May 19, 2012. Paul Hixon
Free makeup samples work like any other type of free product sample. They help get consumers interested in a new product.
However, they can only convince those consumers to become customers if they end up fulfilling their expectations. Free makeup samples of low quality can only hurt a company as they will convince consumers not to bother with that company’s line of products.
Consumers typically have to contend with this kind of issue when they try out makeup products that were not formulated with them in mind. These consumers may be dark-skinned women living in a society where most women are light-complexioned. It so happens that businesses go out of their way to cater to the largest possible market for their products. Therefore, a company producing items for this society would likely manufacture makeup products that were best suited for light-complexioned women. They would probably ignore the darker-skinned demographic of that population, expecting them to simply use what the lighter-skinned women were using. As a result, the darker-skinned women would be displeased with the product and they would consider it sub-par.
If the company in question was explicit in publicizing the fact that its makeup products were for lighter-complexioned women, none of this would be an issue. It would be clear that they were appealing to a sub-section of the population to buy its products. But if it made it seem like its products were suitable for “all women”, this would backfire on them. Their product would likely meet the needs of the people for whom it was formulated, but it obviously would not meet the needs of anybody else who tried out the free product samples. This would likely create bad press for the product and, by extension, for the company.
The moral of this story is that companies should, by all means, avoid false advertising. It is fine if their products do not work for everybody, as long as they are honest about that. They are better off manufacturing a product that works excellently for a small niche and receives accolades for that than they are manufacturing a product that tries to meet the needs of several niches and fails.
To conclude, makeup products, and most other manufactured products for that matter, are best designed for and marketed to niches in the population. A good business will not try to please all the people all the time. Rather, it will do its best to please the people to whom it can best cater most of the time. These are the people to whom it should aim to distribute its free makeup samples.
Updated May 19, 2012. Published November 21, 2011. Paul Hixon
