NEW YORK — Industrie Brands is on track to spawn a three-pronged growth plan over the next 12 months, one that aims to bring the fledgling professional styling tools division of Newell Rubbermaid outside of salons and into mid-tier retailers with beauty and fashion items under a new brand, i/m.
Newell Rubbermaid, which also makes Goody hair accessories, Waterman pens and Calphalon cookware, launched Industrie Brands in February 2004 with $45 brushes to salons under the Industrie brand. The success of those products, such as brushes with gel grips, could push Industrie Brands to end 2005 with $300,000 in sales, said Clare Jones, the group’s general manager. It also led brand managers to brainstorm how else they could meet untapped needs.
“There was a big middle not taken advantage of,” observed Jones of the Atlanta-based company.
To target the 25- to 45-year-old classic, but trendy, consumer with a higher income, Industrie Brands created i/m, which, if all goes as planned, will be a name found on everything from headbands to clutch handbags by fall 2006. It could also double Industrie Brands’ sales for 2006, Jones added.
In the works for December 2005/January 2006 is a line of active hair accessories, such as stretchy headbands and elastics, and active utility items, such as trendy pouches for keys and IDs, with price points between $5 and $25. The items are to be distributed in sporting goods stores, as well as Ulta, Pure Beauty, Beauty.com, Sephora, Bliss and department stores, such as Macy’s. To design the i/m active hair accessories line, Industrie explored trendy color palettes and current activewear trends. Initial merchandising plans will take a promotional bent — to see what sells best — with items to be displayed on clip strips within activewear and hair accessory departments. In mid-2006, Industrie Brands will likely ask its retail partners to accommodate floor stands to display bestsellers.
Brand managers are meeting with retailers now. No retail commitments had been inked at press time.
Industrie Brands’ second plan begins in mid-2006 when it launches its beauty line of i/m items, to include ceramic and tourmaline brushes, to be sold at retailers such as Pure Beauty and Ulta. Items will retail from $15 to $30. Ideally, these items will be merchandised in counter units, as well as within retailers’ 4-foot brush sections.
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Perhaps its most ambitious goal is a line of higher-end accessories, to include clutch handbags, jewelry and hair accessories under the i/m brand for the fourth quarter of 2006. Next week Industrie Brands begins soliciting students from the country’s top design schools for the chance to be the creative force behind the inaugural collection. The top 10 entrants will have their products become part of the line. Price points for the fashion items will be between $25 and $50.
Industrie is borrowing its operations know-how from the different divisions of its parent company.
“The great thing is we are blending the knowledge we have gained from Goody and Newell to develop a high-end brand into new categories,” Jones said.
Taking on handbags, scarves and belts is a lofty goal for a company whose biggest success has been with rubber bands, pens and frying pans.
Jones said, “It is a stretch, but someone has to go there.”