Changing the Game of Beauty
July 6, 2016 at Geneva
How to create innovative strategies for business and brands in a fast changing world
When P&G acquired Gillette for $57 billion a decade ago, everyone described it as a perfect marriage of the two leaders in women’s and men’s beauty products. Gillette could develop razors of women, with soaps to match, whilst P&G could surf across men’s new enthusiasm for grooming. The best mass market brands for everyone. Reshaping the world of beauty.
Beauty disruption
10 years later, economic tsunamis and exponential technologies, and the resultant priorities and influences of consumers, have changed the way in which brands win. New start-ups can reach further and compete faster online. Look at the cult success of Dollar Shave Club with 3 million subscribers. Millennial consumers have different priorities and new heroes.
Look at the demand for Urban Decay amongst fast-grown-up teens. Brands are no longer built through advertising, but through the peer to peer influence of Instagrammers and vloggers. Look at Michelle Phan’s weekly Youtube audience, and her Ipsy brand.
Download the summary of my keynote Changing the Game of Beauty
Changing the game
Across the world, new ideas, new businesses and new solutions are transforming every market. “Gamechangers” think and act differently. They innovate every aspect of their brand and marketing.
From Alibaba to Zipcars, Ashmei to Zidisha, Azuri and Zynga, a new generation of businesses are rising out of the maelstrom of economic and technological change across our world. These are just a few of the companies shaking up our world.
Gamechangers are disruptive and innovative, start-ups and corporates, in every sector and region, reshaping our world. They are more ambitious, with stretching vision and enlightened purpose. They see markets as kaleidoscopes of infinite possibilities, assembling and defining them to their advantage. They find their own space, then shape it in their own vision. Most of all they have great ideas. They outthink their competition, thinking bigger and different. They don’t believe in being slightly cheaper or slightly better. That is a short-term game of diminishing returns.
We asked 1000 business leaders to nominate the companies who they believe are creating the future in each different sector. The top 100 innovators are big and small, spread across every sector and continent, from Asia to the Americas, finance to fashion. And then we wanted to understand what they did differently.
They range from well known innovators like Amazon and Apple – the magic Dash buttons creating a direct link between consumer and brands, the ecosystems that go beyond devices – to new brands like Brazil’s Beauty’in fusing the world of food and cosmetics, or even Zespri redefining the obscure Chinese gooseberry as the superfood Kiwi fruit.
They capture their higher purpose in more inspiring brands that resonate with their target audiences at the right time and place, enabled by data and technology, but more through empathetic design and rich human experiences. They fuse digital and physical, global and local, ideas and networks. Social media drives reach and richness, whilst new business models make the possible profitable. They collaborate with customers, and partner with other business, connecting ideas and utilising their capabilities. They look beyond the sale to enable customers to achieve more, they care about their impact on people and the world, whilst being commercially successful too.
As they say in the GoogleX moonshot factory, in seeking to reinvent everything from cars to healthcare, “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?”
Gamechangers of beauty
Example 1: Michelle Phan and Ipsy … curated by people like you
Read more about Ipsy the curator of subscription beauty bags, using the power of vlogging and social media to unlock influencer marketing.
Example 2: The Organic Pharmacy … natural cosmetics, treatments and food
The Organic Pharmacy started 15 years ago in London with a passion for “all natural” cosmetics and skincare. It has developed a cult following across the world with a range that spans homeopathic therapies to glamour foods.
Example 3: Tatcha Skincare … beauty inspired by the Japanese Geisha
Read more about Tatcha and how founder Vicky Tsai turned a Geisha secret into a cosmetics innovation, In fact Tsai’s business card reads “chief treasure hunter”.
Example 4: Adorn … 3d printing foundation pen
Find out more about Adorn, the world’s first 3d printing foundation pen, that creates personalised foundation to match your skin.
Example 5: Blow.LTD … the “Uber of beauty” on demand to you
Read more about Blow.LTD and how they secured funding from the likes of Unilever to turn their salon experience into “the Uber of beauty” that comes to you.
Example 6: Pat McGrath Lab’s Gold 001
Read more about Gold 001 and how the famous Pat McGrath Labs created a global beauty sensation in make-up with its always sold-out gold powder.
Example 7: Zenta by Vitaya … first think human, then think tech
Zenta is the wearable tech fashion range from Kate Unsworth, the 28 year old artist and mathematician who believes in transforming people’s inner wellbeing through human-centred technology. Zenta is a first wearable “happiness tracker.”
Example 8: MatchCo … customised cosmetics from your phone
MatchCo is one of the latest, and most interesting players in the customised beauty market, which has never really taken off. Yet. The Santa Monica-based business focuses on personalised foundations through a phone-based app.
Example 9: Isamaya French … fusing art and fashion to be extreme
Read more about Isamaya Ffrench the young London make-up artist who fuses fashion and art in the most striking, bizarre and creative styles.
Key concepts
Kaleidoscope World … Making sense of fast changing markets to find the best new opportunities locally and globally.
Key concepts
- Change drivers, global trends and new opportunities
- Exploring the new customer expectations and aspirations
- Thinking bigger, thinking different, 10 times not 10%
- Emerging markets, powerful millenials, and new women
- Winning in an ideas economy – outthinking your competition
- So how could you change the world? Exploring the 10 themes
New insights
- Aeromobil – the flying car from a little town in Slovakia
- Li and Fung – the Hong Kong business that can do anything
- Google X – driverless cars and free wifi from the Moonshot Factory
- 23andMe – DNA profiling for $99 changes the future of healthcare
- Zespri – redefining your market in your own vision, words and rules
- Corning – industrial manufacturing is about people and emotions too
Distruptive Innovators … Learning from the next generation of business and brands, to drive innovation and growth
Key concepts
- The world’s 100 most disruptive businesses and brands
- The future of banking, technolodgy, retail, healthcare and more
- Why fast speedboats will beat the big supertankers
- Being digital and physical, to create reach and richness
- Designing new business models, including 36 new templates
- Driving innovation, that disrupts and transforms markets
New insights
- Airbnb – the sharing economy beats the old economy
- Juan Valdez – better than Starbucks with local authenticity
- Nespresso – the power and profitability of new business models
- Tesla – harnessing technology to make life better
- Umpqua Bank – learning from anywhere but your competitors
- Xiaomi – from start-up to global superstar in three years
Winning Strategies … Creating innovative strategies to outthink the competition and shape markets in your own vision
Key concepts
- Building brands that are inspiring, collaborative and enabling
- Combining big data with big ideas to focus and engage people
- Telling stories, through liquid and linked content that keeps moving
- Real time marketing, that is fast and personal, real and believable
- Creating richer customer experiences, about customers not products
- Building communities that connect and mobilise people
New insights
- GE – connecting the ideas of B2C to B2B businesses
- Jonny Cupcakes – turning t-shirts into a richer experience
- Nike+ – its not about the shoes, its how fast you can run
- Periscope – inspired by revolution, how new ideas go viral
- Rapha – building clubs and communities around people and passion
- Threadless – being a little crazy, and more loved, in a changing world
Be the Gamechanger … how you can drive innovation, change and growth … how will your change your game?
Key concepts
- Where to start – where you’re a big company or small company
- Building your momentum – finding ways to accelerate growth
- What leaders do – the new role and rules for effective leadership
- Changing your brain, to change your game
- Getting started with the Gamechangers Toolkit
- Being bold, brave and brilliant