Blog Post 1

For this assignment, I chose Burt’s Bees. I personally like the products they make, knowing that the company uses natural ingredients and that their packaging is recyclable. I recently discovered that Burt’s Bees has a partnership program with Terracycle. With this program, you can mail in Burt’s Bees branded packaging to be professionally recycled; this alone encourages me to purchase more Burt’s Bees products in the future. 

The mission of this brand is to use ingredients from nature, refrain from animal testing, use responsible sourcing, create recyclable packaging and respect nature. This information can be found on the About Us page. Burt’s Bees was founded by Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby. The two of them had left their city jobs for a more fulfilling life when they met in Maine. Burt taught Roxanne about beekeeping, his new job, and Roxanne began to turn the wax into products. According to their website, “Roxanne used to say that since we take from nature, we must respect and preserve it. Today, we follow in her and Burt’s footsteps by using the best ingredients from nature, and in turn respecting nature so we can all live well.” 

Burt’s Bees sells natural facial care, makeup, lip care, body and hair care products. They also have CBD and “Baby and Mama” product lines. Burt’s Bees biggest competitors are Honest Beauty, Innisfree and Kiehl's. Burt’s Bees differentiates itself from the competition through reasonable pricing. Their prices are similar, if not slightly lower than, to Honest Beauty but are much cheaper than Innisfree and particularly Kiehl’s, whose products can sell for $50 or more. They also stand out by having a common theme among their products. Not every item that they make is sourced from beeswax; however, they have branded this theme across their packaging. This consistency helps with brand recognition. “Brand recognition is also essential for successful product packaging because consumers need to be able to correctly recognise the packaging and therefore identify and purchase the product,” (Lalounis 29). 

Burt’s Bees website prominently features a link to how they are helping their community and makes it extremely easy to access information about the brand’s environmental sustainability. This brand is perceived by the public as trustworthy, respectable and responsible because of how honest and passionate they are about the ingredients they use, where their ingredients are sourced and how much of their packaging is recyclable. “Behind every successful brand are passionate leaders who inspire others to see the future in a new way,” (Wheeler 36). There are plenty of natural brands, but not every one of them is passionate about their products and giving back to nature like Burt’s Bees. They are successful because they inspire consumers to care about nature and sustainability, which consumers direct towards purchasing Burt’s Bees products.