The Moodie Interview: Marc Puig on the integration of Gaultier fragrances

“We feel that the spectacular approach and creativity that Jean Paul has brought over the years will be re-energised in a way that will make people excited with the brand again in a way that we have not seen for a while“

Marc Puig CEO & Chairman Puig

Like any leader of a family company, Marc Puig feels every ebb and flow of its fortunes. He learns to roll with (and anticipate) the commercial punches, and enjoys the highs in a way that arguably only an entrepreneurial enterprise can experience. In that context, the man who has led the Spanish fashion-to-fragrance house as CEO & Chairman since 2004 and 2007, respectively, admits he is looking forward to 2016 with particular relish.

Puig believes bringing the Jean Paul Gaultier fragrance business in-house, following its 1 January repatriation from long-time licensee Beauté Prestige International (BPI), will be transformative for the company. [Click here for our story on the integration.]

“We’re very excited with this brand,” he says, speaking to The Moodie Report a few weeks before the handover. “We took a majority position in the fashion house five years ago, which has allowed us to better understand both the house and the man behind it.

“Over the past five years we have been very involved with him in running Jean Paul Gaultier fashion. Now we have the opportunity to introduce a very attractive business. It is one with tremendous products in a sector that, when it launched around 20 years ago, broke the rules in many areas with Le Male and Classique.”

Working closely with the designer, Puig wants to harness Gaultier’s legendary creativity and edge. “He brings this strong link with what happens on the street and puts it into the haute couture territory,” says Puig. “We want to reclaim that ability [in fragrance] for Jean Paul to reach the crowd and to produce a smile and the happiness and joy of life that he brings.

“Now that we are involved with both the fashion and the fragrance, this allows us the ability to really tell stories and to bring emotions and excitement to the consumer. It’s a very exciting year for us.”

Marc Puig, who represents the third generation of his family to lead the company, is on record with The Moodie Report as stating that the company’s aim is to be the world’s number three fragrance house by 2020. And though he admits that 2015 M&A activity (the merger of Coty and 43 of the Procter & Gamble beauty brands) perhaps makes number four a more realistic target, the addition of the well-proven Jean Paul Gaultier portfolio makes such heady ambitions look eminently deliverable.

“Our intention and our plan for the next three years is to grow the Puig business [total group] by +35%,” Marc Puig says. “We did 1.5 billion [Euros] last year and we want to reach 2 billion by 2017. That’s a +33% increase. 10% of that comes from the incorporation of the existing Jean Paul Gaultier business and the other 25% has to be organic. Part of that organic growth will come from the Jean Paul Gaultier business – for example, we’re planning to have a launch in 2017.

“So the biggest part of our growth for the next three years will be organic. Plans are just plans, of course, and now we have to make them happen. It’s an ambitious proposition, but we’re willing to put plenty of ideas and resources behind it.”

The Spanish house has enjoyed a long and creative gestation period preparing for this brave new world as the time remaining on the BPI contract ticked down. “So we’re very well prepared as an organisation, and what we’re going to do is very well thought out. It will not be a case of improvisation.”

Conversely, however, was Marc Puig concerned that during the same period the brand would suffer a certain inertia or lack of ‘tender loving care’, once the split was well known?

He addresses the point respectfully, highlighting the fine job that BPI did for many years with the Gaultier brand. “BPI is a tremendously fair company,” he says, “but it is natural that when you are to no longer have a brand in your portfolio you don’t treat it the same way that you treat your kids when they stay home.”

It’s a nice, gentle analogy. The kid – albeit now grown-up and streetwise – is indeed coming home. Through dint of such a long relationship and, in recent years, ownership, Puig knows both the DNA of the house and of the man himself – intimately. “Jean Paul Gaultier has a very good ability to read the brand himself and [answer] how this leads into the fragrance category,” says Marc Puig admiringly. “He’s a tremendous inspiration behind what we are going to do.”

How does the designer himself feel about the next stage in the evolution of the relationship?

“I think he’s very excited with the idea of change and about this whole new beginning,” Puig replies.

“An exhibition of his career [‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’ -Ed] has gone round different countries during the past few years. Last August it was shown at Le Grand Palais in Paris and attracted an amazing number of visitors. The guy is tremendously up to date, and has a huge following of people who really like whatever he does.”

Rule breakers: Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male and Classique proved to be game changers in the 1990s, carving out strong positions in the travel retail channel

Puig has had an in-house team in place preparing for the Jean Paul Gaultier fragrance integration for five years. That’s a surprisingly long time, I suggest.

“Yes, but because we’ve been the licensor of this brand, many of the things that were done by the licensee [BPI] had to be approved by the house of Jean Paul Gaultier, of which [since 2011] we were the majority owner. That’s what happens when you have a licensor/licensee relationship.

“You’ll see the joy of living, and the spectacular – a word we use to describe many things that are going to happen“

Marc Puig

“We think Jean Paul Gaultier has been one of the most innovative brands in the industry over the past few years.

“But we also feel that, with our arrival, this spectacular approach and creativity that Jean Paul has brought over the years will be re-energised in a way that will make people excited with the brand again in a way that we have not seen for a while.”

It’s a tantalising chapter in the story of one of the world’s most charismatic brands.

With the designer himself moving away from ready-to-wear in late 2015 to focus exclusively on haute couture, Marc Puig wants to capture in a bottle the street sense of Gaultier and translate it into something upscale, exciting and exuberant.

“He’s good at enjoying life and he’s good at making things that are spectacular. He can take things that other people find standard and shake that standard frame of mind. And we’ll put all this together”¦ with this brand. You’ll see it in a number of the propositions that we’re going to have over the next few years.

“We always have a close involvement with the fashion houses, in this case with Jean Paul Gaultier himself, to ensure that we remain loyal to his personality and his name.

“And then the brand team responsible for managing the fragrance also works very closely together with the fashion house.

“After that, the implementation and the execution is run through the overall Puig organisation. In that sense, the brand is more autonomous and breathes and thinks for itself”¦ and then when we go to market it is part of the Puig organisation.”

Despite Puig being a major corporate enterprise, its modern-day leader has always tried to maintain an entrepreneurial, flexible and free-spirited philosophy. Does increased scale endanger that approach in any way?

“We have to reinvent ourselves every now and then,” Puig replies. “For the last three years our growth has not been as good as it had been for the previous ten. We knew that we had to shake things and, again, think like a small company. That’s why our plans for the next three years are aggressive, though we know it’s not going to be easy.

“We’re very optimistic about this project. Last year we were celebrating our 100 year anniversary; it was a year of lots of events and activities, and we got a little tired. We had a little hangover after that, so maybe that’s why our sales were not that exciting. Now the celebrations are over, and we’re back to business.”

Marc Puig draws on history to underline both the importance and the context of the Jean Paul Gaultier addition. “We got involved with Paco Rabanne in the late ’60s; with Carolina Herrera in the ’80s; with Nina Ricci in the ’90s and [the first ten years of] the 2000s was the decade of Prada and Valentino.

“So our idea is not to be a portfolio of lots of brands”¦ we’re not looking to add many to the portfolio. Instead we want to make those that we are involved with bigger and deeper, and exploit their potential as much as possible. That’s the excitement of the next decade for us.”

The first major new Gaultier fragrance launch won’t happen until 2017, but there will be plenty going on before that as the brand beds into the Puig organisation.

“It’s going to be very exciting,” says Marc Puig. “You’ll see all those things that I mentioned: the joy of living, and the spectacular – a word we use to describe many things that are going to happen. [It’s about] the ability to take things that are from the street and make them more serious or exciting. It’s about the breaking of some of the rules of the game.”