Cosmetics companies and raw materials suppliers need to end the ten year famine in innovation before consumers become disillusioned, says Dr Aran Puri
Is there an innovation famine in the cosmetics industry? The answer has to be yes – and no. Cosmetics companies and their raw materials suppliers will no doubt cry foul and point to the enormous innovation that has transformed the cosmetics industry’s fortunes over the last ten years.
I will happily concede that there has been plenty of innovation. Over the last 50 years the cosmetics industry has had a very impressive record. It has provided a lot of real innovation which is freely acknowledged: skin moisturisation, hair colourants, antiperspirants, preservation, colour cosmetics and new fragrance notes to name a few.
However the question I ask is: which big breakthrough launched in the last ten years is acknowledged by the consumer as having given them real long term benefits? By mega blockbuster innovation I mean hugely significant innovations like retinol, vitamins and the latest peptides. These are rated by all experts as the Goliaths, the Nobel prize winners of cosmetics and raw materials innovation: long lasting innovations and technology breakthroughs where real benefits are universally acknowledged by dermatologists, R&D, marketers and most importantly the consumer.
In the absence of real long lasting innovation, short term innovation serves a useful purpose. It helps to market new products and generate interest and sales but has very little impact on real progress within the industry and more importantly on credibility in the eyes of the buying consumer. Frequent new product launches are a vital part of the marketing strategy of the leading multinationals. Newness sells, probably because consumers believe that the latest product will finally be the answer to their hope of finding a product that really works for them. New ranges, launched as frequently as every six months, often have a short life span; cosmetics companies can harvest the benefits of product sales and new brand awareness for one to three years depending on the impact of the product on sales and consumer receptiveness.
There has also been a tsunami of marketing claims linked to new and exotic science and nature based ingredients but consumers often have great difficulty deciphering them, debating their credibility. In a survey we carried out of 112 women in the UK aged over 25, only 28.32% said they believed that the cosmetics industry was delivering what it promised in its claims although more than 85% said they were satisfied with the degree of innovation in the cosmetics industry.
Such debate can trigger decisions to ultimately buy and try, especially when the product is endorsed by friends or via publicity from an independent source. Boot’s No.7 Protect & Perfect face cream for example benefited from independent endorsement from a dermatologist on a BBC TV Horizon programme and is now an established global brand.
When I?asked a number of leading experts what they thought, Dr Paul McGreevy, international values and R&D director for The Body Shop, told me he thought innovation had never been higher on the agenda and that social media would make dialogue about new products more immediate and transparent. However Alban Muller, president of Alban Muller International, commented: “It is difficult to see innovation when large companies are asking raw materials suppliers for science but don’t wish to pay for it.” And Andrew Kobus, creative perfumer and director of Perfume by Design, added: “Fragrance originality is frequently stymied by brand sensory priorities such as the visual requirement to be water white.”
Dr Fred Zülli, managing director of Mibelle Biochemistry, remarked: “Companies (finished products and raw materials suppliers) only make small adaptations to existing concepts and if there is a real innovation, everybody copies it, claiming that they have invented it. But the message from the market is clear: innovate or die.”
The recent trend by the leading cosmetics companies to share more information about the size of panels and their preference for a product is a positive one but consumers want more. The question I wish to raise is that if the advertising watchdogs in various countries are privy to much more advanced information from cosmetics manufacturers before allowing claims, then why is this information not shared with the consumer in a format that is easy to understand?
Consumer perception of the cosmetics industry is currently based on hope and expectation. They are not impressed by transient low impact innovations whose results are supported only by clever marketing jargon. They are looking for high impact visible innovations with long lasting results, like face creams that visibly reduce wrinkles rather than products whose clever claims are backed by fancy instrumentation or the cursory perceptions of a panel of women.
I concede with great satisfaction that the cosmetics industry and the supporting raw materials industry has shown great creativity and innovation strides in the last ten years. But the launch of a new product and ‘creativity’ do not automatically equal innovation. All sectors of the industry must invest in new groundbreaking research and overcome the temptation to focus investment only on NPD and short term opportunistic increases in turnover which take valuable resources away from long term sustainable goal oriented research.
As a well wisher I urge the industry to act decisively before the public loses patience and surmises that “the king has no clothes”.
