According to Strauss and Frost (1999) coupons and contests are big business online.Therefore,consumer visiting the site expects the site to hold some contests online which is beneficial to the company as well like it helps firms to draw traffic and keep users returning,
4 Media Exposure:
Mc Quail (2004) suggests that different patterns of media experience leads to some activites.When a consumer visits Revlon website and wherein if he comes in contact with media, it may lead to some experience. This experience can be regarded as social integration, identifying with others, connecting with family& friends and gaining a sense of belongingness.
In view of Strauss and Frost (1999) consumers online join communities, post comments and send email to friends or chat online and discuss about the product online make customers happy and satisfied and leads to social integration.
5 Consequences:
Blumler and Katz (1974, p: 142 cited in Mc Quail 2004) believes that the consequences from media exposure leads to “unintended ones”. When consumer visits Revlon website, it is important to understand, whether his visit leads to some consequences. This can be regarded as entertainment like escaping or being diverted from the problems.
If Revlon site provides something exciting to the consumer, which will take him away from his set of problems and hold his thoughts, the user is bound to return again and again to the site.
Further, Berger (1995) suggests that several scholars have also supported that the use and gratification model is based on consumer sharing experience with different members, find distraction and diversion and gain information about the world. Rosengren (1974 cited in Rubin and Rubin 1985) believes that need and gratification begins with individual’s biological and sociological needs where human interacts with societal structure. Moreover, Rubin and Rubin (1985) suggest that use and gratification needs are human motives and needs for media use.
When use and gratification model is used to assess the Revlon website, a visitor will not find any personal identity with the site. In a survey done by Katz and Aspden (1997) showed that social and personal development was the key factor for using the internet. A visitor wants to visit the Revlon website to feel the sense of belongingness, to have social satisfaction which will lead to his personal identity as well. Currently, Revlon website does not offer these parameters to the audience.
In a survey done by Stafford, Stafford and Schkade (2004) suggest that the use and gratification is used to understand the motivation of the consumer to use the media. It is further said that consumers log on the net either for some information or entertainment. Secondly, consumer visits the website for playing games and browsing. Revlon provides information about the product but does not exploit it (i.e. how consumers can exchange this information with others). Another example is new nail enamel on Revlon product line.
The customer will not know about the product unless they visit another page of the website, which can be time consuming and he may loose interest about the product. Stafford, Stafford and Schkade (2004) suggest that Use and gratification provides knowledge about consumers (i.e. how interaction on the site can generate more consumers).
When this theory was applied to Revlon it proved that customers are not connected with each other. If consumers are connected with each other it would have generated more traffic to the website, because consumers interact on the website with others and thus word of mouth leads to more number of audiences.
2 FLOW OF INFORMATION
Csikszentmihalyi (1975, p. 36 cited in Rettie, 2001) states that flow is the “holistic experience that people feel when they act with total involvement”.Further, Hoffman and Novak (1996, p. 57 cited in Rettie, 2001) believes that flow is something which can stick you through.Further, it is said that flow can be attributed towards “repeat usage”. Which means, if a consumer is provided something exciting on the website, then probability of consumer visiting website again is very high?
In context of Revlon, a consumer visiting website wants to see something different, he wants to have an experience and if that does not happen, them the consumer will not visit the site again. Now, the question is, what Revlon is offering to the audience is very much same as any other website is offering. Revlon is offering a make up look which is not even personalized. This will not increase the traffic on the website and will not lead to consumer satisfaction. Currently, Revlon website is offering very minimal services. The site is not very flashy as it is one of the glamorous companies. Its competitors L’Oreal has flashy sites with lots of features (L’oreal.com) which are missing in Revlon.
In a survey done by Csikszentmihalyi (cited in Rettie, 2001) the research involves finding the flow of information was that older woman prefer that if there is interactivity on the site (i.e. if there is lots of things to do on the site they will prefer to go on that site again and again. But if there is no interactivity on the site it does not interest the consumer).
