Tactile Modality in Online Marketing and E-retailing of Skincare Beauty Products (Based on English)

Multisensory marketing is becoming a must-have strategy for businesses. Online shopping that skyrocketed during COVID-19 pandemic and afterwards posed new requirements to multimodal advertising and marketing, digital technologies and ICT, search for the most effective and persuasive semiotic strategies to convey gustatory, olfactory, tactile characteristics of products. Skincare segment of the official websites of luxury beauty products manufacturers (DIOR, CHANEL, LANCÔME, SHISEIDO, LA MER, HELENA RUBINSTEIN) was selected to analyze multimodal marketing and advertising with the focus on tactile modality. Some of the basic dimensions of tactile perception – softness, moistness – are essential to skincare products and expressed by English sensory vocabulary. Tactile modality is not limited to the skincare products quality description but spans their visible effects on skin what proves that tactile and visual perceptual spaces are highly congruent. Tactile perception of skincare produce by customers differs from the merits highlighted by the manufacturers and marketers, consequently, considerable disparity is observed in tactile vocabulary used in marketing strategies and customers’ reviews. Marketers stress reliability and efficacy of luxury skincare products as they are clinically-engineered and carefully tested. To make online advertising more persuasive copyrighters and marketers use multimodal approach, different modes and mediums to specify skincare tactile characteristics. Instructions on application are presented verbally and visually, via photos and videos. Verbal description is future-oriented and aimed at anticipated positive effects. The promisives “7 days to make a difference / smoothing effect after 28 days of using” are used as arguments in promotion of serum and face cream. Clients can enhance photos of ordinary women of different age and race groups to examine the effect of skincare products (radiance, firmness, elasticity, lifting etc.). Skincare products marketing utilizes diverse argumenation strategies, in particular, the golden rule of three; “Before/After” photos of the the verified clients – ordinary females, not celebrities or other influencers; video instructions of the experts. Sensory vocabulary in clients’ reviews is more diverse, women often use emotional evaluation, semantic superlatives to express their tactile sensations.