Vancouver Fashion Week’s focus on international designers naturally brings in international media coverage. And with international media comes international sponsors.  This season, one of the main sponsors for Vancouver Fashion Week was Missha, a Korean cosmetics and skincare company.

I have already talked about the popularity of BB creams and their rise to fame in Korea. Among the countless BB cream brands that were born in Korea, Missha is definitely a top name thanks to its consistently highly rated quality and moderate pricing. In fact, according to Newswire Korea, Missha came out as the top cosmetic brand favoured by women in their 30s in a recent survey.

Stephen Oh, a Missha representative to Canada, attributes Missha’s success to Beautynet, a Korean user-based review site for beauty products emphasizing the word-of-mouth strength of the brand. However, according to Oh, Canada is considered a tough market to crack into for the cosmetics and skincare industry. Canada’s cosmetics industry is dominated by just 10 brand giants such as L’Oréal and Lancôme, and so smaller brands have a difficult time gaining momentum. Despite this preset difficulty and not yet having conducted any notable marketing campaign here, there apparently are still a sizeable number of Canadian fans from BC to New Foundland frequenting Missha.ca for their beauty needs. Beauty may only be in the eye of the beholder but with such a loyal fan base of beholders, I certainly found myself wanting to check out what all the fuss is about. Word-of-mouth marketing must really work after all.