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“Being the leader in figures is a fantastic platform, but it’s not the end of the story – it’s just the beginning.“ |
Barbara Lavernos |
Editor’s introduction: Barbara Lavernos. Remember the name. The new Managing Director of L’Oréal Luxe – Travel Retail Worldwide is a human dynamo, driven by imagination, passion and a strong sense of humility. She has a clear vision of her role and of how real, not token, partnership can transform the sector, as Martin Moodie discovered during her first interview with the travel retail press.
As the vintage open top white Mercedes in which she’s sitting high on the back seat pulls into the magnificent Château Saint-Martin & Spa high above Nice, Barbara Lavernos draws deep on a cigarette and smiles at the beauty of the French countryside around her. It’s a suitably emphatic arrival for the new Managing Director of L’Oréal Luxe – Travel Retail Worldwide, a woman who is determined to make her mark following her appointment to one of travel retail’s most important posts earlier this year.
The occasion is an informal presentation and brainstorming session with leading travel retail customers, held the day after the soft launch of Lancôme’s new feminine fragrance, La Vie Est Belle, in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat. The Moodie Report has been invited from the travel retail media to join the excursion – a glorious entourage of vintage and classic cars that winds its way from Monaco to this slice of heaven in the hills of Provence.
Although this is her first collective opportunity to address such a major gathering of clients, Lavernos is here to listen as much as to talk. During a long, impassioned and insightful interview with The Moodie Report the previous day, she makes it clear that only through true engagement and sharing of ideas between brand company and retailer can the business really claim its true potential.
“I’m an open person,” she says. “I love people. I love to discover people all the time, to know them, to know their personalities, to know what they dream of. My leadership style is really to live with my people – internal people as well as retailers, clients and customers. I’m a person of contact. And I’m enthusiastic. I’m definitely an optimistic person.”
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What was her knowledge of travel retail when she started to contemplate a move into the channel? “What I knew, I knew from you, because I was already reading The Moodie Report,” she replies. “I also met some people in other industries who told me about the duty free market, and at L’Oréal I saw all the exclusive products that we were producing for the sector.
“But the biggest thing was to see that travel retail inside L’Oréal was becoming more and more important in terms of size, sales, visibility and interest. And I thought that there was certainly something big going on. It’s also linked to Luxe [the group’s luxury division -Ed].All those things fell into place like a puzzle. I came to Cannes two or three years ago, to get a taste, to look at the people – not only ours, but the whole industry.
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La Vie Est Belle is the first major launch of the Lavernos reign |
“It’s 100% exciting. You can see the dynamic of the market. We have many things to bring to the sector, and the team is very interesting to manage.
“It’s a big jump coming from operations, much bigger than I thought. I also feel more excited than I thought. But it’s a difficult challenge. We have 17 brands”¦ all those products, all that geography.”
Considering her unlikely background, Lavernos’ appointment to such a key role says much about the internal regard in which she is held at L’Oréal. The stakes were high on both sides, she admits, noting “I really appreciate being with a company that lets you have that sort of experience.”
What are her most striking impressions to date? “The unexpected thing is the speed of this channel,” she replies. “I’m really impressed about the speed of decision making. You make a decision and three months later it’s in place. And something is always happening, everywhere in the world. Chinese people are on the move, and the Russians, Brazilians and other nationalities are also emerging fast as forces in our industry.
“This business is also different because of the airport concession bids. Contracts change from one hand to another very quickly.
“The landscape of our clients moves quite fast, and my first impression is that there is an increasing build-up [consolidation], whereas before they were mainly regional operators. And many companies are bidding in places such as LA and Hong Kong.
“I guess that within five to seven years the retailing landscape is going to have changed a lot. It’s very fragmented”¦ for such a big business it’s unbelievable. Which is why investment funds are looking at it very closely.”
Lavernos says the channel is also notable for the distinct personalities of the individual retailers. Each, she says, has an individual footprint, a different negotiating style and a different approach to doing business. And it’s a very relationship-driven sector, something this self avowed ‘people person’ embraces with relish.
“The standards are so different from one shop to another. Certain retailers want to really stage the brands, and others want to present us in more anonymous ways. In each of those approaches I find some fantastic things, and some not so nice. Some are really brand-oriented”¦ and for others they feel it’s their shop and they should decide the assortment. For my team the challenge is to adapt to each approach.”
