While accepting his award for best makeup product at the Prix de Marie Claire Reader’s Choice awards, Napoleon Perdis – alongside his daughter Lianna – had some strong words for marketers.
Ultimately, the beauty mogul wants marketers to “stop adapting overseas trends” and “trampling creativity” to allow products to blossom over here.
His speech in full read:
“Every time I come back to Australia there is something that saddens me. It’s just sad to see that the creative energy that is here in Australia is such a fresh continent, fresh country, fresh air, is sometimes stifled in logistics, mathematics or banking, or some sort of structure that controls you,” he said.
“My message is stay strong, I said this to Lianna when she was developing Total Bae, do what you want and then we’ll kind of work it within our store structure.
“The retailers here need to realise you can’t trample creativity when it’s actually pure and amazing, because this country is brilliant with it,” he added.
“You’ve got to celebrate it and you can’t just celebrate it by giving it shelf space. You have to celebrate it by investing in it. And you’ve got to have staff that will sell it.
“For all the talent in the room, for all the marketing managers, stop adapting overseas trends, make it Australian, celebrate it, we’re f**king hot, it’s amazing, and that’s all that matters.”
