NEW YORK — Procter & Gamble is putting forward its biggest effort in five years behind Cover Girl’s January launches, which include a comprehensive ethnic makeup line, a foundation claiming to erase five years off your look, a lip-plumping lipstick and a new mascara complete with nonclumping technology.
“What’s exciting about all these initiatives is they have the opportunity to drive category growth. We have done a detailed job in understanding needs and [finding out] why women aren’t buying in the mass market. We created breakthrough innovation to bring them into the mass market,” said Virginia “Gina” Drosos, vice president and general manager for P&G Beauty.
Retailers are counting on Cover Girl’s efforts, as well as a slew of product launches coming from competitors such as L’Oréal, Revlon and Maybelline New York, to keep sales going strong. According to ACNeilsen data for the 52-week period ended Oct. 8, excluding Wal-Mart, cosmetics sales were up 4 percent to $2.5 billion compared with the year before.
One of P&G’s biggest efforts, the Cover Girl Queen Collection, first was reported in these pages in September. The makeup line for women of color includes foundation, lip color, lip gloss, lip pencil, eye shadow quads, mascara, eyeliner and nail color. Prices range from $3.49 to $6.49 — in line with general-market Cover Girl products. Queen, as in Queen Latifah, a Cover Girl spokeswoman since 2001, will launch in 18 cities in January and looks to generate sales exceeding $10 million by the end of 2007.
Items in the Queen line, such as powder and foundation, have been formulated specifically for the ethnic consumer.
Dr. Sarah Vickery, senior scientist, P&G Beauty, explained that ingredients and their amounts were crucial to getting the right formulas.
“We had to think of titanium dioxide levels, for example, for opacity and shade. To avoid an ashy look on skin, we had to be careful how much is in there. In ethnic formulas, you decrease the amount of titanium dioxide and increase pigment,” Vickery said.
The R&D team also considered the type of talc used. They opted for one that’s translucent, allowing the real skin tone to shine through, as well as one to absorb oils and to prevent an ashy look. Cover Girl worked with Roxanne Floyd, Queen Latifah’s makeup artist, and Queen Latifah to come up with the line’s shades.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
Drosos said the company’s “broad-reaching yet targeted marketing campaign” will penetrate the regions Queen is launching to and will be supported by print, radio and grassroots efforts. At-shelf educational tools will help consumers choose what items are best for them. Queen Latifah will appear in marketing materials at point of purchase, as well as in print ads. Wall space required to merchandise the line, which includes more than 60 items, varies by retailer. But Drosos assured that, since Queen looks to grow category sales rather than cannibalize existing ones, retailers have committed to allotting 1 to 2 extra feet of space in as many as 3,000 doors.
While Queen will compete against other ethnic lines, such as Black Radiance, Black Opal, Posner, Milani, Tropez, Uptown Girl, Zuri and Prestige, the reasoning behind bringing Queen to market was solely to meet women’s unmet beauty needs — not to jump on the celebrity-endorsement bandwagon.
“Even [Cover Girl’s] palette wasn’t broad enough,” Drosos pointed out. “This was a great opportunity to offer more.”
Drosos, an 18-year P&G veteran who most recently worked on Olay, assumed her current role four months ago. Now, charged with the innovation for all four beauty brands (Max Factor, Cover Girl, SKII and Olay), it may be safe to assume she’s the person responsible for P&G’s recent combination of Cover Girl and Olay technology.
Advanced Radiance, the new Cover Girl brand that taps Olay science to target older women, launched in August with a compact foundation. Now the firm’s best-selling compact, according to Drosos, Advanced Radiance Age Defying Liquid Makeup, is coming to market and is formulated to take five years off the look of skin following application. Industry sources expect the liquid item, which will retail for $9.99, to generate $25 million in first-year sales.
Explained Vickery: “The way it works is with our Fixed Fluid Film and Light Lenses. The age of the skin and how old it looks is determined by brightness and contrast. As we age, brightness decreases, and contrast goes up in the form of age spots and fine lines. A good age-defying foundation will work to boost brightness and decrease contrast. Traditionally, what has been on the market covers contrast, or uses light-reflecting technology that will boost brightness, but also enhance contrast. That’s the real breakthrough with Advanced Radiance. The Fixed Fluid Film is very mobile on the face and keeps pigments wet and in place. Traditional technology may sometimes decrease contrast, but [the formulas] dry out and, as the face moves around, pigments stick together and move into fine lines. That’s why older women stop using foundation altogether.”
Advanced Radiance technology, she said, keeps pigments locked, in place and moist. The Light Lenses allow light to come in and interact with the skin — they are translucent.
The new liquid makeup will be merchandised along with the compacts in boutiques within the Cover Girl wall, Drosos said, where “we can talk to women 35-plus.”
The two items, which seem similar, are completely different. “The compact works to exfoliate skin and reveal new skin in less than three weeks. The finish is more powdery. The liquid is more of a dewy finish and takes years off your age,” Drosos said.
In lip, Cover Girl is getting in on the lip-plumping craze with IncrediFull, a lip range consisting of 24 shades designed to “provide intense moisture with a Vita-Collagen complex with vitamins E, B3, B5 and glycerin,” said Vickery. P&G studies showed that 84 percent of consumers believed their lips looked fuller instantly, she said. While many lip plumpers work by irritating the lip — causing blood flow and, subsequently, fuller lips — Vickery said that “over time, this destroys the condition of the lip.” IncrediFull looks to hydrate lips with Olay technology, building an occlusive barrier. Formulas also act as a humectant to pull moisture out of the atmosphere. IncrediFull will be supported by a national print and TV campaign featuring Molly Sims. Its bullet tube package will provide a glimpse of the inside shade with a color button on the bottom of tubes. IncrediFull will retail for $6.49.
In the eye category, Cover Girl is unveiling LashExact, a mascara that looks to plump, as well as separate, lashes. The traditional mascara brush, Vickery explained, is made of twisted wire with tufts of trimmed nylon. These “don’t do a good job of penetrating, but they do volumize and lift. They don’t separate very well. Lash Exact intentionally places bristles in parallel rows for a dual-combing action to evenly apply mascara.”
Both Incredifull and LashExact could generate as much as $30 million in combined first-year sales, sources said.