. The male body, before eclipsed by its female counterpart, is more and more shown off in the media, advertisement or the cinema. These days consciousness in men is growing for their body and skin and the needs to conform to the injunctions of youthfulness, healthiness, and thinness which make them go from “sanitarians to body aesthetics”. The concern of the men for their appearance has developed from the development of fashion magazines for men. A sudden increase of the male press, in the last few years, goes all together with the consumption of beauty products for men. The concept of “alpha” male and “metrosexual man” is the product of this day and age. Therefore these days’ men are more conscious of their looks and beauty.

Consumer behaviour theorists generally believe that consumer behaviour theories can be applied globally but consumer preferences and tastes are influenced by their cultural background [1]. Hence it is important for business practitioners and marketers to identify the consumers’ beliefs and attitudes, their needs and their preferences and also their taste for a specific type of product or service that are greatly influenced by society and culture to which they belong. For example, consumers in one part of the world may consider price as the most important factor in their decision to buy a cosmetic product or not, where as in another part of the world, consumers may consider quality as the most important determinant in their buying decision for a cosmetic product. The other factors that may influence the buying decision process of a consumer includes family members, relatives, salesperson, spouse, siblings, neighbours and even also by the marketing stimuli triggered by the marketers. For many marketing companies/managers customer satisfaction has been widely accepted as an important issue. It is commonly used as a marketing benchmark of a company’s performance [2]. In spite of all these doubts, (regarding the acceptance of the product by the consumers) a lot of money was invested by the marketers in their marketing plan to attract consumers to buy their product or service. To meet the specific needs and wants of the consumers and to make them satisfy with their products marketers has to deal with this ongoing process. To offer different types of products to the consumers in the market is not the only way to sustain in the market but the real task is to satisfy the consumers along with sustaining profit, this will lead to the survival of the company in the market place.

Brand

Brand loyalty is a “marketers’ Holy Grail” and it ideally measured the health of the company [3]. Studies have reported that a 5% increase in consumer retention can generate a profit of 25-95% over 14 industries, for example in auto service chains, software, brand deposits and credit card industries [4,5]. The glory of brand loyalty appears to be slightly declining in particular to some of the major national brands. In fact, there is more growing acceptance of the private labels brand in today’s market [6,7]. Furthermore, the present environment of increased competition and rapid market entry of new product and services into the marketplace, leads consumers to experience product knowledge in terms of a wider choice of better alternatives and opportunities [8]. Therefore, it is crucial for companies and manufacturers to focus on differentiating their product from that of the competitors. Several scholars have suggested that those brands that express image may generate more loyalty consumers. Empirical supports have confirmed that image does influence satisfaction, which in turn led to loyalty in the context of retailing, e.g. reference [9]. However, the impact of image on satisfaction required a more complete validation, since some contradictory results can be observed in image literature [10]. Similarly, Bloemer, De Ruyter, and Peeters pointed out that “the exact relationship between image and loyalty had remained a matter of debate” [9].

Brand image

According to Hsieh, Pan, and Setiono, “a successful brand image enables consumers to identify the needs that the brand satisfies and to differentiate the brand from its competitors, and consequently increases the likelihood that consumers will purchase the brand” [11]. A company or its product/ services which constantly holds a favorable image by the public, would definitely gain a better position in the market, sustainable competitive advantage, and increase market share or performance [12]. In addition, several empirical findings have confirmed that a favorable image (i.e. brand, store/retail) will lead to loyalty brand equity purchase behavior and brand performance [11,13-20]. Reynolds noted that “an image is the mental construct developed by the consumer on the basis of a few selected impressions among the flood of the total impressions; it comes into being through a creative process in which these selected impressions are elaborated, embellished, and ordered” [21]. The image is also defined as “the set of beliefs, ideas, and impression that a person holds regarding an object”. On the other hand, Keller considered brand image as “a set of perceptions about a brand as reflected by brand in consumer’s memory” [20]. A similar definition to Keller’s was proposed by Aaker whereby brand image is referred to as “a set of associations, usually organized in some meaningful way” [18]. Biel however defined brand image as “a cluster of attributes and associations that consumers connect to the brand name” [17]. Brand image has been conceptualized and operationalized in several ways [16,19]. It has been measured based on attributes brand benefits/values or using Malhotra’s (1981) brand image scale [11,13,14,16,22]. Measuring image based on the above definition would help marketers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their brand as well as consumers’ perceptions toward their product or services. Zooming into conceptualization of brand image, it is considered a perception about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumers’ memory [20]. He suggested that “brand associations” comprise of brand attributes, brand benefits, and overall brand attitudes. Overall, image can generate value in terms of helping customer to process information, differentiating the brand, generating reasons to buy, give positive feelings, and providing a basis for extensions [18]. Creating and maintaining image of the brand is an important part of a firm’s marketing program and branding strategy [18,20,22].

