Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- Back on the road as The Trinity Forum hits Ho Chi Minh City - November 3, 2024
- Someday we shall return to this place upon the meadow - November 1, 2024
- Is Changi the world’s most user-friendly airport? - October 19, 2024
Now this is what I call a high-profile promotion.
The pictures come from T Galleria Beauty by DFS in Hysan Place, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.
I spotted the street promotion, right outside the store, on Saturday during a quick visit to the T Galleria. And how could I not spot it? This is an in your face, on your face campaign, exuberant, educational and (literally) uplifting.
Readers of this Blog will remember my references to Benefit. Founded by Jean and Jane Ford in 1976, Benefit was acquired by French luxury giant LVMH in 1999. From sales of just US$35 million in 1999, it shot up to US$1 billion in 2014 and growth since then has reputedly been commensurately strong. Travel retail is proving to be a prime springboard.
Benefit now owns the world’s best-selling mascara; it collectively ranks as the world’s 11th-biggest make-up brand (with an impressive number two position in the key South Korean market and number one in the UK). And in the product category pictured? Well, it just won’t be browbeaten, despite hot competition from what I guess must be known as arch-rivals.
Benefit is putting wow into brows (heck the nice young woman in the picture below even said she could help fix mine, the results of which surely would have gone viral via countless internet browsers). The brand (and the DFS campaign) promises to solve your “brow dilemma” through a range of nine products ranging from colouring gel to ‘volumizers’. I love the brand’s loud, wacky imagery and slogans, its packaging and its animated heroines, Spygal, the Porefessional and others.
Times are tough for all Hong Kong retailers and DFS has felt the chilly winds of downturn more than most, especially at Hong Kong International Airport. But the Hysan Place T Galleria is holding its own pretty well (it was certainly very busy on Saturday), largely because the retailer has successfully targeted local market consumers and not just international travellers. And in the case of the Benefit campaign it’s actually going out into the street to do that in an effort to turn those ‘browsers’ into shoppers.
Travel retailers such as Dufry often talk about having a broad diversity of geographical locations as a key defensive measure against individual market downturns. Perhaps in the future, we may even see such operators moving into domestic markets to counterbalance risk. After all, several of the world’s leading airport food & beverage concessionaires now do exactly that. Like Benefit’s eyebrow treatment, that may be the shape of things to come.