Captivating Connections.

get in the mood.

"Market researcher Mintel has issued its beauty forecast for the year ahead, and says that mood beauty -- the intersection of psychology and well being with beauty products -- will see marketers go beyond their tired aromatherapy tricks, and wade right into women's neurotransmitters. Based on new products from niche brands, the Chicago-based market research firm predicts new-product launches that use texture, temperature, color and sound to manipulate mood."

So what other beauty trends are they predicting?

"Another trend the Chicago-based market researcher sees emerging is 'Nu Natural' -- products that concern themselves less with whether they may or may not be organic, and more with how well they work.

Traits like authenticity, provenance and local production will take a back seat to products with milder claims (such as 'free from' and 'sustainable') to be combined with high-tech ingredients with a distinctly science-y sell: Popular ingredients will include peptides, hyaluronic acid, ceramides and collagen."

p&g gets uber-into the shave thing.

"Undeterred by recession or getting into a retail business with which it has little experience, Procter & Gamble Co. is buying the Art of Shaving, seller of pricey men's shaving products at upscale shopping malls.

P&G is looking to get more direct contact with consumers and exposure to men's prestige personal care through the deal, said spokeswoman Kelly Vanasse. Gillette's relationship with the 36-store retailer goes back to 2007, when it began selling high-end Gillette-branded chrome products there.

Even before that, Ms. Vanasse said, Art of Shaving designed all of its razor handles to fit only Gillette products. That's one reason she said the company expects little backlash from mass retailers, since razor handles sold at the mall stores will still create demand for replacement blades.

P&G beauty rival L'Oreal has long run a mass business in addition to major retail operations such as the Body Shop and Kiehl's."

beauty growing online.

As retail sales struggle across categories, it's always impressive to see ANY category doing well on ANY sales medium...

"While sales of higher-end beauty products have been struggling in most retail channels, a new report from the NPD Group finds that at this point, beauty sales are growing on the Internet.

While the gain is small -- just 1% -- the Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm says it is the only channel where beauty purchases are growing, in terms of the number of women reporting mentions for beauty products.

The Internet -- while still a comparatively small channel for beauty, which has historically been something of an impulse category -- 'also has a higher ratio of women saying they spent more, relative to those who said they spent less on beauty in the past year.' On average, these women spend $86 annually on Internet beauty purchases.

What's more, this group of women is emphatically trading up at a time when many consumers are switching from department store brands to lower-end lines. In the NPD survey, online beauty buyers say they are buying more beauty products in general, and that they have begun stocking up on more expensive brands and products than in the previous year.

NPD attributes the change to convenience, product availability, and higher gas prices."

rebelling through face fur?

Forget the Lipstick Index.

 

Here’s an interesting theory: “recession beards”

 

According to Philips' Norelco, “some guys express their anger about the recession by tussling with

London

bobbies outside the G20 meeting. Some guys protest more silently -- by letting their beards grow.”

 

Seriously.

 

They believe “more men are letting it all grow out as an act of ‘playful rebellion,’ a sign of defiance and of not being a ‘corporate slave.’

 

Not to mention a sign of not being employed. Hundreds of thousands of layoffs monthly are reducing the number of men who feel the need to shave daily.”

 

Um, what if they’re just lazy, or think they’re super-cool hipsters?

 

Nevertheless, it’s not hurting the company, since “sales of electric groomers, including products such as the Norelco BodyGroom as well as devices for facial-hair grooming, grew 3% in 2008, according to Philips. Multipurpose kits that address beard trimming grew 4%, compared with flat sales for electric razors, said spokeswoman Shanon Jenest. Norelco has benefited disproportionately, with a 24% lift in sales of grooming products last year, she said.”

 

Now, I’d take this with a grain of salt, especially when a spokeswoman for Gillette admitted, “"We don't have any hard data to back up what's happening. [But] we believe it's more important than ever for guys out of work to be well-groomed, because they never know when they'll meet someone who could help them get work. Let's face it -- the guy who's clean-shaven and showered has a better chance of getting the job (or keeping the job, or getting/keeping the girl for that matter) than the scruffy, grungy guy."

high-end beauty takes high-dive.

There may be such a thing as the Lipstick Index, but that's not helping high-end beauty brands:

"Led by a decline in the sales of high-end fragrances, sales of prestige beauty products fell 3% last year, according to a new report from the NPD Group.

The drop in fragrance sales, which have been declining slightly for several years, was steepest at 6%. But the Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm says the 3% dip in makeup sales is more surprising. Skincare sales were flat, which means 'this is the first year each beauty category truly struggled,' reports NPD.

