Brandy Hoffman (left)
and Patricia Santos
Who calls the shots in your NPD process? It's a question that most brands would probably answer with a list of senior management names.
But for Volition Beauty, the picture couldn't be more different. While crowdsourcing ideas isn't a completely new concept, the brand has flipped the traditional product creation process on its head by taking an 'outside in' approach.
Consumers are invited to both submit ideas for new products and vote on the ones they want to see created and sold by the brand.
Here, Brandy Hoffman (above left) and Patricia Santos, Co-Founders of Volition Beauty, talk to Cosmetics Business about why the industry needs their challenger brand and what it takes to make the cut.
When did Volition Beauty launch and what inspired it?
Brandy: Patricia and I both worked in beauty and over the years we developed a love-hate relationship with the industry.
In the majority of cases we both saw that the industry was dictated by a boardroom of predominately white men who were making predictions about the next beauty trend and deciding what was the next must-have product.
We both thought, why doesn’t the consumer just decide what she wants?