Negative Product Reviews are Good for Your Brand
If you're steward of a beauty brand, you've probably had chest pains when a Total Beauty e-newsletter titled "Best & Worst Shampoos" (or Moisturizers, or Eye Creams) lands in your inbox.
But wait. Change hats for a minute -- think as a consumer, as you do on the weekends when you're away from the office. That's when you crave that "360 degree" perspective -- you want to know what other shoppers have rated well, and what products aren't rating well. It's democracy and transparency in action.
Believe it or not, this phenomenon isn't only good for consumers. It's great for brands too. Let me tell you why.
Your Brand Isn't Alone
Take the example of the top five brands on TotalBeauty.com's Share of Audience report here. Let's draw a line in the sand and classify "below 7" as a negative rating; you can see that four of them have a negative rating on at least 10 percent of their products.
So if the big guys have a 15 percent negative-review rate, who's doing better -- who's at 3, 2, 1 percent? Well, below are TotalBeauty.com's highest-rated brands (of brands with 100+ products). And three of them, too, have negatives on 10 percent of their products.
Law of Relativity
Consumers aren't naive. They know certain products you launch won't perform as they'd hoped, and they're not surprised to see negative product reviews. But what is surprising is this -- seeing those negative reviews highlighted on TotalBeauty.com gives consumers absolute faith in products that are positively reviewed here. Survey data backs this up loud and clear:
We asked 9,000+ consumers: Do you trust reviews on TotalBeauty.com more or less than reviews in other publications or websites?
54% said they trusted reviews on TotalBeauty.com somewhat or significantly more
42% said the trusted them the same
4% said they trusted them less
Moral to the story? Negative reviews must exist for consumers to trust your positive reviews -- the halo surrounding your 90 percent of highly-rated products on TotalBeauty.com shines more brightly because of them.
Magazines or websites that publish only positive reviews don't inspire this level of trust in consumers.
Negative Reviews Rally Your Loyalists
An added perk of this new era of consumer involvement -- it enlists your most loyal customers to do your marketing. Nothing lights a fire under brands' most die-hard, vocal fans like negative product reviews. It's the #2 driver of reviews on our site (#1 is a very good or very bad product experience). Loyalists come in and try to teach or correct others, often touting another product by that brand that might work better -- thus turning fans into superfans.
I've Walked in Your Shoes
And why should you trust what I say? Because I've lived on your side before.
As Digital Brand Manager for Global Cosmetics at Procter & Gamble, I pushed to introduce user reviews on Covergirl.com. Senior management had very real concerns that negative reviews would hurt the brand.
After several months of debate, we did it -- in the end what convinced them was the simple understanding that users are going to review our products regardless of whether we allow it. The decision before us then simply became, do we allow ourselves to be part of the conversation -- or do we put our fingers in our ears and pretend we can't hear it?
I challenge you with the same question.
- Emrah Kovacoglu, Founder and CEO, Total Beauty Media, Inc.
