Australians spend $5.3 billion on sportswear and equipment, David Beckham partners with Biotherm Homme for new men's skincare line, Condé Nast to launch new beauty content network, and Queensland's top five shopping centres.
Australians spend $5.3 billion on sportswear and equipment
Australians aren't just keen spectators when it comes to loving sports, reports Roy Morgan Research. For starters in the year to March 2016, a huge 734,000 Aussies bought $1.3 billion worth of sporting equipment.
Rebel Sport ranked number one in the sporting goods spend at $254 million (a 19 per cent market share), followed by A Mart All Sports ($50 million), Sports Power ($48 million), Kmart ($44 million) and Big W ($24 million).
When it comes to sprucing up our bodies for a game or workout, says Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan Research, Australians forked out $2.5 billion on sports shoes and $1.5 billion on sportswear, and Rebel Sport again ranks as the dominant player. "Rebel's market position is stronger among men than women", notes Levine. "It holds 21 per cent of the men's sportswear and 10 per cent of the men's footwear markets, compared with 12 per cent of the women's sportswear and 6 per cent of women's sports foot wear".
Rebel Sport won the 2015 Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Award for Sports Store of the Year. But the arrival of Decathlon, the world's largest sports good retailer, is certain to give the home-grown hero a real run for Australia's sporting goods dollar. The French giant plans to open 35 warehouse style super-stores across the country over the next 10 years. The first two will open by the end of the year, and Decathlon is scouting possible sites in Sydney and Melbourne. The company has opened an online store and its longterm strategy is to operate over 100 stores nationwide.
David Beckham partners with Biotherm Homme for new men's skincare line
Where fragrance is concerned, David Beckham bats for Coty. But the 41 year old soccer idol has signed with L'Oreal to co-develop a range of men's skin and body products to be launched in 2017 under the Biotherm Homme brand. While the men of the world wait, "Golden Balls" will kick off the association as a brand ambassador for Aquapower Gel moisturiser and the Force Supreme anti-ageing range in June.
Biotherm Homme claims to be the world's number one prestige men's skincare brand in selective distrbution and appeals to men of all ages. The new Beckham-backed lineup will be aimed at the sweet spot of men's skincare - males aged 25 to 40 - with price tags ranging from $30 to $60. L'Oréal is hailing the team-up as the first major celebrity partnership in men's skincare beyond hiring a famous face as a front man. Beckham says that he's been thinking about developing a skincare range for a long time: "but it wasn't until I started speaking with Biotherm that it all came together".
Queensland's top five shopping centres
International tourists to Cairns and the Gold Coast account for only a fraction of Queensland's retail revenues. Over an average four week period, 3.6 million people visit the state's top shopping centres and 90 per cent of them are Queensland residents, reveals Roy Morgan Research.
Brisbane shopping centres dominate the top five rankings - led by Westfield Chermside (318,000 shoppers a month). Westfield Garden City snags the number two spot (280,000), followed by Westfield Carindale (257,000). Indooroopilly Shopping Centre fills the number four slot (232,000) and Myer Centre rounds out the top five ( 222,000).
Queensland has one of the nation's highest shopping visitation rates, adds Roy Morgan. But for brands and retailers on the scout for big spenders with sophisticated tastes, three locations stand out from the crowd - Westfield Carindale, Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and the Myer Centre.
Condé Nast to launch new beauty content network
Just about every major publisher in the US and Australia has been making major leaps forward to increase their digital beauty content. Stateside, Condé Nast has announced the company will launch a social media-friendly network called #TheLookIs in September. The digital strategy will be backed up in the pages of Condé Nast's prestigious stable of print mastheads - Allure, Glamour, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Self, Brides, W and Vanity Fair.
According to a company statement, the initiative is: "designed to connect with a new generation of beauty enthusiasts". Of equal importance to the health of the storied publisher's bottom line: "advertisers will have the opportunity to prominently integrate their brands, and co-create content across formats."
In news received so far, the re-positioned beauty content will go live on all major social media platforms via videos, print articles and branded content. Conde Nast is emphatic that the majority of #TheLookIs will not be branded content, and will be curated by the beauty editors of the company's prestigious print titles. There will be a special section in each of the major magazines dedicated to #TheLookIs, but each publication will continue to produce separate beauty content tailored to its readership.
Edward Menicheschi, Condé Nast's chief marketing officer, notes: "Beauty is the natural place to start a social media-focused network, since Millennial consumers are turning to social media and video to find out about new products and how to use them".
Snippets from the wires
- Q1 sales at Inter Parfums rose 2 per cent to US$111.5 million. The Montblanc brand was on fire, clocking up sales of US$35 million on the back of its new men's juice, Legend Spirit. Revenues from the
brand were similar to the same period last year - US$24 million - thanks to recent rollouts such as Illicit, Blossom and Jimmy Choo Man. - Younique, the first-to-market beauty brand in social media-driven direct sales, has launchd in Spain. The ninth market for the US brand in the wake of successfully launching in Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany and France. Younique now boasts 450,000 "presenters" worldwide.
- Ad blockers are proving a big headache for online publishers, and the issue is set to become even more challenging. A new study from UK-based Juniper Research estimates that digital publishers worldwide are set to lose $36 billion by 2020, as they lose the battle to put strategies in place to counter ad blocking. Smaller publishers reliant on ad spend alone are particularly vulnerable, adds Juniper.
- If you think that Millennials are tech-savvy, well-educated, early adopters and big spenders, you are less than half right says Dr Ross Honeywill, executive director of the Centre for Social Economics. Only 1.5 million Australian Millennials fit the stereotype - 52 per cent are early adopters, 90 per cent are classified as big spenders, 40 per cent are ABs and 53 percent have university degrees. But a larger cohort - 1.8 million - are nothing like the marketers dream of Millenials. A mere 8.2 per cent are early adopters and only 9 per cent have a university education. Only 10 per cent are classified as ABs and a tiny 5 per cent as big spenders.
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