In Singapore, sales have ballooned from $2 million in 1999, when
it opened a counter in Isetan, to $25 million last year.
Intensive promotion, with TV and print advertisements featuring
celebrities like Hong Kong star Sammi Cheng and China-born model Qi
Qi, have helped SK-II. The initials stand for 'Secret Key' while
'II' stands for the brand's belief in combining nature with
technology.
Last year, the brand with a 30-item range edged out big names to
clinch the trophy for 'prestige' skincare product from the
Association of Perfumes and Cosmetics Distributors in
Singapore.
Based on stores' reported sales, SK-II also outsold rivals in all
nine department stores it had counters in last year, making it the
No. 1 skincare brand in the prestige cosmetics market.
Officials from the brand say that of its 60,000-strong clientele in
Singapore, eight in 10 are aged 20 to 39. Most are women earning
between $2,000 and $6,000 a month.
SK-II's secret, says its maker, is Pitera, a patented yeast which
the brand claims can bring back the skin's natural balance.
In Singapore, a 150ml bottle of essence containing 90 per cent
Pitera costs $149 - just about a dollar a drop. It is not cheap,
but P&G claims that one bottle is sold in the world every 28
seconds.
FOR YOUR SAKE, HERE'S THE SECRET
PITERA, the money-spinning yeast, was discovered by American
cosmetics firm Max Factor three decades ago.
Back in the 1970s, a dye commonly used in cosmetics and sold by
many brands left many women in Japan with blotchy faces.
Much was made of this in the media. In the aftermath of the hooha,
cosmetics brands operating in Japan, including Max Factor from the
US, scrambled to find alternative natural ingredients.
Mr Takashi Yoshii, 53, was one of a five-member team involved in
the hunt. Now SK-II's technical marketing manager, he and his team
decided to check out an old Japanese saying that sake brewers had
beautiful hands.
They staked out tightly-knit and often secretive family-owned
breweries to see if there was a secret ingredient that resulted in
the brewers having such glowing skin on their hands.
Sake is made from ingredients like water, rice and yeast.
Five years later, the team came up with a yeast strain, isolated
from the alcohol, that could be used on the face.
In 1980, Max Factor launched an essence in Japan under the Secret
Key II trademark. It was sold for the same price as today - a hefty
15,000 yen a bottle.
But the line did not make a splash until P&G acquired Max
Factor in 1991 as part of a global move into the cosmetics
business.
P&G, which has a US$138 billion market capitalisation, has
about 300 brands in over 140 countries, ranging from Camay soap to
Pampers diapers and Whisper sanitary towels.
'I don't think Max Factor gave SK-II a lot of marketing support but
it still had a group of loyal users,' says Ms Yoko Hori, 40, who
used to handle the branding of toiletry products in P&G in
Japan.
'We thought there had to be something special about it. It turned
out to be the jewel in the company,' says Ms Hori, who is now
SK-II's global skincare design marketing director. P&G started
advertising SK-II heavily in the mid-1990s and sales rose
dramatically.
A decade earlier, Max Factor had started marketing SK-II in Hong
Kong and Taiwan. Starting in 1997, P&G took it to Malaysia,
Singapore, China and South Korea. The brand entered Britain in 2000
and was launched in the United States early this year.
NO FAKES, ONLY 'MIRACLE WATER'
IN THE process, SK-II is dispelling the image that the products are
targeted at older Asian women.
Pitera, it says, is suitable for women of all ages as well as men
and Westerners. In fact, so successful has the product become that
fakes have been discovered in recent years.
At its Kobe laboratory, which Life! visited recently, scientists
scrutinise counterfeit masks, essences and lotions which have been
made anywhere from China to Taiwan.
In Singapore early last year, P&G successfully sued a man who
peddled imitations online and door-to-door. P&G tracked him
down and the culprit was fined 'thousands of dollars' and the goods
in his house were confiscated.
SK-II says prices remain high because it hires skilled workers to
grow Pitera.