Attributes

To, attributes are “descriptive features that characterized a product or service-what a consumer thought the product or service is or has and what is involved with its purchase or consumption” [20]. Attributes can be classified into two broad categories that are product related attributes and non product related attributes. Product related attributes are those which are related to the ingredients and perform the task for which the product is meant for and for which it has the image in the minds of the consumers however non product related attributes are those which are external and are related to the purchase and consumption of the product.

Price

To choose a particular price of a product is an important aspect. The price chosen by the company depends on several factors such as product, type of positioning selected for the product, various evaluation parameters of competitors and the value of the product that is perceived by the price. The price of the product gives a distinction to the product and also helps in influencing the choice and image for which one thought the product is for. The price setting of the product should be done in such a way that it shows a relationship with the value offered by the product and the perceived benefits.

Place

Within the cosmetic market the distribution channels can be divided in to three major categories. These three categories are as follows.

Super store

When men are buying a cosmetic product in the super market they look for a product which is discrete and is of lower price. Though it can be considered that the line is not very wide and the products are also not very specific but it is sufficient for a certain kind of product. Big brands for example L’Oreal are introducing product which are more and more specific such as anti-wrinkles products etc to reach all type of target audience via super stores. These super stores are becoming medium for cosmetic companies to launch their product and to target most of the audience.

Perfumery and drugstore

This type of distribution channels are more specific and are pointed towards a specific target audience since coming to a drugstore means that you are seeking for skin cares, which you would not found on a super store. In Indian context it is still difficult for men to go to such specialized stores because they mean that they feel no shame about their consumption.

Influencers

The family or the group

No one in this world is living alone. It should be remembered that the person is permanently surrounded by the group or by his family members. A human being cannot be regarded as one person; he is in relation to others. In other words, we can say that in day to day life there is an influence of the group (and especially the reference group) and the family. The cosmetic buying capacity of the person increases when his/her associates gives value to them and perceive those product as interesting. On the other hand if the group does not accept the product, the use of cosmetic product can become a threat to the group belonging.

Demographic factors

Within the beauty market and in the consumption of the cosmetic products the age remains an important factor. The younger generation are more opened to the use of cosmetic product as considered to the older generation. For the cosmetic companies the target market and the potential lies between the age group of 15 years to 40 years, especially when you know that most of the people within this age group want to be more attractive and are more conscious for their looks. As can be seen on the following graph, the young generation is more sensitive and less ashamed than the seniors. Young adults like new experiences and are more open minded toward the cosmetic industry. In another way we can say that the millennial generation is more likely to use the cosmetic product (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Source: Blanchin Audrey, ChareyronCyrielle and Levert Quentin, 2007.

The demographic factors have an impact on the consumer mind. As the population is getting older but they don’t want to lose the illusion of the youth. These days more and more people are taking care of their skin and make it more attractive. After the women, the men become conscious of keeping fit their “health capital”.

