Niche Brands: Avant-Garde Expert or New Religion?

Sephora’s Natacha Dzikowski, with a little help from Beyond Beauty’s technical team, got her PPT presentation started on “Tomorrow’s Niche Brands,” beginning with a catchy definition: ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL. As a double-digit sista’ myself –- hey, at this height, what can you do? –- who will wear anything from an S to an L, and who intersperses Rainbows with Jeffrey Campbells, and would take at least a few minutes to customize everything, from widgets on a Facebook page to stickers on a Vespa, this rings completely true. And there are others like me out there. Or rather, there are others who are not like me out there, who want something that speaks to them personally and that can be “made to measure” for their own particular tastes.

Enter niche brands. The successful ones of which combine a strong product offer with a unique angle, from thematic to creative, holistic to scientific, with reach and services, whether they be personal, like urban spas, or more mass market, like Whole Foods or other alternative distributors.

That is the recipe for success that Natacha gave, and as the buyer from Sephora, people were listening. Her presentation was rife with splashes of color and glamour shots, images from creative ad campaigns and scenes of so-called “intimist luxury.” She broke it down into four major categories:

• Understandable Beauty Clear & transparent, no tricks under the sleeve.

• Green Beauty Naturals & organics, focus on prevention rather than repair, and less aggressive in composition. A new coined phrase that I might have to start using from now on – “bio-glamour”.

• Real Beauty The telling of a story, philosophy, following real people in their route in life. With this comes the formation of a spontaneous relationship with the brand, not a blank corporate image. A face and a name.

• Slow Beauty There’s slow food, and slow city – and now there is slow beauty. This is a concept that I’m sure we’ll be spending more time on in the future, but for now just touching on the point that beauty has an origin, a history. Tracing the roots, pardon the pun, of a product, leading back into nature, botanicals, and a particular geographical region. This not only gives the consumer something to relate to, creates a slower, more enjoyable process, but adds credibility to the brand.