“After the war, it was a time to be positive, to look to the future and to the safety and well-being of people. Lancaster has always been committed to making women feel better about themselves.” |
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The charismatic President of Coty Prestige, Michele Scannavini, looks back on 60 years of cosmetics innovation |
MONACO. Lancaster turned sixty in style earlier this month, celebrating its diamond anniversary by returning to its roots: the glamorous principality of Monaco.
Assorted international journalists were treated to a luxury cocktail and dinner “birthday party” at the ultra-exclusive Cap Estel hotel in Eze. Day two of the event saw the formal unveiling of the new Wrinkle Lab anti-ageing collection, supplemented by a tailor-made Wrinkle Lab treatment at the world-renowned spa Les Thermes Marins in Monte-Carlo.
“I am so very pleased to welcome you all here to help celebrate a very, very important event: our 60th birthday,” declared the charismatic President of Coty Prestige, Michele Scannavini, at the Cap Estel festivities.
During a brief speech, he paid tribute to Lancaster founders George Wurz and Eugene Frezzati, and delivered a potted history of the Lancaster brand, including the origins of its name (inspired by the bomber aircraft that enabled Wurz to flee the occupied territories in 1940).
“1946, when Lancaster was born, was a poignant year,” Scannavini noted. “After the war, it was a time to be positive, to look to the future and to the safety and well-being of people. Lancaster has always been committed to making women feel better about themselves.”
He continued: “Our commitment to beauty endures”¦with ever more innovative R&D technologies, as you will see tomorrow at the unveiling of our new line.”
Scannavini concluded with a twinkle: “Tonight we shall celebrate our birthday in true Mediterranean fashion, with good company, food, wine and music. We shall also celebrate another very important 60th anniversary – that of the bikini, which of course complements perfectly Lancaster’s sun and beauty heritage.”
Accordingly, the evening was punctuated by a series of live fashion shows, detailing an eye-popping decade-by-decade history of the bikini’s evolution.
WRINKLE LAB REVEALED
“Our new line, Wrinkle Lab Precise Correction, is a triple-action product that will allow consumers to fight wrinkles from all angles.” |
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Lancaster’s two key missions are to create an expert anti-ageing offer, and to facilitate safe, positive tanning |
“Once again, we are opening the book of cosmetics, and writing a new page in the history of Lancaster,” proclaimed Vice President Prestige Cosmetics Bernard Potier, as he set the scene at the official “reveal” of Wrinkle Lab.
“Innovation is a tradition at Lancaster, and has been now for 60 years. Here in our birthplace of Monaco, where our R&D is still based, we have created 500 international patents of the best innovative technology.”
He added: “The [Coty Prestige] group has decided to put a strong focus on its cosmetics brands, especially Lancaster, so we are looking forward to further boosting and strengthening our presence and our business in the future.”
“Lancaster is a world where beauty is worshipped,” declared Potier’s co-presenter Vice President International Marketing Karen Pouey. “We have 60 years of building expertise in cosmetics breakthroughs. Our unique objective is ‘to stop the sands of time’.”
She emphasised the importance of Lancaster’s two key missions: to create an expert anti-ageing offer, and to facilitate safe, positive tanning. Pouey also detailed Lancaster’s three key cosmetics milestones in its 60-year history, notably the introduction into cosmetics of Retinol in 1976; the debut of the company’s RPF anti-free radical complex in 2002; and its DNA protection and repair development in 2003.
“Our new line, Wrinkle Lab Precise Correction, is a triple-action product that will allow consumers to fight wrinkles from all angles,” Pouey explained. “It delivers both instant and long-lasting results.”
Vice President International Prospective & Development Yvette Gradiski explained Wrinkle Lab’s “multi-directional action process”. “The Replumping System fills in lines from above,” she noted, “while the Retinol Primaspheres [horizontally] smooth them out. Lastly, our Wrinkle Repair System pushes up from below, at the very root of the wrinkle.”
The inspiration for Wrinkle Lab, revealed Senior Vice President R&D Leonhard Zastrow, was the skin’s own scar healing process. “We noticed that scar healing happens much faster than normal skin regeneration, and wondered why,” he related, explaining how natural processes begin immediately to fill and heal a wound from the bottom to the top.
“Wound healing is the body’s second most complicated biological process after birth,” Zastrow added.
In technical terms, Lancaster’s Wrinkle Repair System [the “push up” element] uses a unique peptide that attracts fibroblasts and helps rebuild the dermis structure where it has started to be compromised i.e. at the base of the wrinkle.
