Introduction
I remembered that when I first heard the word “organic”, back to the day of my childhood, I was confused, just the same with my parents, my peers, and most people around me. The fact is the concept of organic, which people are familiar with today, rose from the west in the 20th century. The term “organic farming” is first mentioned by Lord Northbourne in his book in 1940. At that time, Chinese people were experiencing a series of wars, and for the future 40 years, China was under a relatively undeveloped condition. There is a gap in their awareness of the concept of organic between Chinese people and Western people. Also, as a native mandarin speaker, I realized that the word “organic”, when translated to Chinese, is kind of confusing and not very intuitive in our language environment. It is very easy to confuse it with terms like “natural”. Even after I learned about the concept of organic, I still occasionally forgot about the difference between them. I am curious about whether an ordinary consumer could distinguish the word organic from a group of similar words. I am also wondering if Chinese consumers understand what the idea of organic skincare is about. If they don’t, how could I explain and propagandize it, or if they do, do they care about it, are they willing to pay for this idea when it is applied to skincare? To get answers to such questions, I decided to deliver a survey.
Quantitative Research
The survey has 8 multiple-choice questions and has been answered by 539 Chinese consumers in different regions who are between 20-40 years old. Most of the participants are from the east coast while others are from the middle area.
Question 1 shows that about 70% of the participants cannot distinguish between the term “natural” and “organic”, which coincide with my previous thinking. This indicates that I would need to explain not only what organic means but also how is it different from similar or confused terms in Chinese to my stakeholders.
Question 2 shows that only 23.56% of participants clearly understand the idea of organic skincare. This indicates that most of the Chinese consumers might not have a correct awareness of organic skincare.
Question 3 shows that the top 3 factors that affect the participants when selecting skincare products are price, side effects, and brand. The bad news is that most of the participants do not care enough about the ingredients, packaging, and whether the product is environmentally friendly. This means that I would need to spend more time figuring out how to raise their awareness of these issues. But the good news is that 53.06% of the participants show strong care for the product’s side effects. When propagandizing the concept of organic skincare, it is a good idea to mention how organic skincare products, compared to traditional skincare products, would be safer to use and less risky regarding the side effect. It might also be a good idea to choose products that will be used for propaganda from those popular brands which have a strong effect.
Question 4
Most of the participants (62.15%) use Xiaohongshu as their primary source for getting new cosmetics-related information. When choosing an online platform for my intervention, Xiaohongshu would probably be my first choice.
Question 5
About 62% of participants do think that organic skincare products have actual advantages, and 16.33% are not sure. This is good news, as it will be easier to convey the concept to people who already admitted some advantages of it. I may need to prepare a detailed explanation about the idea behind organic skincare and its benefits to convince those who do not have enough understanding about it. And hopefully, I can convince some of the people that think organic skincare is just a gimmick.
Question 6
54.17% of the participants are willing to switch from traditional skincare products to organic skincare products to reduce the risk of getting skin issues. Again, it will be very important to mention, when propagandizing the concept of organic skincare, how organic skincare products would be safer to use and less likely to cause skin issues.
Question 7
When considering participants in a propaganda event, most people prefer art exhibitions (80.15%) and social media sharing (89.61%). Therefore, these would probably be my primary choices for the form of my intervention.
Question 8
Most of the participants prefer products with middle-range prices (250-800 RMB) when choosing organic skincare products. When selecting products for propaganda, product in this price range should be the primary choices.
Conclusion
I got a lot of useful information through collecting the result of this survey. Although there are still some difficulties, the result is better than I thought. Chinese consumers are no different from others, they cared about their skin and environment just as everyone else. It is just that they do not have a clear understanding of the concept of organic skincare. And my mission is to deliver this information to them and educate them about the benefits associated. I once again realized that what I am doing is meaningful. But one thing that I should remember is that this survey, just like any other survey, is biased. It does not represent the whole picture of Chinese consumers. For instance, as you can see, consumers from a lot of regions are missing. Hence, it is possible that the reality is different from the result of the survey. I should be ready for the challenges ahead.