Unilever to acquire Murad, double digit growth for ALDI's Lacura brand, Huffington Post fails to turn a profit, and Liberty of London goes international.
Unilever to acquire Murad
As P&G prepares to announce the final details of its sell-off of several prestige beauty and fragrance brands, rival multinational Unilever is carving out a new empire in the premium sector. Since March, the Anglo-Dutch giant has bought the REN, Kate Somerville and Dermalogica skincare brands. In its fourth major acquisition in as many months, Unilever has signed an agreement to buy the US-based Murad brand, a leader in upmarket clinical skincare.
Founded in 1989 by Dr Howard Murad, the acclaimed dermatologist and UCLA professor, the highly respected brand is often touted as the first modern doctor brand. Stocked by Sephora, Ulta and Nordstrom in the US, Murad is mainly sold online in Australia and New Zealand. With a turnover of US$115 million in 2014, the brand will become part of Unilever's prestige division, exclusively composed of select distribution and premium-priced brands.
According to Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever: "As an expert doctor brand, Murad offers products in a differentiated, clinical and holistic well-being segment. It has a loyal following that gives it excellent potential for expansion and wonderfully complements the brands recently acquired". Even though Murad is already present in China and the UAE, two of the fastest-growing regions for premium skincare, there's plenty of scope for accelerated growth and also in Western Europe.
Double digit growth for ALDI's Lacura brand
Less than a decade ago, ALDI's private label Lacura skincare and makeup brand consisted of only a few entry level items. Today, you can buy caviar-based moisturisers and some of the best value anti-ageing serums in the country. Similar to breakthrough launches from , Lacura products frequently make headlines in the Daily Mail for their ability to out-perform pricier counterparts. TV shows such as Channel 9's A Current Affair and consumer watchdog Choice magazine routinely echo the same results.
Australian women are listening says Nielsen. The researcher predicts that the Australian grocery market will grow by a further $6.2 billion over the next five years with half the growth coming from private label brands. ALDI's Lacura brand is "breaking all the rules with a presence in 16 per cent of all households across the Eastern seaboard" reports the researcher. Sales are growing at the rate of 23 per cent year-on-year, says Nielsen, as older and younger couples without children increasingly become a larger focus of supermarket growth targets.
Huffington Post fails to turn a profit
That's not good news for digital media start-ups. Although the 10 year-old site attracts 200 million unique visitors a month and generated US$146 million in revenues in 2014, it failed to turn a profit reports The New York Times. HuffPo's official stance is that the situation is only temporary and will be fixed as it continues to attract more readers but the core fact remains that it relies almost solely on digital advertising.
While digital advertising is increasing in leaps and bounds, the lion's share goes to social media and technology such as Google and Facebook. Faced with an infinite supply of new digital start-ups, many brands are negotiating lower rates for digital display ads. Native advertising, video, e-commerce and events or a combination of two or all of them are all forms of potential revenue but most digital publishers still rely on advertising. Unlike print media, income from subscriptions is for the most part non-existent. As more and more new entrants set up shop, simply following traditional media in the digital space will mean offering a real point-of-difference.
Liberty of London goes international
Founded in 1875, Liberty of London with its Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau connections was long the most upper crust of UK department stores. When the management agreed to a fly-on-the-wall reality TV series, one critic predicted that the store's reputation could be in rags. Not so, according to Ed Burstell, Liberty's American MD who has revitalised the pukka store with new designers and creative collaborations. Within a month of the first series of the Channel 4 production (shown on the LifeStyle Channel in Australia) making its debut, sales rose 7 per cent and annual visitor numbers were up 5 per cent. Tourists and younger fashionistas drawn by the TV show accounted for the bulk of increased visits.
Liberty has announced it will expand on its successful collaborations with Nike, (the Give Me Liberty of London Collection from 2010) and Saks Fifth Avenue with more tie-ups. Later this month, US fashion retailer Nordstrom will install six pop-up shops showcasing Liberty's homewares in key locations such as New York, San Francisco, Washington and Seattle. While Italy's La Rinascente department store chain has a pop-up planned for its landmark Milan store in the third quarter to introduce locals and tourists to Liberty handbags and accessories.
