In Spain, department store El Cortes Ingles worked with Maesa to create its own private label beauty brand—Oleada Bath & Body range.

Pretty Private Label

Price is a rapidly diminishing consideration for consumers who opt for store brands.

Written by Jonathan Ford, Pearlfisher

It has been widely reported that private label brands are continuing to grow (across all channels) as value-conscious consumers look for the best deals. But—and as a recent article in The Wall Street Journal affirmed—price is a rapidly diminishing consideration for consumers who opt for store brands. “Consumers are developing loyalty to store brands for reasons besides price.” (Source: www.plma.com). When it comes to personal care and beauty, the output of product innovation in private label has been phenomenal, but sales success is definitely linked to face value—and the effectiveness of the packaging design strategy.

The $5 Suddenly Madame Glamour fragrance may have likened to Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle, but the packaging’s lack of perceived value caused consumers to walk away.

Budget supermarket chain Lidl created a PR storm last year when its Suddenly Madame Glamour fragrance purportedly trumped Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle in the smell stakes—and with the bonus of a £3.99 price tag. But the amazing media spin quickly changed from promoting the value of this copycat to documenting disappointment with its on-shelf desirability. The white and gold luxury cues did not stack up against a far from premium name and identity. Yes, the parameters of luxury have changed, but this was not the issue. The problem here was not product or price point but packaging—and perceived value. And perceived value equals desirability.

A man who knows all about desirability is French footwear designer Christian Louboutin. Famous for making shoes with red-lacquered soles, Louboutin is now expanding his brand into a beauty line—Christian Louboutin Beauté.

“The beauty side of the business has to mirror the quality of the shoes, of the bags, of all the DNA of the brand,” femalefirst.co.uk quoted him as saying.

Louboutin knows what he’s talking about. The opportunity today lies in maximizing the DNA of a brand. Cutting through the noise of this retail arena with an authentic expression becomes vital. And the private label brands—as much as any other—should seize the opportunity to find new ways to tell their story and leverage legacy.

There are, of course, the much-loved—and historic— department stores and purveyors of beauty such as Bloomingdale’s in the U.S., Galeries Lafayette in Paris and House of Fraser in the UK, that are still revered for remaining true to their roots and rightly trading on the associations of their heritage. But these retail brands also need to stay ahead of the curve by understanding the importance of cherishing tradition with finding new ways to create difference.

The Biba Face Palette—featuring six luxurious pressed eyeshadows, a highlighter and blusher— was created exclusively for House of Fraser by HCT UK.

Recently launched, the Biba Face Palette—featuring six luxurious pressed eyeshadows, a highlighter and blusher— has been created exclusively for House of Fraser by HCT UK. The stylish, black lacquered compact, simply dominated by the iconic Biba logo in gold, is a perfect partnership, as summed up by Sasha Kumar, project manager HCT Europe: “As one of the oldest British retailers, House of Fraser was the perfect company to revive the Biba brand…”

In Spain, leading department store El Cortes Ingles worked in collaboration with Maesa to create its own private label beauty brand at the end of 2011. The Oleada Bath & Body range uses all Mediterranean flower and fruit scents reflecting the indigenous environment. And with argan oil big news in both hair and skin care, Oleada has just added an argan body butter and argan body oil to its range. The packaging is exquisitely simple but premium looking without the uniformity so often afforded to the design of private label brands.

Our much-loved retail icons and private label brands have a great story to tell but need to look at the most apposite way of both revolutionizing the definition of their brand provenance and the ideals and demands of the current market. They need to find new ways to keep consumer interest by reasserting and redefining their provenance and the channels through which they can do this. Reviving icons and creating new own brands are one option, new partnerships another.

Boots has relaunched its own-label Botanics aromatherapy skin care range. Boots Botanics has a synergistic brand partnership with London’s Kew Gardens to marry the chemist chain’s roots as an herbalist with a quintessentially English—but one of the world’s best known—botanic gardens. The brand has moved from an earthy look and feel to embrace a pure, bold and more contemporary look. Predominantly white packaging is disrupted by bursts of color illustrating a single graphic image of a flower or plant. It’s simple, vital and meaningful.

A UK partnership between Makeup Academy and Superdrug features hundreds of color cosmetics retailing at just £1 each.

Another UK partnership of note is MUA (Makeup Academy) and Superdrug— a partnership that has gone from strength to strength with its range of hundreds of color cosmetics retailing at just £1 each. And the most recent launch of Lip Boom! —a MUA lipstick range designed by celebrity singer Alexandra Burke. With names such as a nude shade called OK.com and a punchy monochrome packaging, it fits within the existing MUA portfolio and shares the same value and core beliefs with the retailer when it comes to focus on affordable style, choice, great quality and fashion-forward colors.

Success is no longer necessarily just about literal roots and origin but about a new positioning of values and messages. And this presents another viable—and desirable—route for private label brands to open up new retail channels and potentially attract new audiences.

Arora is a new luxury offering at Superdrug.

And once again, British high street retailer Superdrug is leading the way. The new Arora Bath & Body Collection does not boast the Superdrug star icon that adorns all other ranges in the Superdrug own-brand portfolio. Arora is a new luxury offering: elegant, transparent structures allow the color of the product to speak for itself, and is finished with a plain black cap and refined typeface for the Arora logo. Brand new and different, but it’s undeniably Superdrug in quality and finish.

Perhaps the real message—and opportunity—here doesn’t lie in new ways to logo, label and safeguard the known heritage, but in allowing retailers to display the kind of provocative and challenging behavior that made them so unique and desirable in the first place. Private brands need to embrace the opportunity for real open mindedness and find ways—authentic ways—to exist in new guises in the constantly evolving world order that we the consumer have created with our changing desires.

About the Author
Jonathan Ford is a designer and creative partner of Pearlfisher; www.pearlfisher.com