I have recently had the opportunity to work on the regional insights and actions for one of my favorite skin moisturizing brand Cetaphil. Please enjoy the read, and if you would like, leave any comments

Summary

• Insights: In Japan and South Korea, Cetaphil will need to invest additional resources to increase presence both in the search and social media space against its competitors that include Cerave. 
  • Other competitors such as Nivea, Vaseline and Neutrogena are also competitive in the market.
    • Search: Nivea has the strongest presence.  
    • Social Media: Cetaphil has the strongest presence in South Korea but the brands have not yet fully explored the space in Japan. 
• There is certainly a growing and untapped opportunity for skin moisturizer in the Japan market in both search and social media space.
  • This is seen by the search interest trends and the related tweet volume and their sentiments.
• Actions: Investment in online media exposure that include media, videos, social media space etc. will not only give Cetaphil the opportunity to improve online exposure and sentiment but also will practically improve organic search rankings in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) to gain visibility of the search audience. 

Insights

Search

Japan

• Skin moisturizer in Japanese is showing a growing interest in the market especially for the past 10 years indicating significant opportunity.

Data source: Google Trends

• Cetaphil has stronger interest compared to Cerave.
  • Other competitors such as Vaseline, Nivea and Neutrogena are also actively competing in the market.
    • Japanese search query for Nivea has the strongest search interest which indicates that the brand has a strong local presence. 

Data source: Google Trends

• SEO competitive analysis: 
  • Nivea followed by Vaseline has the strongest domain authority as well as the volume of backlinks. These may indicate the fact that these two brands have been investing in their resources in being present in high quality online media. 
  • Cetaphil was not found in the top 100 ranking of the query term skin moisturizer in Japanese.  
    • Kanebo which is a niche local brand is also noted in the table and the chart for reference. 
    • Cerave which does not have a Japan market focused site, is included below for reference only. 

Brand	URL	Region	Domain Rating	Backlinks	Referring Domains
Cetaphil	https://www.cetaphil.jp/	Japan	37	501	147
Neutrogena	https://www.neutrogena.jp/	Japan	39	1,231	210
Kanebo	https://www.kanebo-global.com/jp/ja/	Japan	41	4,026	177
Vaseline	https://www.vaseline.jp/	Japan	49	1,932	353
Nivea	https://www.nivea.co.jp/	Japan	55	7,686	1,032
Cerave	https://www.cerave.com/	Worldwide	68	171,453	3,447

Data source: Ahrefs

Data source: Ahrefs

Data source: Ahrefs

South Korea

• As with Japan, Cetaphil has a stronger search interest compared to Cerave. 
• Also as with Japan, other competitors such as Nivea Neutrogena Cerave are in the market as well where Nivea seems to have a stronger interest from the audience. 

Data source: Google Trends

• Skin moisturizer in Korean has a consistent interest in the market. Trends need to be monitored for new opportunities. 

Data source: Google Trends

• SEO competitive analysis:
  • Nivea has the strongest domain authority as well as the volume of backlinks. This may indicate the fact that the brand has been investing in their resources in being present in high quality media online. 
  • Cetaphil was not found on the top 100 ranking for the keyword skin moisturizer in Korean. 
    • Cerave which does not have a South Korea market focused site, is included below for reference only. 

Brand	URL	Region	Domain	Backlinks	Referring Domains
Cetaphil	https://www.cetaphil.co.kr/	South Korea	19	676	35
Neutrogena	https://www.neutrogena.co.kr/	South Korea	9	1,028	80
Nivea	https://www.nivea.co.kr/	South Korea	21	1,095	143
Cerave	https://www.cerave.com/	Worldwide	68	171,554	3,450

Data Source: Ahrefs

Social Media

Japan

• Overall, Cetaphil as well as its competitors have not yet fully implemented their social media strategies locally leaving lots of opportunities for Cetaphil to grow its presence locally in the space. 
  • Cerave, Cetaphil’s competitor, is in the table for reference only as the brand does not have a local social media account. 
• Neutrogena has the largest audience locally in the social media space: Facebook (5,267,550 likes and 5,276,584 follows), Instagram (1,953) and Youtube (282).  However, their last posts on Facebook and Instagram were back in 2018.
• Nivea has the highest number of followers on Twitter (87,100) followed by Vaseline (267). However, their last tweets were back in 2020 and 2017 respectively.
  

Brand	Region	Facebook (Likes)	Facebook (Follow)	Twitter	Instagram	Youtube	Pinterest	Line
Cetaphil	Japan	981	1,037		1,226
Kanebo	Japan	513,799	514,127	49,000	31,000			235,625
Cerave	Worldwide	548,525	553,431	31,400	402,000	8,610	4,700
Neutrogena	Japan	5,276,550	5,276,584		1,953	282
Vaseline	Japan			267	346
Nivea	Japan			87,100	4,492

• 52% positive sentiment in the Twitter space for the tweet skin moisturizer shows opportunities for the brands to enter into the space to gain market share. 
• There were more tweets that included Cetaphil in Japanese than Cerave in Japanese in the past 30 days but the positive sentiment leveled at 75%. 
• Nivea in Japanese did not do very well in the past 30 days on Twitter in terms of volume and positive sentiment which was 61%. 
  • Kanebo Cream in Japanese had 84% positive sentiment but with a similar volume of tweets as Cetaphil.

Charts from Yahoo Japan Realtime Search below show the tweet volumes and sentiment for the past 30 days 

South Korea

• As with Japan, Cetaphil as well as its competitors have not yet fully implemented their social media strategies locally leaving lots of opportunities for Cetaphil to grow its presence in the space. 
• Cetaphil has the largest audience in the social media space and is active: Facebook (65,510 Likes, 64,648 Follows), Instagram (17,000) and Youtube (1,080), and has been actively posting throughout 2020 and 2021 so far. 

Brand	Region	Facebook (Likes)	Facebook (Follow)	Twitter	Instagram	Youtube	Pinterest
Neutrogena	South Korea					18,500
Cetaphil	South Korea	65,510	64,648		17,000	1,080
Nivea	South Korea				49,000
Cerave	Worldwide	548,525	553,431	31,400	402,000	8,610	4,700

Actions

• To work on increasing media exposure, earn quality backlinks, which will lead to higher search presence.  
  • Partnership with influential bloggers, local media, social media influencers etc..
• To work on social media exposure and engagement through regular tweets, posting listening to the audience. 
  • Cetaphil has an opportunity to grow in Japan and should continue to post as well as expand to Twitter, Youtube, PInterest and Line to grow its social media presence. 
  • In South Korea, Cetaphil has the chance to continue to gain share by regular posting and expansion to other social media platforms.

Data source

Google Trends https://trends.google.com/trends/

Ahrefs https://ahrefs.com/

Yahoo Japan Real Time Search https://search.yahoo.co.jp/realtime