I also have a "feeling" about SK-II and how quiet they have been given the relatively successful booster launch. It would have been the consumer feedback about the longer, vibrating booster compared to the feedback from the shorter, non-vibrating Magnemasks booster which ultimately led to the best of both worlds: the shorter, vibrating gold CELLSCIENCE booster.
If we pause and reflect on how we have experienced P&G data collecting with their soft launches, deprivation marketing - continuously obtaining crucial consumer feedback, seemingly without taking on "too much risk" (from their perspective) of a global roll out;
-Which booster did the customer like more
-How much more are they willing to pay for powered, vibrating booster?
-Is this excess price point applicable to our premium SK-II brand only, or can we ALSO use it to create a premium product range in our cheaper brand Olay also?
It is evident, at least to me that the new gold, CELLSCIENCE booster is the direct outcome of quality marketing/sales analysis between the SK-II booster and Olay Magnemasks booster and consumer feedback.
If we go back to the original "Waves" schedule (and I realise I'm probably the only one who still thinks in terms of "Waves", and I will until at least the integrated product aka Wave IV comes is released - but hear me out anyway), what we knew before the word "Wave" stopped being used in shareholder updates was:
Wave II = powered SK-II Magnetic booster
Wave III = was not Magnemasks
Wave IV = integrated product
Olay Magnemasks after originally being widely assumed as Wave III was revealed later to be an addition to the product schedule and came in as a new and unannounced (until that time) product between Wave II and Wave III (hence I dubbed it the Wave 2.5 just to make sense of it in this environment).
If you consider P&G now wanting to do deeper market analysis and compare the powered and non-powered booster (using Wave II tech specs), the powered booster and the preference for the shorter magnetic device must have been largely prevalent in the consumer feedback as this is what they have gone with for CELLSCIENCE.
We might also assume that CELLSCIENCE is the Wave III product (under the original product schedule). We obviously didn't know at the time it was going to be a newly created Olay product range rather than improving an existing product, which ticks another first for the OBJ / P&G relationship.
I also recall clearly that the original estimated release timelines for the Wave III and Wave IV products were Q1, 2018 and 1H, 2018 respectively. So we know CELLSCIENCE is getting rather close and only just missed a Q1, 2018 launch (more evidence that it is the original Wave III plan) and we can thus assume Wave IV (the integrated product) is being worked on simultaneously and should become far more apparent in and around June/July which is where the original estimated timeline had us at (first half of 2018).
To conclude, in theory - there's a nervous 3-4 months ahead with arguably 2 products close to being released and exciting for new/different reasons that we are now dealing with an entirely new product range (as opposed to improving a single product) and an entirely new product in itself (the integrated device).
Expand
(20min delay)