Self-concept

“People have a perception to behave constantly with their self concept; this perception of people forms a part for their personality. People having such a steady behaviour maintain their self esteem Such self consistent behaviour helps a person to maintain his or her self esteem and also makes those people more predictable to interact with others. The self concept can be defined as “the totality of the individual thoughts and feelings having reference to him as an object”. There are several things that can come under self concept such as psychological attributes, social attributes and the physical attributes and these attributes can be influenced by individual’s habits, ideas, attitudes and beliefs. Self-concept is the thinking aspect of self and generally refers to “the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence”.

According to Purkey, three things can be said about the selfconcept:

• The self-concept is learned: we are not born with a self-concept, it is not instinctive. It mean that it is shape and reshape through the life experiences; experiences with ourselves and with other people. A common sentence when talking about this idea is to say that selfconcept is a “social product”.

• The self-concept is organized: “self-concept has a generally stable quality that is characterized by orderliness and harmony”. According to this idea, if a person changes his self-concept easily all the time, it can lead to an inconsistent and dependable personality.

• The self-concept is dynamic: we already said that the self-concept enables a person to views her or himself, the others, the world but it also helps a person to direct her or his actions and being consistent in life. The fact it is dynamic also involves that it is a continuous active system which is permanently shapes through the experiences.

The self-esteem

To define self-esteem is not an easy task. Since self esteem is a human phenomenon so we can say that everyone knows what it is. However, to define self esteem using exact words is very difficult. Because of this reason there are several definitions of self esteem. There are many psychologists those who have studied the concept of self esteem. Wells and Marwell for example attempted to organize definitions of selfesteem on the basis of 2 psychological processes: evaluation (which emphasizes the role of cognition) and affect (which prioritizes the role of feelings) as they pertain to self-esteem [23]. “Self-evaluation generally involves more mechanistic, causal descriptions, while selfaffection tends to elicit more “humanistic” conceptualizations of behaviour” [23].

The self-image

The self-image can be considered as the mental picture that one person has in his/her mind for himself. This type of image is resistant to change and it is based on the past experiences or it can be based upon the internalization of others’ judgements. The self image include thus the own vision of a person weight, intelligence, masculinity, femininity, attractiveness etc. Self image can be said as the answer of various questions such as: Am I a good person? Am I liked by others? Am I attractive? etc. One can also define self image as the answer of this question: What do you believe people think about you? The technical term that can be used for self image is self-schema. This self-schema can be said as a mental structure which can represent the world to some aspect. Self-schemas provide information and influence the manner of how we think and remember. For instance, research demonstrates that information which refers to the self is preferentially encoded and recalled in memory tests. This phenomenon is known as “Self- Referential Encoding” [24]. An important thing is that there is some information about a person which is not available to others directly and this type of information is very suitable for the formation of perfect and healthy functioning self image. Cosmeceuticals support and encourage a strong, positive self-image. One can say that a small change on the outer side can make an extraordinary change on the inner side which can also lead to flourishing of an individual’s self image. Cosmetics not only alter the self physically but also have a significant role on the mental state of a user. It is very well known that, taking care of your body will also help in improving yourself image.

H Null: There is no influence of age group on the type of cosmeceutical products.

H Alternate: There is an influence of age group on the type of cosmeceutical products.

H Null: Cosmeceuticals are not preferred by young males now a day.

H Alternate: Cosmeceuticals are preferred by young males now a day.

H Null: There is no relationship between income and monthly spending on cosmeceutical products.

H Alternate: There is a relationship between income and monthly spending on cosmeceutical products.

To find out the role of different demographic factors in the consumption of cosmeceutical products

• To find out the most significant group in terms of age, income, occupation and gender

• To determine the differences in the consumption pattern of consumers from metro cities with that of consumers from tire-I cities

To determine the influence of marketing mix variables on the consumption pattern

• To find out the role of different strategies such as promotions, packaging, ingredients, celebrity endorsement etc on the sales of cosmeceutical products

To find out the other influencing factors that leads to the purchase of cosmeceutical products

• To find out the influencing factors for each cosmeceutical product type

• To determine the role of multifunctional cosmeceutical products and specific ailment focused cosmeceutical products

Target population (Sampling technique and sample size)

➢ Sample Size: Consumers - 120

➢ Sampling technique used for consumers: Quota sampling

➢ Primary: Consumers Using Cosmeceutical products - 120

➢ Secondary (Associated population): Past studies and research papers.

