Pureology Research Company of the year: Excellence in Packaging

By Leah Genuario

DryShine on display.

In an industry filled with Goliaths, PureOlogy Research proves there is room for a David.  PureOlogy, Irvine, CA, is a four-year-old hair care company with an employee roster of 53 and a product line of 60 SKUs. Despite its unassuming statistics, its singular message, targeted audience and superior products and packaging make it a force to be reckoned with.

“We expect to be the next major player in the industry,” says Jim Markham, president and chief executive officer. “We’ve identified a niche. We have some tremendous people with tremendous talent pushing a tremendous product with a tremendous package. That coupled with positioning, there doesn’t seem to be any stopping the company.”

The company grew 320 percent in its second year, jumped another 200 percent in its third year and is expected to grow 70 percent in its fourth fiscal year. “We are on track to do $100 million within the next few years,” says Markham, who adds the company has been profitable since month five.

PureOlogy has found a niche in color treated hair care. It distributes exclusively through salons and spas and prides itself on the science that goes behind the products. “It’s a sales and marketing company, but we really specialize in researching the best ingredients to maximize hair color. It is quite scientific,” says Markham.

Products are carcinogen-free and do not include sulfates or salts. The products are also packed with proteins, botanicals, signature scents and proprietary ingredients that aid in repairing, moisturizing and protecting color treated hair.

Although the company focuses singularly on color treated hair, the concept for PureOlogy arose from an entirely different set of needs. Markham explains: “PureOlogy came about because of a friend who had cancer. Her oncologist restricted the use of many ingredients and she came to me because she wanted to know what products she could use on her hair,” he says. “I worked on a sulfate-free shampoo for her and the shampoo really protected color. When I saw no one was addressing that need, I shifted from the holistic focus into color protection and color brilliance. We took the concept, and then marketed it for color-treated hair.”

The Man Behind the Company

This is not the first business venture for Markham, nor is he a freshman in the beauty business. Markham’s career began in the 1960s when he was 15 years old. He was a barber, focusing on men’s styling. Over the next few years, Markham’s skills were recognized with a number of different styling awards.

Founder Jim Markham

Because of the awards, Markham had the opportunity to befriend Jay Sebring, a renowned celebrity stylist. It was through this relationship that Markham entered into the distribution world. He began to distribute Sebring hair care products in the Northwest. Upon Sebring’s death, Markham moved to California, bought Sebring’s business and built up his own roster of celebrity clientele. Markham began styling the hair of celebrities like Paul Newman, Johnny Carson and Robert Redford.

By the time Sebring was sold in the early 1970s, it had whet Markham’s appetite for entrepreneurialism. Before PureOlogy was founded, Markham opened and sold two other businesses related to the hair industry: Markham Products and ABBA Pure & Natural Hair Care. Markham Products focused on training stylists to cut both men’s and women’s hair. ABBA brought Markham into the world of manufacturing. “ABBA did fantastic. We were one of the pioneers in pure and natural hair care development. We sold ABBA in 1997,” says Markham.

In 2001, PureOlogy was founded. It also focuses on pure and natural hair care products, and according to Markham, it has succeeded in creating the prestige color hair care category. Whether it’s a receptive target audience, an excellent product portfolio, or a bit of both, PureOlogy is proving to be Markham’s most successful venture to date.

New Luxury Consumer

PureOlogy caters to the “new luxury” consumer. Its products are expensive, ranging from $20 for its Rootlift Volumizing Mousse to $50 for its new NanoWorksShampoo and NanoworksCondition. According to Markham, his audience is willing to pay these prices.

Markham says new luxury versus old luxury has to do with what motivates a buyer to buy. “There’s a book out called Trading Up (By Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske) and it’s all about the new luxury consumer.” says Markham. “The new luxury consumer will pay for performance. It’s not about price; it’s about performance and value. If it works, they’ll buy it.”

The logo resembles a color wheel.

Performance is one area where PureOlogy has been scoring big points. HydrateShampoo, a moisturizing formula for dry, color-treated hair, has been receiving a lot of attention in particular. In 2005, PureOlogy’s HydrateShampoo won Allure magazine’s Best of Beauty Editor’s Choice award for color-treated hair. HydrateShampoo secured Launch Pad magazine’s Reader’s Choice Award for Best Color Protecting Shampoo. The HydrateShampoo and HydrateCondition duo also won Behindthechair.com’s Stylist Choice for Favorite Color Protecting Products, an organization with 300,000 professional stylists worldwide.  

PureOlogy’s packaging has also been turning heads. In 2002, the company was a first place winner of the HBA International Package Design of the Year Award.  With Beauty Packaging’s Top Company of the Year: Excellence in Packaging award, PureOlogy joins the prestigious ranks of previous winners: Estée Lauder, Avon, Limited Brands and Chanel.

Packaging Details

PureOlogy seamlessly ties its packaging to the prestige image  of the product line. “We don’t want a disconnect between quality product and a luxurious image. From ad imagery to packaging to materials, we are trying to communicate that the packaging is as good as the product inside. Our goal is consistency throughout,” says Markham.

He adds, “The high end colorists in the prestige salons won’t display anything that won’t make their salons look good. It has to be high end. It has to be pretty.”

PureOlogy tapped Joni Rae & Associates, a CA-based packaging, advertising and public relations firm to assist the PureOlogy team in package design. After a year of collaboration, the current look was chosen. The result is an impressive, coherent line featuring clever design elements.