Makeup accounts for about 38% of the category -- or $3.2 billio-- and the decline in sales was the first ever, NPD says, with dollar sales falling 3% and unit sales sliding 6%. Natural products sold the best.

In fragrance -- which accounts for 32%, or $2.68 billion, of the prestige beauty market -- men's products were especially hard-hit, with sales falling 8% and new product launches dropping 20%. Sales of women's scents declined 5%. Gift sets priced from between $60 and $100, however, had broad appeal -- posting double-digit gains for the year in both dollars and units. New women's fragrances sold best -- up 9%, led by new brands like Viva La Juicy and Estee Lauder Sensuous."

quote of the day.

"Women will go without coffee, or having their nails done, but they won't go without makeup. It's recession-proof."

- Merle Norman Cosmetics owner Sandra Ervin

I'd like to argue on the coffee part, but that's only because my caffine addiction has returned full-force (but hey, I went cold turkey on Starbucks, so maybe she's got something there...)

going natural, naturally.

Interesting...

As consumers become more quizzical of marketing claims, coupled with the fact that we're being so overloaded with 'green' and 'organic' messages that we've become cynical about it, brands are having a hard time convincing consumers about just how natural their beauty products are.

"Proving that your brand is more authentic than the competition's is always difficult for marketers. For the increasingly crowded category of "natural" beauty products, that task is particularly challenging. That's why Burt's Bees, owned by Clorox Co., and a handful of other brands that try to minimize their use of synthetic ingredients have developed a certification process by which they can officially claim their right to call their products 'natural.'"

Check out this great interview with Mike Indursky, Burt's Bees' marketing chief, looking at the natural beauty category and how Burt's is working to differentiate themselves.

high end beauty holding its own.

Every hear of the Lipstick Theory? There have people predicting its return, and much discussion around it.

However, it looks like high-end cosmetics brands may, in fact, have the last laugh:

"A ray of light has emerged from the economic gloom in the least expected of places: Prestige and other high-end beauty and personal-care brands have been outperforming their mass peers of late, confounding assumptions that consumers trading down would hit high rollers the hardest."

Why is this? The article features analysts ready to guess:

"Analysts believe that in a highly segmented beauty market, the upper echelons of consumers still aren't hurting enough to trade down.

'Some of the people who buy prestige products are still less affected by some of the gas-price increases or macroeconomic difficulty, and they probably believe in the products' efficacy or they already would have traded down,' said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Ali Dibadj."

What do you think?

the battle of the book.

You can see economy-impacted trends in the way ad spend is movingby looking at the fall fashion and beauty books:

Last year, the all-important September issues of fashion and beauty magazines such as Condé Nast's Vogue and Hearst's Marie Claire were thick enough to throw out the backs of mail carriers across the country. The champ, Vogue, weighed in at a hefty 4.9 pounds, thanks to 725 pages of glossy ads.

It is a different story this year. As September issues begin hitting the newsstands, two-thirds of the 16 top fashion and beauty magazines by number of ad pages are smaller than a year ago. W magazine, also published by Condé Nast Publications, a unit of Advance Publications, has 18% fewer advertising pages. Vogue has 674 pages of ads this year, down 7%, while Hearst's Cosmopolitan is six pages, or 3.2%, lighter.

Until recently, fashion and beauty magazines had been something of an oasis amid the steady stream of red ink being reported by print-media properties. Last year was a record year for many titles in the category, and a number of publications were still selling ad pages at that pace into the first quarter of 2008.

The magazines' core marketers in luxury goods, clothing, jewelry and beauty products have been slower than advertisers in other categories to shift spending to the Internet. At the same time, the magazines have a rich history of readers who flip pages as much to see ads for the latest fall fashions as to read the stories, a factor that help keeps advertisers loyal.

But now things are starting to get ugly for the beauty magazines. Ad pages for the top fashion and beauty titles were down about 8% in the second quarter, and publishers acknowledge the downturn largely has held or grown steeper since then.

While luxury advertisers mostly are hanging in, many middle-market clothing and cosmetics firms are paring back ad pages or pulling out completely as a cooling economy quiets their cash registers. Other categories that traditionally advertise in these publications, such as autos and liquor, are also bumpy. At prices that can climb to $120,000 for one full-page ad, every missing page hits the magazines hard.

It must be a scary time to be in print.

cosmecuticals for gen y and gen we (??)

Seriously???

"Sales of cosmeceuticals--cosmetic products that offer some additional benefits--are expected to reach $16 billion in 2007, and $21 billion by 2012. And while crows-feet-phobic Baby Boomers are certainly a large part of the market, Gen X and Gen Y shoppers are also fueling the trend. Even babies are on board: $35 infant moisturizers are among the hot sellers, the report notes."

INFANT MOISTURIZERS???