Belo-led ISCI to unveil more skin whitening product lines

CEBU, Philippines - The Belo-led Intelligent Skin Care Inc., (ISCI) announced to introduce more skin whitening product lines, encouraged by the brand’s good performance year-on-year since it started to capture the consumer market five years ago.

In an interview with ISCI marketing manager Lerms Sta. Cruz-Mendoza, she admitted the fierce competition in the skin whitening market, while the multinational brands are spending gigantic budget for promotion, stores’ prominent shelf location, among others.

Mendoza said the Belo Group, through ISCI is constantly investing on research and development (R&D) to introduce more products that suits the Filipino, as well as Asian consumers, in terms of skin care, and skin whitening, under the Belo Essentials brand.

The company recently launched in Cebu its version of “under-arm care,” the Belo Beauty Deo, and the Belo Underarm Whitening Cream.

According to Mendoza, aside from skin whitening that can be aided by body lotion, beauty soap bar, and through its nutraceutical products that offers the key benefits of glutathione plus collagen, the company has noted the growing number of market seeking for the right and proper solutions to under-arm whitening.

Aside from introducing more whitening product lines, that will add to its existing portfolio, Mendoza said the Group has also invested on re—packing and improving the efficacy of its available products which have now improved formulations to fulfill its promise of an almost instant whitening solutions.

While the Belo Essential brand has successfully captured considerable market in the Philippines in the bottleneck skin care product competition, Mendoza said the brand has also saw a good performance in its export trade in the last few years.

At present, Belo Essential products are available in major countries in the world, such as Middle East, United States, Southeast Asia, Micronesia continent, among others.

In a report released by the Euromonitor International, it indicated that skin care market in the Philippines is seen to grow by US$915.4 million in the next four years.

Euromonitor, which is a research firm for consumer markets, further added that nourishers or anti-aging products recorded the most vibrant performance fueled by an influx of affordable brands which attract the middle-income customer based.

Base on the survey, the Philippine consumer now a-days become more discerning in terms of skin care, thus manufacturers are challenged to continue to upgrade their product lines by introducing much more effective products which make use of the new advances in skin care technology.

Unlike before, the survey further indicated that Philippine consumers also became more conscious about the brand of skin care product they are using. 

“Consumers mostly rely on the availability of information online and pay more attention to product labelling and information detailing—the technology used in the development of particular product,” the report said.

According to Mendoza, the battle now in the skin care industry in the country, is not in terms of quality, because local brands can compete and even surpass the quality compared to that of foreign names, and multinational brands, but investment in product availability and prominence in the store shelves has become the major battleground for brand manufacturers.

Distribution channels, like the big supermarket, or wellness chains require big investment for the shelf prominence of the brands. Local manufacturers with limited capital allocations for in-store promotions are always left behind by the giant brands.

“The store-level war is very challenging,” Mendoza said adding that despite the in-store battle, some local brands, like Belo Essentials have been able to compete head on with the multinational names in skin care industry.

The Visayas contributes about 30 percent of the total sales revenue for Belo Essentials in the few years. Mendoza said because of the brand’s quality, the share is growing significantly.

Two years ago, Belo Essentials only had 3,000 distribution network in the country. Now, it has over 5,000 retail outlets that carry its products.

ISCI, a subsidiary of Belo Medical Group, is continually formulating programs to intensify branding patronage especially in the whitening lines, including face cream, toner, including the beauty and dietary supplements.

ISCI introduced its initial line of beauty products in second quarter of 2007. It easily achieved 48 percent growth a year after, reaping close a billion pesos sales performance. (FREEMAN)