Beauty is broken, from prestige to mass

Kate Benson

Founding managing director

Martens & Heads!

New York City

Today’s savvy beauty consumer is not loyal to one store or one brand, so the retail experience is critical.  Since you can get pretty much anything online there has to be a viable reason to go to the store in the first place.  Fortunately, the retail experience provides two things that the internet cannot – human interaction / feedback and the chance to touch, feel and play with the products. 

Fast moving specialty stores like Sephora and Ulta capitalize on these experiential opportunities while traditional (and thereby slower) department stores are falling behind.  The tide is changing for some, however – Macy’s, for instance, is rolling out a capsule concept called “Impulse,” which is modeled after self-service stores like Sephora. They are targeting trendy, youth-focused brands to partner with, and it is becoming quite successful.   

Brick and mortar channels can use this advantage by highlighting the proximity to work, test, touch and explore.  Self service is a more accessible open for the consumer. 

Within mass channel, merchandising rules are being broken, which is influencing packaging design.  Some companies are trying to cross merchandise products according to consumers’ needs, instead of product categories.  P&G has recently restructured while keeping this in mind, and now has a HE division and a SHE division.  Addressing customer’s total needs – providing total solutions, as well as great products – is the future of beauty.  The brands and retailers who understand how to evolve with the customer will be successful in the long run. 

Beauty’s progression is currently following in the steps of chains such as Target, H&M and Gap, by going into collaboration with high-end designers. Linking labels considered to be prestige, and unaffordable, with megastores at once marks them down to the level of being bargain priced, a steal, and most importantly, applicable to the masses. By simply packaging a high-end product with low-cost worth a new market has been opened – one much larger in scale than the small corner of occupants in the top earning percentile.

Noticing an opportunity, Kiehl’s is leading the path amongst beauty retailers and has joined forces with contemporary artist Jeff Koons, to produce limited edition products for charitable benefits. High fashion is packaging itself to the masses and now museum-worthy art will follow suit. Now we can all say that we own a Koons.