The Body Shop vs. Lush

Being a skin-care fanatic, I am always on the lookout for natural, gentle, healthy, and ethical beauty and skin-care products. Two companies that both produce top-quality products and promote ethical business standards are The Body Shop and Lush. I have chosen these two to compare in terms of their internet marketing practices. Also being a loyal Lush user myself, I will do my best to stay bias-free during this competition (but no guarantees). 

The Body Shop was founded by Anita Roddick in 1976 and is based in England. It was purchased by L'Oréal in March of 2006 for £652.3 million, or $1.1 billion. There are 2,500 stores over 61 different countries, and the brand is well-known globally for its fair trade efforts. Its mantra is, “Beauty with Heart,” and its values include fighting animal testing, supporting community fair trade, activating self esteem, defending human rights, and protecting the planet.

Lush was founded by the husband and wife team of Mark and Mo Constantine, also in the UK. The first store opened in Poole by the name of Cosmetic to Go in 1994.  In the 1970s, Mark, a herbal trichologist, was actually a supplier to Anita Roddick’s The Body Shop until she decided to make more products herself. This interesting relationship explains the similarities of the two brands, like their ethical trade standards.

Websites:

The Body Shop’s website is bright and colorful while still using natural colors. There is an easy-to-use navigation at the top linking new products, gifts, bath and body, skin care, makeup, hair, etc. I really love the grassy background they have used to create an earthy atmosphere in a virtual setting.

Lush’s website is much edgier. There is more black and white being used rather than color and the brand often uses alternative models. Alternative models are those who have unconventional looks, such as being pierced and tattooed. Also, Lush uses a greater amount of images in the website, rather than a lot of words. The home page has a scrolling slideshow of different products and how to use them.

Both websites are very easy to navigate and have a simple look with equally simple and hip font. The websites also stress the natural ingredients used in the products and their values, like fighting animal testing.

Search Engine Optimization:

The Body Shop has 4,455 inbound links according to Hubspot’s marketing grader, and 727,000,000 results on Google. Lush has 3,188 inbound links to its site for the USA, and 23,200,000 results on Google.

When it comes to search engine optimization, The Body Shop definitely takes the cake. Judging by this information, it would seem as though The Body Shop has a bigger online presence…

Social Media:

As soon as we turn our heads to social media, however, we see a different side of the story.

The Body Shop has 377,773 likes on Facebook while Lush has 608,036 likes. On Twitter, The Body Shop has 33,500 followers, but Lush has 111,000 followers. On Pinterest, The Body Shop has 5,852 followers and Lush has 23,100. On Instagram, The Body Shop has 9,165 followers compared to Lush’s 316,931. Finally, The Body Shop has 5,683 subscribers on Youtube and Lush has 13,074.

Now looking that their presence in social media, it is easy to see that Lush is more dominant here.

Marketing Grader:

According to Hubspot’s Marketing Grader, both companies scored 70 out of 100. The Body Shop has more tweets to its homepage than Lush (1,646 compared to Lush’s 938), but it can also be noted that Lush replied to 100% of its last ten tweets, while The Body Shop only replied to half. Also, Lush only took 25 minutes to reply to the tweets while The Body Shop took five hours. Lush appears to be much more active on Twitter.

The Marketing Grader advised that both companies start a blog, but Lush actually has one featured on its website. Perhaps if the Grader caught this blog, Lush’s score may have been higher than The Body Shop.

Conclusion:

Let’s summarize the scores between our two companies. They tied in the website competition, and The Body Shop won in search engine optimization. Lush was the winner in social media presence, and their Marketing Grader scores were tied although I would argue that Lush actually won that one too. Overall, I believe Lush is doing a better job online. The Body Shop, being owned by L'Oréal, is a bigger brand, but Lush is truly connecting to its customers through internet marketing.