AMERICAS. Shiseido Travel Retail has launched Drunk Elephant across 11 counters in Americas travel retail. The roll-out marks a milestone in the prestige skincare brand’s global development and channel expansion with more openings to come in 2024.
In December 2022, the brand launched flagship counters at Los Angeles (LAX), New York John F. Kennedy (JFK) and San Francisco (SFO) international airports in the US.
In 2023, Drunk Elephant opened additional counters in Canada and South America bringing its skin-nourishing formulas to travellers in Toronto, Vancouver, Mexico City and São Paulo, as well as additional American airport openings in Boston and Dallas.
As reported, the brand first launched in Asia Pacific and Europe travel retail in 2021.
Founded by Tiffany Masterson, Drunk Elephant is centred around an ingredient-elimination ethos that helps users achieve a total skin reset. All Drunk Elephant formulas are free from the ‘Suspicious Six’ ingredients: essential oils, drying alcohols, silicones, chemical sunscreens, fragrances and SLS. The brand believes that these ingredients are at the root of almost every skin issue.
Shiseido Travel Retail Vice President West Vincent Baland commented: “Following its introduction to travellers in Asia and Europe, Drunk Elephant is primed to unlock the great potential that we see in the strategic travel retail Americas market. The brand attracts a loyal fan base, and we hope to leverage this dynamic momentum, presence and awareness in its home region to further develop Drunk Elephant in 2024.
“Our investment into Drunk Elephant’s expanding global footprint, diverse product offering and vibrant traveller experience is set to further strengthen brand equity, improving sustainable sales growth for the long term. We are confident about the outlook for Drunk Elephant and remain committed to building the brand’s travel retail presence in a selective, visible way.”
Skin’s Happy Place
The colourful counters welcome travellers to ‘Skin’s Happy Place’ and promote product discovery and product mixing through the brand’s Smoothie Bar zone. The counters feature many bestselling lines including the Protini Polypeptide Cream, Lala Retro Whipped Cream and newly launched A-Shaba Complex Eye Serum and Bouncy Brightfacial.
Drunk Elephant’s travel-friendly sets include The Littles – which feature mini products for cleansing, exfoliation and hydration – as well as travel retail-exclusive sets such as ‘When in Roam’.
In São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport, Drunk Elephant supported the opening with a 360-degree activation in partnership with Avolta.
The eye-catching animation featured the brand’s bold colours and offered interactive retailtainment elements that were supported by a digital campaign across Avolta’s ecommerce and social media platforms.
A mixing zone invited travellers to create personalised skincare smoothies via a Smoothie iPad app, in line with the brand’s ‘Mixing is the new layering’ mantra. At the Suspicious Six corner, travellers learned more about the brand’s ingredient-elimination ethos and the ingredients that Drunk Elephant considers to be skin sensitisers.
The campaign generated 6.9 million digital impressions reaching 3.5 million passengers in one month. ✈
