Elisabeth King reports on Eva Green as the new face of L'Oréal Professionnel, Puig buying Penhaligon's and L'Artisan Parfumeur, Markwins International acquiring Bonne Bell, and social media proving unhelpful at driving traffic to beauty websites.
Eva Green tapped as new face of L'Oréal Professionnel
A couple of weeks ago, L'Oréal Professionnel appointed 60s supermodel Twiggy as its new UK ambassador. But that was only a teaser for the annnouncement of Eva Green as the professional haircare brand's international spokesmodel. Forever tagged as a Bond girl after playing Vesper Lynd, the only woman to lure 007 to the altar, in Casino Royale, Green has surged back into the spotlight as the heroine of the hit TV series, Penny Dreadful.
The 34 year old, Paris-born actress truly deserves the description magnetic and her trademark brunette hair is put to good use in her first ad campaign for L'Oréal Professionnel. Titled 'Wet Domination', the slickly shot images also show off the porcelain skin of "the 6th sexiest movie star of all time" according to a reader poll in Empire magazine.
Green is famously choosy about her film roles, so she is no easy get as a beauty ambassador. Later this year she will starting filming Tim Burton's new movie - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Puig buys Penhaligon's and L' Artisan Parfumeur
The fragrance market is becoming increasingly fragmented. Once mainly divided into mass, lifestyle and prestige, the growth of luxury fragrances has not only carved out a larger market share but led to a re-think of the old classifications. Some designer brands, particularly those who have widened their distribution in pharmacy and online, are increasingly being termed premium because they now occupy a 'bridge' status between true prestige and luxury.
The luxury end of the fragrance market received a major shot in the arm late last year when bought Le Labo and Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle. Now Spanish giant Puig - responsible for , , and Carolina Herrera fragrances - has bought Penhaligon's and L' Artisan Parfumeur from private equity firm, Fox Paine & Company.
Both brands signal quality with a capital Q. The Brit brand was founded in 1870 and holds a Royal warrant. L' Artisan Parfumeur, launched in 1976, creates signature fragrances in collaboration with in-house perfumers.
Markwins International acquires Bonne Bell
Few cosmetic brands boast a 94% recognition rating but has been a teen go-to long before the term itself was widely used. Founded in 1927 by cosmetics salesman Jesse Bell, who named the brand after his daughter, legions of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers relied on its iconic Ten-O-Six Deep Pore Cleanser to de-grease oily skin in the 1970s and 80s. Voted one of the greatest drugstore products of all time, the toner/cleanser was discontinued in the late 1990s and re-launched at the head of an expanded range simply called Ten-O-Six.
The continued youthful appeal of the brand is the reason Markwins have acquired the Bonne Bell and Lip Smacker brands from Aspire Brands for an undisclosed price. The company's third major acquisition in 12 years - AM Cosmetics in 2003 and Physicians Formula in 2012 - Markwin's also owns wet 'n' wild cosmetics and the ethnic brand, Black Radiance. The purpose of the buy-out is to extend Markwins global footprint in mass cosmetics, so prepare for major marketing action.
Social media proves a dud at driving traffic to beauty brand websites
That's the verdict from New York think-tank, L2. In spite of the strong marketing and PR focus on social media by the major beauty brands, the percentage of traffic from the major platforms to beauty brand sites dipped from a meagre 3.9% in 2013 to 2.5% in 2014, reports the researcher, even though more brands participated across the majors from Facebook to Instagram.
The biggest drivers to beauty brand websites are straight searches ( 50.1%), direct access ( 22.2%) and referrals (24.3%). Social media rates a poor fourth at 2.5%, followed by mail at 0.5 per cent.
Not surprisingly, Facebook's huge penetration in comparison to other forms of social media makes the social networking site dominant - 41 per cent - in the small market share. YouTube ranks second (20%), followed by Twitter (9%), Pinterest (8%) and Instagram (5%).
The way forward is to hire celebs with a big social media following - not just a pretty face - says L2. The think-tank analysed Estée Lauder's traffic following the appointment of Kendall Jenner to prove the point. Estée Lauder has 387,000 Instagram followers and Jenner has 18 million. Both parties posted the same content on their Instagram feeds of Jenner spruiking a lash primer. Estée Lauder's Instagram received 7000 likes, while Jenner's received 429,500 likes - 61 times more.
Snippets from the wires
- The global beauty devices market - hand-held hair removal, cleansing and LED tools - reached US$19.39 billion in 2014 reports Persistence Market Research. Older, more cashed-up consumers are fuelling the two major markets - the US and Europe - says the researcher. The category is expected to expand to US$54.18 billion by 2020.
- With Aerin Lauder's fragrance and beauty collection slatedto launch in David Jones in April, Estee's granddaughter is leveraging part of her footwear range into a higher price bracket. The limited edition Capri Collection of nine strappy sandals will debut in the US for the northern hemisphere Spring. Priced at US$400, they sport a "Made in Italy" label in contrast to Ms Lauder's US$200 Chinese-manufactured footwear.
- With all the frenetic activity going on in global beauty e-commerce - from apps through new sites, advertising and uodates - online accounts for only 10% of worldwide beauty sales says the Kline Group. Digital beauty sales are rising says Donna Barson, senior associate for the researcher, but are unlikely to achieve double digit growth in 2015. "Bricks-and-mortar stores are not going away and will still account for the bulk of beauty sales" she notes.
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is one of the most counterfeited makeup brands in the world. In Australia, Target didn't admit liability but had to pay Estée Lauder $1 million for selling a shipment of unauthorised M. A.C products. An Arizona judge has ordered US online seller - Get Your MAC On - to pay Lauder US$1.8 million for selling proven counterfeit products.
- Personal care and beauty products containing synthetic ingredients accounted for 75% of the global beauty and personal care market in 2014 says Kline & Co. But the natural personal care market rose 10% in 2014 with many formulations boasting a higher percentage of truly natural ingredients. In leading markets such as the US, Europe and Australia, "naturally inspired" rather than organic/100% natural products are dominant. Brazil and the Asia/Pacific region were the fastest-growing natural markets in 2014.
- H&M were one of the first fashion retailers to jump into beauty. The Swedish fashion giant started selling cosmetics in 1975 and launched its own private label beauty collection in 1987. We wouldn't be as cruel as one US fashion site which declared "H&M realises its beauty line sucks and is trying to fix it", following the announcement of the re-launch of H&M Beauty. But there are good financial reasons for the new strategy. In countries where there is an H&M on every second city corner and where money is tight, particularly in many European markets, the retailer needs to attract more buyers into stores with budget/value offerings that might have low profit margins but could result in an increase of impulse buys.