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Barbara Lavernos with The Moodie Report Chairman Martin Moodie at Château Saint-Martin & Spa |
Lavernos’ first few months in the role have largely been spent on the road, meeting her own regional teams in locations such as Hong Kong and Miami as well as the retailers. “I also went over to The Trinity Forum in Seoul, and it was great for me as it explained so many things. It was super interesting to have all three parties [airports, brands and concessionaires] in the same room together having discussions and debate.
“Listening to the CEO of Incheon International Airport [C.W. Lee], for example, was amazing. “We have a shared opportunity. And we need each other. I hope in the future we will become closer and closer, because we have the same interests at the end of the day.”
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“Being the leader must oblige us to be more humble, I think, than others“ |
Barbara Lavernos |
Partnership, leadership, humility
If there is one word Lavernos emphasises more than any other it is partnership. But she knows full well that the term has become an industry cliché, often bereft of meaning.
“It’s a word that everyone uses, but mostly when people start with it I’m scared because I want to get to the end of the sentence!” she says with a laugh. But she is passionate about the principle, putting it into an industry context of almost unlimited potential if the various parties harness their collective strength.
“We are in a very dynamic market. The traffic is increasing, and the retail business is increasing at more than double the rate of the traffic. We all have a fabulous future in front of us, which is not always the case in local markets. So we are in a winning channel. My role is to dedicate my team to do the best for the retailers and the customers, to listen to them and to understand their specifics.
“We are the leader today in the travel retail P&C segment. But I want to be seen as a true leader, which is something different, by my retailers. A leader in logistics, in retail-tainment, in the right assortment, and in the support we offer to convert more travellers [into shoppers].
“Being the leader in figures is a fantastic platform, but it’s not the end of the story – it’s just the beginning. My willingness is to push the relationship with my retailers much further, listening to their demands and trying to adapt as best we can. Not by losing our own identity – with our brands and with L’Oréal’s strength that would be difficult – but by being humble.
“Being the leader must oblige us to be more humble, I think, than others. That means listening and trying to do our best regarding what they want, so they say ‘You are the leader’, and not only because of the figures. Yes, we do good sales with good margins. But we are investing in areas such as retail-tainment because it’s boring sometimes to be in an airport. Together with our retailers we can do fantastic things.”
A brave new world Barbara Lavernos has the most unusual CV for the head of a major brand’s travel retail division that you’re ever likely to find. A long-term L’Oréal manager (she joined the company in 1991), she has spent almost all her time in logistical and operational roles rather than sales or consumer facing responsibilities. Her long period with the Consumer Products Division’s Operational Department culminated in her being appointed to the key post of Chief Procurement Officer for the L’Oréal Group in 2004. Travel retail, in contrast, is a brave new world. “I’m new in the business – not just travel retail, but in [consumer] business in general,” she admits candidly during her first travel retail media interview. “I have a chemical engineering background, but I was a very bad chemist,” she says with a chuckle. Deciding to switch career paths early, Lavernos joined L’Oréal more than two decades ago in the purchasing department. Hooked on the business, her next stop was a three-year stint as plant manager in France – “something very different, very technical. It was an interesting experience and a tough job because it was a three-shift, seven-day facility. But it was also a fantastic human experience.” In a career-defining move Lavernos was then put in charge of purchasing for the entire group. “I was quite young, 35, so it was a huge responsibility,” she recalls. Her responsibilities involved the purchasing of packaging components and raw materials. From there the role swelled in importance, taking on responsibility for indirect, non-product-related purchases, ranging from facility management to IT, real estate and merchandising. “It involved a lot of different areas, which was really interesting. I had a whole different world of suppliers, as you can imagine. Packaging and raw materials were very different [from this role]. “It was fantastic, a very exciting job”¦ but I wanted to move to the other [consumer-related] part of the business. It happens elsewhere, but at L’Oréal it’s quite unusual for a technical person from operations to move to business. But as I had an overview of all our businesses, I was really interested.” For L’Oréal senior management it was an intriguing proposition to consider someone “used to speaking to suppliers, becoming a supplier. “Travel Retail is a very exciting area – an area where things are happening more and more today. It’s already strategic, but I felt that I could bring something different to the company. “As purchasing head, I had teams all over the world. I didn’t want to go back to working in just one country, no matter how interesting. I wanted to keep this overview of the world.” |
Humility? From a French beauty house? A little cheekily I suggest the terms are not historically synonymous in retailers’ eyes. Lavernos smiles, draws on another cigarette and replies: “I’m proud about the brands, Lancôme, YSL, Giorgio Armani, Kiehl’s and so on, and I admire the people who work on them. But for me, having this gift obliges me to be humble in the sense that we cannot follow the market, we cannot be at the same level as the market.
