AMOREPACIFIC focuses on customer experience

At AMOREPACIFIC’s cosmetics brand Innisfree’s Jeju House, visitors can learn about the brand, make soap bars from natural ingredients, buy various products and enjoy light meals and drinks. / Courtesy of AMOREPACIFIC

By Kim Bo-eun

Organic carrot juice is a choice item on the drinks menu at Innisfree Jeju House.

Every company, whatever its type, needs to provide samples in order to appeal to customers and sell. But this alone may not be a powerful enough experience to ensure the customer gains a positive perception of the brand. However, when it happens in a certain context or environment, sampling can work wonders.

In the past, Innisfree cosmetics of AMOREPACIFIC were generally perceived as an affordable, low-end cosmetics line. Unfortunately, when a product is inexpensive, a consumer is likely to think it might be made of cheap ingredients.

However, AMOREPACIFIC’s ardent marketing strategies have been changing the perception of consumers that cheap means low quality.

A visit to its Innisfree Jeju House, which opened on the island in March, is bound to improve one’s impression.

To start with, the building has wooden ceiling and floors, giving it a nature-friendly ambience. The glass walls on all four sides of the building enable visitors to look out into the vast green tea fields and forest, making them feel they are actually standing in the midst of Mother Nature.

Inside, visitors are able to learn about the brand through each of the five senses. On one side, visitors are able to enjoy light meals and drinks, all made with organic ingredients, most of them locally produced. Some choice items on the menu are the banana peanut soymilk and the organic carrot soup. The novel menus are tasty yet wholesome.

The vivid colors and pleasing presentation of the food and beverage provide visual satisfaction and increases one’s appetite.

On the other side, visitors can hear about Innisfree’s cosmetic products, which are made from natural ingredients, such as green tea, canolas and camellias. They can also smell and see the naturally extracted fragrances and colors.

There is also a soap-making corner where visitors can make their own soap bars with natural ingredients. Various products including cosmetics products unavailable on the mainland — such as tangerine perfume and lotion made from local produce — are on sale.

Basically, the entire experience at Innisfree’s Jeju House immerses one in the environmental-friendly approach that the cosmetics brand has taken. When consumers choose skin products, they prefer those made from natural ingredients, if the prices are the same. In this sense, it seems AMOREPACIFIC has taken a successful approach.

In addition to enhancing the image of its cosmetics brand, AMOREPACIFIC is also making an effort to appeal to consumers through its green tea brand OSULLOC.

In addition to the OSULLOC teahouses in Seoul and its tea museum on Jeju Island, it recently opened Tea Stone, an independent space for tea classes, next to its tea museum.

At the museum, visitors are able to learn about the history of Korean tea and see green tea leaves being fried in a sizzling pan of 200 degrees Celsius. At the bustling teahouse there, they can also enjoy green tea-based snacks and beverages.

On the other hand, Tea Stone provides a different type of experience.

In a tranquil room with glass walls looking out into Jeju’s beautiful scenery, visitors are able to take tea classes in which they are taught how to best enjoy green tea. The remarkable scenery and the quiet, composed atmosphere, together with quality tea provide a break from daily stress.

The tea classes had initially been taught at an open space inside the tea museum, but the overwhelming numbers of visitors had made it impossible to enjoy a quiet moment, prompting the construction of Tea Stone.

Essentially, a new space was created at which visitors are better able to appreciate its products and enjoy a healing experience.

Perhaps the Innisfree Jeju House and Tea Stone were created at the most appropriate time — a time when the term “healing” has become a keyword in marketing, targeting tired individuals who long for refreshment and comfort.

AMOREPACIFIC’s efforts to promote its nature-friendly image, rivaled by none, will likely capture the minds of those who visit and experience what Innisfree Jeju House and Tea Stone have to offer.