Estee Lauder Looks To Editors For Input On Promotions

Beauty editors at women's fashion and beauty magazines like Allure, Glamour and InStyle often make or break a cosmetic launch or reinvigorate sales of a tired product. Now, Estee Lauder is giving this influential group even more clout by asking it to weigh in on promotional freebies and samples.

That was one of the upcoming sales-boosting initiatives mentioned by Estee Lauder yesterday at its analyst conference.

Here in the U.S., sales growth of Estee Lauder's two biggest brands-the Estee Lauder flagship and Clinique-have been lackluster. Analysts say that's partly due to slow sales and lighter foot traffic across the board in traditional department stores, plus the rise of hipper, smaller, growing makeup brands.

Although the outlook for the Estee Lauder and Clinique brands are "good globally," per a pr rep at Estee Lauder corporate, (the beauty company is forecasting 6-8% top line sales growth company wide through 2010), much of what will drive that is international sales and expansion in emerging markets.

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One possible way around underwhelming sales for the beauty company's mature brands in this country is to "try to make [gifts with purchase] more effective and more appealing," says the rep. "Essentially, we want [beauty editors'] input and are looking for them to review what ends up going into a gift."

An industry term for gift with purchase, a GWP is a promotional device used by many beauty makers to spike sales at department stores at a given time. GWPs, which tend to be used by the larger and mature brands almost exclusively at mid- to high-end department stores, are generally pre-scheduled at stores on a rotating basis several times a year. They are heavily promoted in flyers and sometimes even on spot TV. Besides Estee Lauder and Clinque, L'Oreal's Lancome and Christian Dior are other brands also big on GWP events, which tend to take place in stores such as Macy's Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. They generally last a week or two.

GWPs typically consist of a few samples of a new skin lotion, eye cream or fragrance, and a couple of color cosmetic items, like a full-size lipstick and/or a mini eye pencil, mascara, and perhaps a small accessory like an eyelash curler or mirror. Often, these goodies are packaged in a cute makeup bag or small branded tote and generally require either a minimum dollar purchase or perhaps something the marketer is trying to push-like a fragrance or treatment item.

Beauty editors contacted were not able to comment by press time, however, if a few do act as defacto advisors on GWPs, it can only help, especially if periodic mentions go with it-which is more likely now that Macy's has become more of a national chain. Some of the likely suggestions might be to offer more full-size products, perhaps a choice of skin care as well as color, and to vary a gifts' contents-even if there are five or six in a given store per year.

Just how much pull do beauty magazines have? Consider that being called out as an editor's pick in Allure magazine in 2004 made a homogenous beauty tool-an eyelash curler-the top selling SKU for niche cosmetics brand Kevyn Aucoin. Likewise, with the same nod Anew anti aging cream became one of Avon's most respected and talked-about products.

Elsewhere, while plans call for the higher-end Estee Lauder flagship brand to largely rely on department store distribution, the company yesterday also says that it was "committed to have Clinique in 290 non-J.C. Penney Sephora stores by next year." Currently, the brand is in approximately 30 to 40% of Sephora stores, per Lauder pr.

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