“Being +1% above, +2% above the market isn’t an achievement for me. So being humble is this – to listen, listen, listen – to my retailers, to the airport authorities, because they all have their points of view. I want to understand. I don’t want to come to them and say I know everything.
“We know we are the leader, so I won’t be humble about my brands because I’m so proud of them. But I’ve also seen my competition do fantastic things. No, I’m humble because I want to stay in this mindset, making sure that we will do our best to gain.”
Leveraging consumer insight
Because L’Oréal is a leader in local markets, Lavernos says, it is uniquely well placed to pass on insights about consumer needs and desires across different travelling nationalities. “We have decided to deploy our labs all over the world,” she reveals.
“Before, they were centralised in France and the US. Now they are in South America, China and Japan, adapting formulas to the skin and hair and demands of local people. The world is flat but the demand can be specific. And skin can be really different.
“Also we know the way they behave and purchase, and we can address media in each country. We have all these strengths inside L’Oréal, and I want to offer those strengths to key retailers, who in turn have the strength of knowing who is coming into their shops [in terms of nationality].
“For example, Stella McCartney Lily is from a British designer and was launched in the UK. But it’s selling well at Dubai Airport. Why? Because of the passenger profile”¦ lots of British people go to Dubai.
“We both have a lot of data and knowledge, and we need to share that. We are in a very fast-moving market, with rapid growth, but I’m not sure we’ve shared enough together. That’s what I’m looking for.
“Also our beauty advisors must speak the right language, and the literature must be in the right language. Events such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day are celebrated in many countries, but there are plenty of other special days or events everywhere in the world. We already promote these occasions in the relevant home airports, but the idea is to also play them where the passenger is travelling. For example, Russians go to Turkey a lot. We have to take that into account a lot more, especially as a lot of our business is in gifting.”
Travel retail exclusives will continue to play a big role in the group’s approach, Lavernos promises. “A big part of our business is done with exclusive offers. We started decades ago, and we will continue. In P&C we must really emphasise this part of the business. We have a special marketing team dedicated to it inside our basket of innovation to project ourselves further and to be more innovative.
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“If I have a personal wish, it’s that the biggest shops in the eyes of my company not only include Saks Fifth Avenue and such fantastic [local market] shops but also more airports“ |
Barbara Lavernos |
“It’s a big business both for our consumers and for our retailers. We want to be much more innovative and much more ‘Wow!’ in this area. We have just completed a study of 10,000 passengers across 15 different airports. For P&C, when you ask what’s the first reason they go into duty free, the main one is to find something they couldn’t find elsewhere. Can you imagine that? It’s fantastic. It wasn’t price, by the way.”
That finding offers rich product development potential. But I ask Lavernos whether the term ‘travel retail exclusive’ actually means much to the average traveller, in the automatic way that ‘duty free’ did for decades?
“I don’t think so,” she replies honestly. “We have to qualify it, and really make it happen [in the eyes of the consumers]. In other categories, for example liquor, I have seen some initiatives that were clearly specific to airports and to travel retail. I think ‘travel retail exclusive’ is a professional term, and it’s not something that end consumers necessarily have in their head. We must work on it, and we must market it.
“We also have to show that we are presenting things that really are different and unique”¦ and to make the moment unique too. The moment in an airport can be unique in some places, let’s say at Incheon, because it’s so special.
Too many people consider they are wasting time in the airport, so how can we change that [perception]? And I think we three [Trinity partners] must work together to change that. “With our products and brands we have the right weapon to make that happen. We are more than prepared. We have fantastic brands. I’ve seen the launches for the next 18 months, and we are more than confident.”
But it’s not just about brand launches or brand power, Lavernos insists, returning to her pet theme of collective engagement. “How can we move further, not only to do fantastic high-profile promotions, but to make people think that when they were there, at that moment, they were offered great retail-tainment or exclusive products, or that the way they were treated at the airport was great?