Area of research

The area that has been chosen to carry out the study and to collect the data is Delhi and NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Lucknow and Patna.

Potential scope of the project (outcomes)

• Market data covering product market value of cosmeceutical products

• Analysis of needs of consumers, expectation of consumers and consumer trends

• The barriers that affects cosmeceutical market

• Motivational factors and consumer attitudes related to the buying habits of consumers related to cosmeceutical products.

• Role of communication in increasing the cosmeceutical market potential in India

• Men’s grooming products are the second fastest growing category.

• Cosmeceutical opportunities are more in the following fields i.e. acne treatment, skin care and anti-aging.

Data collection approach

Nature of Data

• Primary data: Data that is obtained as a result of first hand information collected from research. This is the original data.

• Secondary data: secondary data that is already available and published. It could be internal and external source of data.

• Internal source: which originates from the specific field or area where research is carried out e.g. publish broachers, official reports etc.

• External source: This originates outside the field of study like books, periodicals, journals, newspapers and the Internet.

Data analysis

• Exploratory research: This kind of research has the primary objective of development of insights into the problem. It studies the main area where the problem lies and also tries to evaluate some appropriate courses of action.

• The research methodology for the present study has been adopted to reflect these realties and help reach the logical conclusion in an objective and scientific manner.

• The present study contemplated an exploratory research.

Statistical technique used: Analysis of data will be done by SPSS version 16 software. The various tests used to analyze the data will be Correlation, Cross Tabulation, Anova and Post Hoc Tukey Test (Table 1-7).

Table 1: Correlation between age group and usage of cosmeceutical product.

Table 2: Anova between the age group and the usage of cosmeceutical product.

Table 3: Cross tabulation between the income of the person and the monthly expenditure.

Table 4: Cross-tabulation between the age group and the monthly income of the person.

Table 4.1: Occupation wise distribution of respondents.

Table 5: Correlation between the income of the person and the monthly expenditure.

Table 6: Frequency table showing the usage of cosmeceutical products by males with their age groups.

Table 7: Consumption Pattern of cosmeceutical product in Metro cities and Tier –I cities.

The above table shows that there is significance between age group and the anti aging products, acne products, anti wrinkle products, sunscreen products and the fairness cream products. However there is no significance between the age group and the facial foams and cleaners and the day and night moisturizing creams. As shown in the above crosstabulation that specific age group prefer specific cosmeceutical product. But it was also observed that in case of facial forms and cleaners and the day and night moisturizing creams are used by almost all the age group people. But as far as most significance age group is concerned we say as per the above calculation that the age group between the ages 25 years to 30 years is the most significant one. When we did Anova between the age group and the type of cosmeceutical product we came to know that there is a variance between the age group since our calculated F value is more than the F table value of 0.05, significance level. Then we did Post Hoc Tukey Test to find out the variance between the groups. After doing Post Hoc Tukey we found that there is maximum variance between the age group 15 years to 20 years with the age group of above 40 years. Hence we can say that the cosmeceutical preferences of the young age group people are different from that of the older age group people. Finally after all the above analysis we can say that there is an influence of age group on the type of the cosmeceutical product. Hence we will reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis. (Hypothesis 1).

1. As per the above Table 6 we can say that males from the age group of 15 years to 30 years are mostly using the cosmeceutical products. This age group falls under the category of millennials and millennials are considered to be young generation. Hence we can say that cosmeceutical products are preferred by young males. So we will reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis. (Hypothesis 2).

2. The above Table 5 shows that there is a relationship between the monthly income of the person and the monthly expenditure of the person on the cosmeceutical product. Hence from here also we can conclude that higher income group people spending more on the cosmeceutical products. By doing all the above analysis we can say that there is a relationship between the monthly income of the person and his/her monthly expenditure on the cosmeceutical product. Hence we will reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis. (Hypothesis 3).

