Social Listening- Bath & Body Works

 

       Bath & Body Works is a pretty popular brand known for its good fragrances and body care. It seems people have been having problems with their car fresheners and house fresheners destroying paint or their dashes. It seams to leak out and then take off whatever paint or wood it sits on. On the bright side Bath & Body Works will pay for the damages but I would not recommend these to buy. An esthetician on TikTok also does not think their products are good for you either. I personally have researched this a bit and the lotions with shea butter or vitamins in it seem to be the healthiest to use. The stronger odored ones such as "Sunflower" are not good for your skin, they may smell nice but not worth it. As usual people love the Dupes, Shea Butter Hand Creams, Lotions, and Candles. Another thing I noticed is they are now producing hair care items. Again they smell nice, however are not good and they can lead to hair loss or oily hair.

   

     

    Bath & Body Works interested me because I used it a lot in both middle school and high school. I love their Candles, Lotions and Body Washes. My parents even got me their whole sleep/ relax kit for me for one of my birthdays in high school because of the stress I was under and the scents have always helped calm me down. I also get my best friend their lotions for birthdays and such because they are allergic to many other chemicals in lotions.

    Bath and body works message from their CEO is that they were founded on a simple idea: Make the world a brighter, happier place through the power of fragrance. Which they are definitely doing with their colorful advertising and scents. Maybe a bit much at times, because for some people the stores aroma can cause headaches due to all the different strong smells.

    Marketing wise I think they are doing good with their presence on Instagram and TikTok because they are able to show their products in a not so "in your face" way like on their website. The first thing that pops up on their website is an ad. We all know at this point ads don't work we just find the "X" and move on. The next thing is their website makes it hard to find what their company is about or anything with how they care for their customers. This just makes it another online shop with nothing special about it. If you look on their TikTok they do have videos on what candles go with certain activities like the "Danbury Shortbread" candle is perfect for a tea-break. They also have a new bridal collection which can catch peoples eyes that are looking at these kinds of activities in their near future. I think their website definitely needs an update and they as a company need to be more attentive to what their customers are saying in their feeds. They respond well on their own pages but not on other peoples posts or videos.

    If I were a manager I would show their products also in a less "posh" way, so that more everyday people can relate and see how the product works. I would also take our customers criticisms better, keeping it in mind and maybe bringing it up to the CEO that we should make the products less damaging to our customers property. You can see examples of what I mean by this in the videos I have cited above. Also I would take action to correct the hair care issues by responding to our customers with an apology and promising a fix will be made quickly. This would be a better response to the situation than the one they're actually taking, which is seemingly just ignoring their customer base.

        I learned that though they are a popular brand famous for their unique scents, not all their products are as safe as I once thought which is unfortunate. Also updating your advertising and website is much needed to continue being a successful brand. Responding to your customers while being able to take their criticism into consideration is also very important, and not to be taken for granted.