Other key elements include the company’s RPF complex, and a selection of soft-focus pigments.
Zastrow claimed that in clinical tests, a daily application of the Wrinkle Repair Day Cream prompted a -14% decrease in wrinkle depth after two weeks’ use. The decrease in total wrinkle volume was -29%.
SKINCARE SPECIFICS
“The Replumping System fills in lines from above. The Retinol Primaspheres smooth them out [horizontally], and the Wrinkle Repair System pushes up at the root of the wrinkle.” |
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Vice President International Prospective & Development Yvette Gradiski explains Wrinkle Lab’s “multi-directional action process” |
The Wrinkle Lab collection comprises seven products, and is designed for use as a complete programme, explained Pouey. The seven items are:
– Wrinkle Correcting Concentrate Plus Mini Roll-On Massage Tool
– Wrinkle Correcting Day Cream
– Wrinkle Correcting Rich Day Cream
– Wrinkle Correcting Night Cream
– Deep Wrinkle Smoother Plus Mini Roll-on Massage Tool
– Anti Wrinkle Rescue Mask
– Wrinkle Correcting Eye & Lip Cream
“These products can be mixed and matched, according to individual customer needs,” Pouey commented. “They can be used as a strict routine, as a skin “SOS” or as pampering products.”
At present there are no plans for Wrinkle Lab travel retail sets or exclusives, confirmed Marketing Manager Travel Retail Markus Stauss. “But just because that isn’t in the pipeline now, doesn’t mean that it can’t change,” he explained. “If we find that there is a demand [for such items], we will satisfy it.”
Wrinkle Lab will be launched internationally from October. In terms of domestic price positioning, the Day Cream will retail at around €68, the Night Cream at €71 and the Rescue Mask at €59.
PROBING DEEPER INTO WRINKLE LAB
The launch of Wrinkle Lab is obviously a key development within Lancaster skincare, and the company clearly has high hopes for the line. But who is the key target market, and what exactly are the company’s objectives for it?
“The key target consumer is aged around 40 and over – the age when deep wrinkles start to be a problem,” Pouey told The Moodie Report during a group interview. “That’s basically the same target market as for Suractif Non Stop Lifting, but obviously Wrinkle Lab addresses a different skincare issue.”
“Our commitment to beauty endures.” |
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Travel retail’s top man, Joe Porcelli, enjoying Lancaster’s birthday celebrations |
“What is important is that Wrinkle Lab represents pure additional business for us,” interjects Potier. “We needed a specialised anti-wrinkle line. In terms of ambitions, 40% of our treatment business is done by Suractif. Wrinkle Lab should achieve 75% of that, in percentage terms.”
Most big beauty houses generate critical mass, greater awareness and customer loyalty through their make-up and/or fragrance businesses, which are comparatively small in Lancaster’s case. Is that considered to be an issue in terms of growing the skin care business? Potier thinks not.
“We are a unique brand worldwide, to have a balanced business between sun care and treatment,” he replies. “Both are equally important for us.” And, he maintains, both offer complementary synergies.
“According to our philosophy, you can’t be great within anti-ageing unless you have great technology and know-how within sun too,” underlines Pouey. “After all, photo-ageing is caused by light and sun. Those are areas where we are experts.”
How does Lancaster plan to support the Wrinkle Lab launch? And how important is it to make consumers understand the technology behind it?
“There will be a comprehensive print and POS campaign,” notes Pouey, who emphasised the role both the name and the ad visual would play.
“We have deliberately made The Wrinkle Lab visual very clear and easy to understand,” adds Potier. “It’s direct, to the point, and says exactly what it does.
“Cosmetics is scientifically a very multi-disciplinary field.” |
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The inspiration for Wrinkle Lab, reveals Senior Vice President R&D Leonhard Zastrow, was the skin’s own scar healing process |
“This is particularly important with the travel retail channel; when you don’t always have a lot of BAs looking after your brand, you need to be very immediate and very obvious. What we are doing more and more at Lancaster is creating approachable products that are simple to understand and easy to select.”
“Product names are very important in this respect,” comments Pouey. “We try to be straight to the point with the name, and the strap lines. For example, with Suractif, the idea was continuous lifting, so we put Non Stop in the name.
“The strap for Wrinkle Lab will be: “Trap your wrinkles from every angle”. So we don’t really need to explain all the complicated technology – just the benefits.”
In geographic terms, Lancaster’s heartland is Europe, although the company is now looking to strengthen its presence both in Asia and the US.
