• Ad Age, Tuesday, September 26, 2006 12:15 PM

Rather than throw good money after bad, Revlon is pulling the plug on its Vital Radiance line targeted at baby boomers. David Kennedy, who took over as president-CEO of the cosmetics marketer last week, said the company will take a negative hit of $110 million, figuring it was unlikely to receive space at Revlon's "best [retail] accounts." Instead of building Vital Radiance, the investment saved will be used to leverage the mainstay Revlon brand. Revlon spent $17 million in measured media behind Vital Radiance over the last three months, according to data from TNS Media Intelligence--but the brand failed to take off at major drug chains, including Rite Aid and CVS. Revlon also announced that it was firing 250 people, including CMO Stephanie Klein-Peponis, chief creative officer Rochelle Udell, and director-marketing Maura Mottolese. Carrie Mellage, industry manager-consumer products at Kline & Co., says Revlon's biggest hurdle is the huge marketing budgets and innovation of competitors L'Oreal and Procter & Gamble. She also said that the company likely tanked with Vital Radiance by failing to put its Revlon brand name on the line to help consumers "navigate through the clutter."

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