How joined-up semiotics and qual gave Shiseido a makeover in the UK

Jo Bowman

The Japanese beauty brand Shiseido had little traction among UK consumers, so it turned to semiotics and qualitative research to help it understand why and what to do about it.

The desk-based and largely isolated nature of semiotics means that even when it is “integrated” with other research methodologies, these tend to happen in parallel, with catch-ups at the beginning for a joint briefing, and at the end to discover any shared insights.

What Lucid and The Answer did for Shiseido, however, was integrated at multiple steps throughout the project, with researchers from both agencies mutually sharing feedback and suggestions during focus groups, meetings and – gasp – old-fashioned phone calls.

The project was designed to help Shiseido understand which of its brand assets produced in Japan, EMEA, the US...

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