PureOlogy designed packaging for its audience: the new luxury woman with colored hair. It also considered its distribution channel: salons and spas.

Three bottles can tuck perfectly into the corner of a tub.

In line with its luxurious image, every product package incorporates the color purple. “We found that to be a consistent element that could tie the line together. It’s a prestigious color,” says Markham. Most of the company’s products feature metallic purple caps.

Its predominately female audience resonates with the soft pastel colors used for the primary containers — colors like rose, lilac and sky blue. For products that might have a transgender appeal, the company chose a complementary mustard color for its packages.

A pearlescent shimmer further enhances the bottle colors. “We came out with a dual process of color on the bottle. It created the very nice iridescent look that you see on all of our bottles,” says Markham. DesignWorx, Lake Forest, CA, supplies the bottles.

Grip was also an important consideration. The custom shaped bottles were designed to fit well in the hand of the average female. The sand blasted neck gives the bottle a non-slip grip.

A small label graces the product containers.  It’s one way the company reaches out to hair stylists, the group that often makes product recommendations to clientele. The specially die-cut label features the trademarked logo of the company, a logo inspired by a hair colorist’s color wheel.  The red, purple, yellow and green circles intersect to form a symbol of a flower, emphasizing the purity of ingredients.

The custom shaped bottles are appealing as a marketing tool as well. The broad front and back provide plenty of space for text. In addition, PureOlogy’s shampoos and conditioners nest together to fit into the corner of a bathtub. The innovative design also makes for eye-catching two-for-one promotions.

Finally, PureOlogy took great care in text size and selection. “When it comes to packaging, a product sale is a two-step process. The primary panel gives you enough information or looks sharp enough to make you want to pick it up. Once you pick it up, you turn it over and the back panel sells the product,” says Joni Russell, president of Joni Rae & Associates.

The color care company from California chose to assume the British spelling — “colour” — in its packaging and promotional materials. Markham says it’s because this version sounds more sophisticated. The word is used often and intentionally, reiterating its niche in the color treated hair category.

Tweaks and Updates

In its four years on the market, PureOlogy has not felt the need to revolutionize its current packaging. But there have been slight changes.

“Have we changed the packaging a lot? No. Does it look better than it did? Yes,” remarks Markham. Among its evolution, the bottle color has been made more vibrant. The text on the back panel has been changed slightly. In some cases, the font size has been altered.

The packaging will likely look the same for the long haul, but the company is making more significant changes to its marketing and advertising campaign, starting in 2006.

“We are going through an upscale imagery re-launch because we know that imagery is critically important to an upscale company,” says Markham. “We just did a photo shoot, we are changing our web site, and we are changing our advertising program”

New Products in 2005

Last year, the company launched six new products: DryShine Styler, NanoWorks Restorative Hair Treatment, RealCurl Defining Créme, HoldFast Hardholdgel, NanoWorksShampoo and NanoWorksCondition. The NanoWorks shampoo and conditioner, in particular, have generated a lot of excitement.

The Nanoworks line uses secondary  packaging.

Markham comments that these two products raise the bar into a “super luxury” category. Each product retails for $50. This is a large jump from its Hydrate shampoos and conditioners, which sell for $24.

The product packaging is similar to the other products in the line. It features the familiar custom bottle in a champagne color with a purple cap. Unlike the other shampoos and conditioners, however, the NanoWorks versions are also housed in a folding carton. PureOlogy designed acrylic displays meant to highlight the luxuriousness of the new products.

A $50 bottle of shampoo or conditioner may be a tough sell, but Markham is convinced of its superior performance.

In order to demonstrate its high quality, PureOlogy will add sampling systems to its marketing campaign. The company mainly utilizes packettes for sampling, but it also distributes .25 oz. tubs and 1 oz. bottles. PureOlogy does bi-monthly in-salon promotions. Samples are also given out through direct mail campaigns and through charity events.   

Growth and Acquisitions

PureOlogy has proven so successful that Markham is looking to expand its market geographically. PureOlogy products are currently sold throughout North America. Active negotiations with distributors are underway to expand its reach to the U.K., Russia, Spain and France.

“We are expanding carefully. We like to open distributors up and service them well,” says Markham, adding that they are very selective in the distributors they work with. Markham wants to make sure the distributor deals with the same distribution channels, as well as complimentary geographic locations.

Growth for Markham’s venture has not only come organically. Markham has also been pursuing acquisitions within prestige beauty.

In 2005, The Markham Prestige Group was founded. It is now the parent company of PureOlogy. PureOlogy’s sister company, Alterna Professional Haircare, is a new acquisition made by the Markham Prestige Group.

Acquired in mid-2005, Alterna is also a prestige hair care company and like PureOlogy, its products are sold through salons. The company has a broader geographical breadth than PureOlogy, distributing to 14 countries.

“We are a prestige line. They are a prestige line. We saw a good fit,” comments Markham.

Markham expects this is only the first of a line of acquisitions that will help propel PureOlogy and its parent group to the next level.

“The Markham Prestige Group is looking to acquire skin, cosmetic and hair care companies. We believe we have the wherewithal to grow them and we are aggressively looking for the next opportunity,” Markham adds.

The energy of this group is infectious. Its entrepreneurial spirit and track record of sales growth make it a beauty company to watch and to learn from.         

“Mediocrity doesn’t work here. We have a great team, we have a great group of vendors. Everybody is committed to making PureOlogy a top global beauty company,” says Markham. “It’s very exciting. It’s very exciting to be a part of our group.”