Revlon website offers very limited interactivity to the customers, which won’t help Revlon to attract new customers and provide satisfaction to old customers. Currently, Revlon site is offering e-mails to consumers. But do Consumers really bother about these e-mails.
Hoffman and Novak, 1997, Rettie, 2001, Smith and Shivkumar, 2004 (cited in Chaffey et al, 2006) believes that flow of information is important for site usability.Further, Chaffey et al,(2006) believes that flow for online marketing can be defined as information or experience, which consumer has when he moves from one page to another and also includes interactions like filling forms etc.When this theory was applied to Revlon website, it showed that navigating from one page to other is not difficult and is quite easy. But when it comes to interactivity Revlon cannot compete with L’Oreal as L’Oreal offers more tools for interactivity then Revlon.
Strauss and Frost (1999) suggest that customers want speed, convenience on top variety when they get from one page to another. Consumer does not want to spend their time on giving password on the net rather; they prefer to have user friendly method on the internet. This is important for the flow of information through the website. The more the website saves time and efforts of the consumer the more likely it is for the consumer to visit the site gain. This will help to increase the customer satisfaction and enhance interactivity on the
COMPETITIOR ANALYSIS
Revlon is beauty care Product Company for woman. Its main direct competitors are L’Oreal, Maybelline. According to Chaffey et al (2006) benchmarking competitors website should be based on companies marketing performance, financial performance, marketing communication techniques and services offered. In context of interactivity, marketing communications techniques and services offered should be taken into account for competitors analysis.
L’OREAL
1 FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
- Current sales performance, sales trends sales through website etc.
- Presently, L’Oreal has achieved sales which are 8.7% higher than last years.(loreal.com)
2 MARKETING COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES
- Online purchase available.
- Customer interaction through personalized make up looks, discussion with other members game and online survey, poll etc (loreal.com)
- RSS feed and Widget feed availability on the site.
3 SERVICES OFFERED
- Technical Information available
- Supporting world AIDS organization.
- Supporting women in science
- Good speed, easy navigation (Loreal.com), Flashy site with good design.
MAYBELLINE
1 FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
- Subsidiary of L’Oreal and sales are up.
2 MARKETING COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES
- Certain type of games available wherein customer can win. Thus creating interaction.
- Current style trends on the website.
- Product information and online purchase.
3 SERVICES OFFERED
- Technical Information about the products available.
- Interactivity through personalized style and make up look.
- Navigation bit difficult as customer will take time to find out what he needs.
- Good Speed.
In comparison to above competitiors, Revlon is far behind on interactivity on the website. Revlon has some limitations like
- RSS feed and Widget feed missing or is not available
- Interaction through games, polls missing on the site.
- Chat forums missing in Revlon website.
Based on the above analysis, the recommendations are made for Revlon to come up to its competitors. Revlon’s competitors have strong interactivity on the website which Revlon is lacking, therefore, future recommendations are set so that Revlon also increases its interactivity on the website and increases the customer satisfaction and interaction.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After analyzing Revlon website and the competitors. The following recommendations are made which will help Revlon to understand its customer needs and leads to customer satisfaction through interactive media. In view of Avery, Calder and Iacobucci (1998), interactive media has enormous growth. It is used to identify customer needs, sharing of information and creating an experience for the customer.
According to Borges, Couto, Natario and Braga (2007), the range of online communication tool is growing with way of support and involving customers and communicating between one to many. In view of Hoffman, Novak, Schlosser, 2000 and Constantinides (2002 cited in Borges et al,2007) internet is not only a place which represents company’s image. The main aim of the internet is to attract more customers and changing occasional visitors to prospective customers.
With the support of above theories, the below are some of the recommendation to Revlon in order to increase their interactivity on the website, thus it will help to satisfy customers and will help to identify prospective clients as well.
1 ONLINE FORUMS
Revlon presently, has no forums (imediacommunication, 2004).Revlon should develop forums which will help customers to interact with each other and with organization also. Chaffey et al(2006) suggests that forums are the means to promote the services of the website. It is a way of connecting to the community. According to Howard (2000) it is essential for a company to innovate on the internet by hosting on line forums, stage on line contest, live messages etc.Loreal, which is the direct competitor of Revlon, has forum, where customer can post their comments, chat with each other, participate in polls, LOreal has online live discussion forum as well (LOreal.com).
