Shiseido’s new brand WASO launches in US next month

By Deanna Utroske

- Last updated on GMT

WASO skin care (image courtesy of Shiseido)
WASO skin care (image courtesy of Shiseido)

Related tags Skin care Vice president Generation y

The skin care product line, tailored to meet the needs and expectations of millennials, somehow manages to encompass nearly every trend associated with this unique generation of beauty consumers.

As of July, the portfolio of seven WASO skin care products will be available in the US. Shiseido is launching its new brand in Asia at the same time. And over the course of this year and next, the company will introduce WASO in even more regions around the world.

The skin care line comprises cleanser, moisturizers, lotion, etc. made with ingredients such as carrot, loquat leaf, soy lecithin, white jelly mushroom, and honey.

Regional focus

Shiseido has been giving increasingly more attention to the Americas market, especially over the last year since the company opened its 22,000 square foot Americas Innovation Center in New Jersey​. The center was created to cater to this region in particular but at the same time to meet the corporate goal of leveraging “100 years of cutting edge research and development to create products that deliver incredible results, marketed in new and innovative ways that are relevant to our consumers around the world,” ​as Masahiko Uotani, president and group CEO explained at the center’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Global effort

Last May when Cosmetics Design spoke with Katsunori Yoshida​, the executive vice president of the company’s new Americas Innovation Center, he noted that many product solutions in the global beauty marketplace can be universal and added that basic skin care is the best example.

The new WASO brand looks as if it was contrived to be precisely one of these universally appealing skin care lines. “Designed for Millennials, the range has been crafted with authenticity at its core,” ​submits Shiseido in a media release about the new skin care brand. “Through WASO, Shiseido is redefining beauty – empowering Millennials to feel beautiful in their own skin whatever their gender, nationality, age or status.”

Local appeal

While the new WASO skin care collection has close ties to Japan and Shiseido’s Japanese heritage, the company is positioning the brand for success in several local markets outside that country.

This is possible in part because of the idiosyncratic composition of millennial identity. This generation—which came of age in a global, digital culture—values both individuality and homogenization. And it’s that premise upon which Shiseido is able to create a brand that comes across as locally relevant wherever it lands. WASO manages to be simultaneously personal and universal.  

“We believe that true beauty defies stereotypes and we believe in the power of the individual and the power of nature,” ​notes the company in its media release about the brand.

To deliver on its promise of millennial appeal, WASO features intriguing color- and texture-changing products; simple, modern packaging and label designs; distinctively subtle product colors ranging from what has become the generation’s signature pink shade to hues of blue, green, yellow, and orange of similar color value; ingredients rooted in both nature and tradition; as well as marketing language and tech that speaks uniquely to millennial consumers.

Related topics Brand Innovation Skin Care Packaging

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