Beauty advisor Kaboose creates a virtual world

Kaboose, the free and easy-to-use virtual beauty advisor, has gone live to South African consumers and has attracted a number of leading multi-national manufacturers such as Indigo Cosmetics, Unilever and Beiersdorf.

Available to shoppers whenever and wherever they chose, Kaboose ensures shopping for beauty products is easy by providing instant access to the best prices, advice and exclusive deals on favourite beauty and personal care brands.

Shoppers visiting the definitive beauty resource www.kaboose.co.za no longer need be overwhelmed by thousands of beauty products, or buy products not right for them.

The release to shoppers follows a successful launch of the Kaboose manager site manager.kaboose.co.za in July 2012, which resulted in the likes of Indigo Cosmetics, Unilever and Beiersdorf taking advantage of this unique marketing and promotional opportunity.

“Kaboose is a platform that provides for the unique needs of shoppers, brands and retailers simultaneously,” says Mark Bradshaw of Kaboose. “Shoppers receive personalised advice from a trusted independent source at www.kaboose.co.za. While brands and retailers use the site manager.kaboose.co.za to engage shoppers simply and directly from their desktop.”

Bradshaw developed Kaboose in partnership with Tina Fisher. Their international experience as senior brand strategists and marketers for the likes of Union Swiss and Pfizer, exposed them to how technology is changing global shopping trends. They recognised the need and desire for more personalised information from shoppers, while simultaneously maximising marketing opportunities for brands and retailers in South Africa.

“The abundance of web-enabled phones has changed how shoppers shop and how brands and retailers engage with shoppers,” says Fisher. “Over 50% of shoppers access their cell phones to help make a purchase decision, however over 90% of purchases are still completed in-store. This means shoppers are looking for real-time information to help them make a decision, especially given the limitations of in-store marketing tactics. This gap means that engaged and receptive shoppers are seeking input from brands, a perfect situation for maximum message retention.”

Kaboose also offers brands the opportunity to create self-defined promotional and loyalty campaigns with partnering retailers, thereby rewarding shoppers for brand loyalty, a highly desired concept.

Kaboose aims to reach over 2.5 million unique shoppers, and beauty brands and retailers can be a part of this exposure by creating an account at manager.kaboose.co.za for free. Manager users can control their marketing campaign and choose to participate in additional value-added opportunities. Furthermore, PR and Advertising agencies can use manager.kaboose.co.za to offer the unique service of managing their client’s account including messages to shoppers.