Sponsored article.
They’ve racked up a 30 per cent growth in the past financial year, and McPherson’s is showing absolutely no sign of slowing down. With over 20 health and beauty brands in its stable and a slew of impressive results, BD tracked down McPherson's marketing manager Donna Chan to learn all about the company’s recent movings and shakings...
Can you tell me about McPherson's recent success in the health and beauty arena?
Our McPherson's health and beauty business has been going from strength-to-strength. Last financial year, our business grew by over 30 per cent, a fantastic result. We achieved growth across most of our brands, with exceptional results across Dr. LeWinn's, Revitanail, Trilogy, A’kin and Al’chemy. Rebuilding brands that we have acquired or new agencies has driven strong results. Innovation in Dr. LeWinn’s, in particular Eternal Youth, has also been a huge success for us.
Last year, there was a push to extend further into this category. Has this proven to be a good move?
Adding new brands to our portfolio to position us as a leading health and beauty business has definitely been a great move for us as a company. Our foray into the premium skincare market has delivered exceptional results for us as a company and for our brands. Our entry into the competitive prestige fragrance world has been a steep learning curve, with great success. In less than a year, we've turned around all our fragrance brands into positive growth, with more to come. We've been able to leverage the strength of McPherson's to drive growth and we're so proud to have a portfolio of leading iconic brands.
What changes has the company noticed since taking on the recent beauty acquisitions?
We've boosted our expertise in more premium brands, we've invested more into growing these brands, and we're investing in consumer insights to deliver a bright future for our business. Our channel expertise has also increased with our growing portfolio, and we now have strong representation in pharmacy, grocery, discount department stores and, increasingly, department stores.
What changes have the brands themselves gone through?
Through a deep dive into consumer insights we’ve uncovered gemsand gained a clear understanding of opportunities for each brand. We’ve developed an optimised 360 degree plan, and delivered compelling innovation, communication, in-store support and customer plans to build the brands.
What have been some of the results from the brands in McPherson’s portfolio?
- Within Priceline, Dr.LeWinn’s is growing at +43.3 per cent in value versus last year, well ahead of category growth of 18.2 per cent. Innovation on Eternal Youth has been a key contributor to this growth, growing at +454 per cent in value versus last year*. To add to this success, we have just launched the New Eternal Youth Day and Night Eye Cream and Insta Prefector Blur Cream to the range. New week we will have some more exciting news to reveal.
- Al’chemy is the number one natural haircare brand in Priceline and we have big plans to grow it through increased distribution and exciting new products - look out for the new Al’chemy Dry Shampoo, set to launch later this year.
- Manicare continues to lead the Beauty Accessories and Tools category. The iconic brand has an exciting collaboration with leading swimwear designer We Are Handsome coming up in September.
- Glam by Manicare’s artificial lash market share within total pharmacy peaked at 48.5% with the launch of new styles, new packs and a new blogger led digital campaign**.
- Within total pharmacy, Lady Jayne has the number one, two and four leading brushes in the hairbrush category - all of them recent innovations in the detangling segment**. Our consumers love these brushes and we’ve even won some awards.
- In the fragrance category, we have recently launched Gucci Bamboo. Last week Gucci Bamboo achieved the number three female product within Myer - an amazing achievement and a testament to what McPherson's can achieve with great brands***.
- If you look at our fragrance results in Myer for this season, we are +71 per cent in D&G, +43 per cent in Gucci, and +37 per cent in Hugo Boss versus last year***. Again, this shows what McPherson's can achieve with new business, even within categories where we had no presence a year ago.
Is the company looking to branch out even further into the beauty market?
Next year, we're going to be more focused in our approach to building our portfolio, however, we will continue to keep our eyes open for new opportunities for leading brands that complement our current portfolio. We will continue building our brands through a deep understanding of consumer needs and macro trends, and develop key strategies to drive organic growth.
Is McPherson's now regarded as a beauty powerhouse on the Australian market?
With our leading portfolio of iconic brands, we've made significant progress on putting McPherson's on the map in the beauty industry. Yes, I'd like to think we now are a major force with in the beauty industry.
What does this mean for the company?
This means we will continue driving both category and brand growth by building powerful, leading brands.
What is on the horizon for McPherson's?
More exciting innovations... Watch this space!
*Source: Aztec MAT to 28/06/15
**Aztec MAT to 12/07/15; Value Sales
***Data source: Beauty Update
Image: Instagram.com/leah.simmons