According to Siegel (2006), forums are an effective way of communicate online and sharing information with people. He has provided an example of Kraft Foods interactive Kitchen where consumers share recipes and email their comments on the site.
The best example for forums is YouTube, where customer can leave their comment, can discuss videos with members. Revlon should start opinion poll service, live discussion, sharing of videos on their website.
Even though Revlon has certain blogs on search engines but they do not belong to the website. Customers will not find blogs in search engines to post comment, they will visit website to do so.
2 Blogs
One of the most common tools for interactive communication is blogging. Blogs can be defined as webpages which are developed or used online for publishing web pages. These Blogs have comments and feedback form which makes consumer feel good. Blogs are also gets comments from other sites as well. These have been successful in media environment (Chaffey et al, 2006).
According to Business Blog Consulting customers feel that Revlon should come with blogs where women can discuss their product research, can share good piece of information with other women and even develop online community. Revlon website should start Blog for its customers where they feel that they are involved in company. They can share information about recent style, trends across the world.
In view of Russo (2007) where the power of blog can be known is from Perez Hilton’s celebrity gossip blogger where he has created a blog which he constantly updates, makes his readers involved by publishing gossips, pictures. Revlon should form a blog which should focus on beauty and cosmetic tips given by its celebrity endorser and consumer can ask questions, post comments about beauty and cosmetics and to create positive effect of their services through these blogs. Revlon should also start competition games for beauty and cosmetic quiz type and then reward the audiences according to some points
3 RSS FEED
According to Chaffey et al (2006) RSS feed are similar to blogs, here subscriber can receive news, or any type of content .Unlike email; it does not have a risk of spam. Therefore, Revlon should include RSS feed to their website for their customers.RSS feed is done by Revlon’s direct competitor L’Oreal, thereby satisfying more customers and providing something advantage to the consumer.
Companies which are trying to experiment with RSS feed have been able to attract more customers. Online big players see RSS feed an important way of attracting customer (Wall street Journal, 2005).BBC and Diet Coke (Brandweek, 2005) are also using RSS feed because they wanted to give customers good service and delivered news.
According to Industry sources, RSS feeds will be available through mobile and other devices (ADweek, 2005) thus it will help to reach large number of consumers. Therefore, it is evident that RSS feed will be new technological innovation to attract customers. Revlon customers can receive personalized beauty news about their skin type, products that will suit them.
5 Social Networking:
Salz (2006) states that new online communication tools are coming up which will connect people based on their knowledge and talent. Social networking will be the biggest change in the communication industry. Social networking will help people to share information and common interests.
Revlon should also start community which can be a social networking for its customers where some games can be played by members with reward points. Social networking will involve customer inviting their friends which will help in word of mouth advertising.Thus, helping Revlon to gain more customers.
Social networking can also be in form of discussion, in the forms of wikis, blogs etc. and giving free information and exchange of ideas within a group through instant messages, chats and web conferencing (Gunther, 2005).Revlon should focus on RSS feed and should start this service on their website to attract more customers and increase their customer base.
Hoffman and Novak (1998) developed a model on the interactivity which focused on communication between one-to-one person, group to group communication like online chat rooms, teleconference etc.This model is used for developing word of mouth communication because of the person interactivity.
The above are some of the recommendations for Revlon which Revlon can implement on its site to enhance customer satisfaction and to increase customer base. Revlon’s site at present compared to its competitors like L’Oreal and Maybelline has not very refreshing site whereas the Revlon being a glamorous company needs site that shows its mission and goals. Currently, design of site is very dull and does not show any glamorous outlook.
Therefore, Revlon needs to change the design of site to make it glamorous and equal to its competitors. The main motive of the website is to improve its communication tools which help Revlon to outrage its competitors,thus providing satisfaction and interactivity on the website.
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