3. 81 out of 120 respondents are under the age 30. Out of 120 respondents 76 fall under the income below 30, 000 INR. An important factor under consideration is the fact that the young population in India (below 30 yrs) is around 60% (according to the census survey, Govt. of India 2001). Table 4.1 explains the occupational representation of the respondents. By doing crosstabulation as shown in Table 3 we can say that the most significant income group is the group of people which are having income of rupees 20000 to rupees 30000 per month. Within this income level we also found that the people of 25 years to 30 years spend more on their cosmeceutical products. This generation is known as millennials, as explained in Table 4. One more interesting finding which was noted during the study was that people who are on private job use more of these cosmeceutical products.

4. From the above Table 7 and by doing its analysis we found that the consumption of cosmeceutical products is more in Metro cities which is 54.05% when compared to the consumption in Tier-I cities which is 45.95%. But we can say that there is not much difference in the consumption pattern and people are becoming more aware about the cosmeceutical product usage so in near future the consumption pattern will surely increase in the Tier-I cities. Beside this reason another reason behind the increase in the consumption pattern is the increase in the disposable income of people in these Tier-I cities. This gives cosmeceutical companies an opportunities to market their products in these Tier-I cities with new strategies as per the requirement of this segment. When compared among all the cities consumption pattern the is maximum in Mumbai.

5. The above Table 8 indicates the influencing factors for specific type of cosmeceutical product type. From the table we can say that for day and Night Moisturizing Creams one is influenced by self or by parents or relatives. Male friend or Husband influences suns creams, wife or girlfriend influences the use of facial foams and cleaners, parlours influences the use of fairness creams, doctors are the influencer for anti aging products and for acne products as well and finally the advertising influences the use of ant wrinkle products.

Table 8: Influencing group for specific type of Cosmeceutical Product.

6. From the above Table 9 we can conclude that for 80.8 percent people covered under the study the products having multifunctionality is important and they want that their cosmeceutical product should do more for them at the same time and within their cost limit. Hence we can say the now a day multifunctional cosmeceutical products are more preferred by consumers.

Table 9: Importance of Multifunctional Cosmeceutical product.

7. If we want to find out which gender group prefer the multifunctional cosmeceutical product then by analyzing the above Table 10 we can say that females are more interested in using the multifunctional cosmeceutical products when compared to males. But there is not much difference between the two. So we can also say that both the gender group prefer using the multifunctional cosmeceutical product.

Table 10: Popularity of Multifunctional Product among gender.

8. Table 11 shows that the most important factor for consumers from the marketing mix is the product. When done ranking product is ranked as rank 1, price is ranked as rank 2, placement is ranked as rank 3 and promotion s ranked as rank 4.

Table 11: Ranking marketing mix variables according to consumer preferences.

9. Post Hoc Tukey Test shows variance between the groups. We found that there is maximum variance between the age group 15 years to 20 years with the age group of above 40 years (Table 12).

Table 12: Post Hoc Tukey test between age group and usage of cosmeceutical product.

In today’s scenario the cosmeceutical market is considered to be a Potential market for the cosmeceutical/Pharmaceutical companies. Due to the diversity in population and also having a large population India is supposed to be one of the emerging markets in the field of cosmeceutical products on this globe. This study tries to find out various influential factors that affects the consumption behaviour of consumers in terms of usage of cosmeceutical products. The study was carried out in six different cities of the Northern India among which three cities are the metro cities and three are tier-I cities. The cities covered under the study are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Jaipur and Patna. Among the various interesting findings one major finding is that the brand and price plays a very important role in consumption behaviour of consumers. There are various influencing factors also which influences the behaviour of a consumer [25]. One new finding in this study is that the consumers prefer multifunctional products when compared to specific focused products. The study was carried out since very limited research has been done in this particular field and cosmetic companies have not exact idea about the consumption behaviour of Indian consumers regarding cosmetic products. The findings of the study help cosmetic companies to make their strategies so as to capture this new emerging cosmeceutical market segment.