Summarize This: Beyond Beauty Conference Sessions, in a Nutshell

Selective. Decisive. Confident. These are the core qualities of today’s consumer. And what makes them all of these things? Information. Sure, the consumer may be king, but how did they get crowned? It wasn’t through standing armies, political connections, or jure sanguinis. It was through the modern-day equivalent of a spy network, of an advisory cabinet, of periscopic and telescopic technology, as they carefully surveyed the kingdom, seeking out the best choices.

Information empowers the consumer, and this is scary for a lot of brands. With so many available alternative sources of information about a product like blogs, industry reports, user-reviews, and the like, it is very easy for a brand to “get nailed,” as it were, if it is pandering false information about its composition or treating the public as media targets rather than as individuals. That’s why Edelbio chose to be all about transparency, and is constantly adding to the body of knowledge about organic cosmetics through the website, blog, and print collateral.

In the spirit of education, therefore, we’ll be posting notes, summaries, and observations taken from the many conferences going on at Beyond Beauty 2007. Our first observation is this: there are over 700 exhibitors on the floor. And yet there were no more than 100 chairs, half-filled, in the conference rooms. Chew on that.