“That’s why I said that partnership is so important. It’s not just about us, or the retailer, or the airport, but the way we look at it together.”
A Flagship dream Barbara Lavernos is utterly convinced of travel retail’s huge potential. While declining to reveal the channel’s value in terms of internal market share at L’Oréal, she says it represents “a very important” proportion. “The forecast is dynamic, showing that it will become more and more important in terms of size. That’s great. But what I want to push further is making everybody in my company understand that travel retail is also a great image place, a window. Which is beginning to be the case. “If I have a personal wish, it’s that the biggest shops in the eyes of my company not only include Saks Fifth Avenue and such fantastic [local market] shops but also more airports. It’s the case today in some places, but not enough. And that will also drive investment. “Sometimes, for certain customers – and not just the Chinese – the airport is the first point of contact with the brand, or the contact they have most frequently. “So having fantastic airport shops, as nice as the flagships in the local market”¦ there is no reason why that cannot happen.” |
Many people dread entering an airport because of the delays and stress of check-in and security, but the retailer (as the next step in the journey) has a potentially rich opportunity to transform that experience from the procedural to the entertaining.
“Some retailers are already very good at thinking like that, and achieving that,” Lavernos concedes.
“I think digital media will help us a lot – it is absolutely key. We have some experience in the US in locations where, when you travel, you receive a message on your iPhone saying ‘You are here, go straight ahead and there is the Kiehl’s boutique, and Martin we are waiting for you.’ If we can register what people are purchasing, we can say ‘Last time you bought this, look we have the new version, or this new launch.’
“And service. I have found great focus in some retailers, but we need to take more care of people, to make it more personal. We are used to travelling, but some travellers from emerging countries can be anxious. How can we make it easier for them?”
In over 20 years with L’Oreal, 13 of them in purchasing, Lavernos has seen many initiatives; but the biggest success she ever experienced was when a supplier came to the company, “provoked a debate” and sparked a joint breakthrough project. “It’s not about words and speeches in terms of what we do together.
“I know we can transform many things in a short period, if we are on the same page. We are in a nice, growing market, so we are in the best environment to make it happen.
“The important thing is to be looking the same way, and being willing to experience things. We have to be super demanding of each other.
“We can pilot one experience here, another experience there, as we are in a personal relationship with our retailers. On my side, my team will be really dedicated to listening and making it happen.”
Everywhere Lavernos smells challenges, not constraints. She’s a ‘glass half full, not half empty’ person. And she takes nothing for granted. Yes, traffic is increasing; but far too many male travellers do not enter the perfumes & cosmetics department.
That’s an opportunity, not a frustration she argues.
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“It’s not easy to get men entering the shop. We have to address this issue precisely, and I’ve already had discussions with retailers who are thinking about new ways to make it happen.
“We are so fortunate. At airports the vast majority have money to spend – that’s a given. But half are men, which is a specificity and something very interesting for me.
“Where in the local market do we have 50% male consumers? Nowhere. So how do we behave, what do we offer, how do we adapt to bring to them what they are expecting? Those types of things are fascinating.”
By now the ebullient Lavernos is in full flow. “The message tomorrow [to retailers] is ‘challenge us’. I want to be challenged. I am already internally. We commit the best to you. We will try to be the best.
“Of course we will debate and negotiate – we have to, that’s business life. But the issue is to be challenging, to create value together.
“We also have improvements to make in areas where we are not the best. I want us to go one step further.”
Our interview is done; it’s nearly time for the first big launch of her travel retail career later that evening. With the formalities over, I ask Lavernos what she does outside of her long work hours. What’s her passion? In the parlance of this launch, what makes her say ‘La Vie Est Belle?’
“My son, for sure,” she says, her face lighting up with warmth. “He’s eight years old. And when I’m not travelling all over the world and I’m by myself, I’m in the countryside in the north of France, where nobody goes, and I go fishing. In the river, not the sea. And [I love being among] the flowers in my garden.”
Home is a sleepy retreat on the French border with Belgium. “Not many people go there – it’s super quiet. It’s the opposite of business, and I love it. I have achieved balance – being in this fantastic world, travelling all over, and then I have this space and peace to return to.”
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