“We are expanding east and west,” agrees Potier. “Europe accounts for about 75-80% of our business, but a couple of years ago we decided to attack the Asian market, and so created a strong whitening programme, which is rolling out now.
“In the US, the group [Coty Prestige] is number one, or nearly, given its strong fragrance presence, particularly within the celebrity sector. For Lancaster specifically, we have started our comeback, by introducing a new sun care line last March.”
And what of male consumers? Hailed by most beauty houses as a sector with enormous growth potential, how important a segment is it to Lancaster?
“We know that for sun care, around 25% of our users are men,” maintains Pouey. “We also know that we can increase this number, simply because we haven’t yet done everything possible to communicate with male consumers, for example, through special sizes, packaging sleeves, product textures and so on.
“Skincare for men is a growing market, but it’s not our priority yet,” she adds, “at least, not in terms of creating a single, specific men’s line. However, for our 365 Cellular Elixir, for example, we know that a lot of men purchase it. We can capitalise on that by creating a special “For Men” sleeve and merchandising it within a dedicated men’s area.”
“1946, when Lancaster was born, was a poignant year.” |
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Lancaster turned sixty in style earlier this month, celebrating its diamond anniversary by returning to its roots: the glamorous principality of Monaco |
In conclusion, what does Lancaster believe the brand represents to its consumers? “There are two faces,” replies Pouey. “The first comes from sun care: that face is all about freedom, joy, holidays, and sensoriality. The second comes from the name and what is behind it: authority, high-technology, the laboratory.
“When we did some major research four-five years ago, we discovered that there are almost two brands. In the intervening years we’ve done a lot of work to link those two different faces.”
THE APPLIANCE OF SCIENCE
As the technology behind anti-ageing products gets ever more ambitious and complex, the R&D element also becomes more demanding and diverse.
Gradiski and Zastrow are the public face of a multi-faceted team which harnesses many different skills and talents to bring to market ever more innovative cosmetics products.
In the case of Wrinkle Lab, the inspiration for the technology was the body’s own wound healing process. But is such clear inspiration the norm? Anything and everything can prompt a product, according to Zastrow.
“Cosmetics is scientifically a very multi-disciplinary field,” he explains. “Our research centre and strategy is constructed in such a way that I do not want to have specialists for every single thing. What I need are people who are able to think outside the box, who are able to look into dermatology, material science, radiation biology, nutrition and so on.”
“Lancaster is a world where beauty is worshipped.” |
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Assorted international journalists were treated to a luxury cocktail and dinner “birthday party” at the ultra-exclusive Cap Estel hotel in Eze |
Zastrow adds: “We try to build our team in such a way that we are able to take ideas, add in different elements and put them together in the lab to create something completely different.”
“For me, the process started when we decided we needed an anti-wrinkle collection in our portfolio,” relates Gradiski. “And we knew that there were so many in the market already, so ours needed to be different.
“I read an article about scars healing, and wondered about the possibilities there. So we began to investigate. The most important thing was to find an ingredient involved in that process – and that’s the way [Wrinkle Lab] started.
“The key is to look everywhere, at everything, and to react very quickly to ideas,” adds Gradiski. “And you have to be able to transform what might already exist.”
It’s a role that Zastrow finds intensely rewarding. “The best thing about this process is that every day you have the possibility to look at different fields of science,” he notes. “If you are a curious person it’s the ideal place to be.”
What, then, is the worst thing? “When you discover something new, have a brilliant idea for it, and marketing says “˜no’,” he replies with a rueful grin. “But you cannot do everything at once, and we accept that.”
“Finding the right human resources is crucial for what we do,” comments Zastrow. “We have been fortunate to assemble a team of unique, highly-qualified dedicated people, who like what they do.”
Wrinkle Lab aside, which major technological discoveries is Zastrow most proud to be associated with? “There are a few,” he replies. ” The first is the delivery of molecular oxygen to skin, [part of the Lancaster Re-Oxygen range]; the second is the way we managed to stimulate blood flow by introducing small magnetic particles to the skin’s surface; the others are the RPF anti-free radical complex and the IPF Integrated Sun Protection Factor.”
MORE STORIES ON LANCASTER/COTY PRESTIGE
Coty and Klein spread the scent of Euphoria – 05/06/06
Breaking news: Coty Prestige – a new force in the fragrance & cosmetics market – 30/03/06
Lancaster takes sun protection further with new SunSlim collection – 14/03/06
