The Beauty of the Beauty Business
My promotion consulting/product development firm reviews hundreds of potential consumer products from every section imaginable, each And every year. Sporting goods, specialty foodstuffs, auto accessories, juvenile products, toys, games, shoes, jewelry, prepared to wear And health And wellness products are only a short list of types of items they review for funding And market launch potential. I am often asked what is the space most basically penetrated by entrepreneur’s?
This query invariable pops up every time I lecture at a university or am interviewed by media. I was six times a bit arbitrary, opaque in answering. However, over the years the answer has come in to sharp focus. The beauty product industry must be at the top of any list of entrepreneurial sweet spots for successfully launching And growing a start-up business.
Since Biblical times perfumery has been a highly desired artisan industry. Local flora And fauna have been compounded in to scents And potions that add beauty to the human body, the atmosphere And religious worship. Cleopatra was famous for her aromatic baths, the Bible is filled with references to sacred aromatic oils And nowadays the fragrance industry has matured in to an international, multi-billion dollar business.
And yet, every year, inspired entrepreneurs bring new scents to market. Aromatherapy has boomed as the science And awareness of the mental And wellness benefits of specific aromas has been researched. The system of making a new scent, packaging, branding And delivering the consumer a product that offers a different fragrance point of view has seldom been simpler.
One of the great entrepreneurial commercial success tales in the history of the fragrance industry was the story of Giorgio. The eponymous fragrance was born in a single Rodeo Drive boutique, Giorgio’s, in Beverly Hills in the 1980’s. The scent, a clear break with popular fragrances of the time, was overwhelmingly powerful. The distinctive top note made the boutique a location for shoppers as word of mouth travelled quickly about the distinctive warmth of the dried down fragrance notes of Giorgio.
The Company did not have the necessary funds to launch nationally with major department stores. The owners decided to do a bit ofguerilla promotion . They began to place scent strips impregnated with the Giorgio scent inside of local magazines targeting high finish consumers. The power of the scent leached from the magazines And newsstands became fragrance cocoons for the Company. Mail order sales exploded, the campaign was quickly expanded to national women’s fashion magazines as well as a direct mail business was set up solely to fulfill consumer demand.
Soon the major department stores were falling all over themselves to stock And promote the Giorgio line. The Company could negotiate from a position of actual strength And demanded, And received, prime space And location in every store that carried the brand. Sales exploded, the product became an international sensation, a key item in duty free shops And finally was bought by consumer product kingpin Procter And Bet.
Giorgio is an extreme example of commercial success. Nevertheless, if one were to examine the most popular fragrance, skin care, color cosmetic, bath And body lines And cosmetic accessories lines sold in various classes of trade (department store, mass merchant, drugstore, etc.) from 1950, 1970, 1990 And 2009, the researcher would be surprised by the churning of brands that rose And fell.
Hazel Bishop was one of the most popular cosmetic brands of the 1950’s. Rose Milk was a wildly popular body care product of the 1970’s. Indian Earth was the flavor du jour of makeup products in the 1980’s. Chen Yu was the original classic nail care line after World War II. Francis Denny, Germaine Monteil, Imperial Formula And Alexandra de Markoff were popular specialty store skin treatment brands. All were founded by entrepreneurs, enjoyed widespread distribution, commercial success, fell from grace, And were replaced by a newer generation of entrepreneurial products.