EP52. When Does Indie Beauty Become Mainstream?

Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands of students in over 160 countries worldwide who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course in today's episode we're discussing when an indie beauty brand goes mainstream what does it take? What defines the tipping point for an indie beauty brand to go mainstream and does everyone agree with this definition? Indie beauty brands are taking over the beauty sector. With tens of thousands of small brands globally, there is simply no doubt that they are swallowing up a percentage of the global beauty industry which traditionally might have gone to the mainstream giants. Shoppers are increasingly looking to support small local businesses and often place a greater degree of trust in a founder led brand. However, this increase in consumer confidence and support has therefore seen some of these indie beauty brands soar in terms of their revenues, reach distribution channels and size. If you followed the latest news in the beauty industry, then you cannot have missed the stories of founder led brands being bought up by the mainstream giants who see enormous potential potential for growth and development by bringing these indie beauty brands into their portfolios. But is an indie beauty brand still indie if it's achieving global domination or has been bought up by a major multinational, what makes an indie beauty brand truly indie? And at what point can you no longer really call yourself indie? Today I'm joined by Wiz Selvie, founder of Wiz Co, a retail strategy consultancy in the UK. Wiz was formerly head of Beauty at Selfridges and has worked in the beauty industry for 15 years which has provided experience across brands at all stages of their development. Wiz also works with both indie and mainstream beauty brands, so is well placed to discuss the transition from kitchen table to global multinational. Welcome to the podcast Wiz.

Thank you, thank you for having me. I'm very excited.

Me too because this is a great topic. So in today's podcast we're discussing at what point an indie beauty brand becomes a mainstream beauty brand. So before we start, can you firstly tell us how you think we should define indie and mainstream beauty for the purposes of this podcast episode?

So for this purposes of this, an indie brand is independently Owned, it may have investment, but not a majority share.

And what about mainstream?

Generally owned by a large corporation. So an Estee Lauder Group, a l' Oreal Corporation, potentially Shiseido Unilever.

Okay, so we've defined those two in their own corners. So let's get straight to the crux of the issue then. At what point does an indie brand go mainstream and what is involved in getting to that stage?

Blood, Sweat and Tears, I think has definitely evolved a lot of hard work. My personal opinion is it's around distribution and exclusivity and also brand awareness. So I think that links to the customer around availability. So how easy is it for the customer to discover the product and to purchase it? So I think a true indie brand has kind of had little or no investment and that's how I suppose they're bubbling away. Indie stands for independent, so they're under the radar a bit for I suppose, the majority of customers. But they are there to be found and lots of people enjoy finding them.

So by the time they get to the mainstream section, they're obviously dealing with distributors, with retailers. And there's that concept of brand awareness that you were talking about as well.

Definitely. So I suppose ultimately it's scale, so international demand as well, I think is really, really key to point out these days. It's around social following as well because the mainstream brands have huge social media, social media followings and actually so do many of the indie brands that are scaling quickly now as well.

So do you think the public would agree with that assessment? So for instance, last year we all know Drunk Elephant sold for $845 million to Shiseido. I mean, eye watering figure. But I'm sure most people might still view Drunk Elephant as an indie brand because of this heritage story. And I'm sure there are even some people out there who view Lush or Neil's Yard as an indie brand.

Definitely. And I think because we are so in the industry, we know about these things, they're happening quickly. But Drunk Elephant were very clever with their distribution strategy. They kept distribution quite tight in a few select retailers and focused a lot on their direct to consumer business. So as a result, a lot of the public won't have discovered Drunk Elephant yet. So actually once it then scales and is owned by a larger corporation and they start to distribute it more widely, then customers might start discovering it and it's only then that then they think, oh, just discovered this, so it must be an indie brand. So yeah, I think it depends on the individual really.

Do you Think the founder story plays a role in that as well then?

Absolutely. I think what's integral to indie brands is the founder story because it creates a connection, an emotional connection between the customer. People often buy from people. It's more than just a product that's being advertised at them and that person can tell their story and generally a customer can relate to that story or understand why that product's been created and then they feel like that product for them, which is, I think, where the value comes from. Indie brands.

And so in the case of Drunk Elephant, do you think that the mainstream players, in this case Shiseido, who bought out Tiffany Masterson, do you think they would keep that heritage story in there maybe to sort of almost trick the public into thinking it is an indie beauty brand?

I think they will. And actually I think they do a great job at that. If you think they also own NARS and Laura Mercier, which are really strong founder led brands. And I think that although they have scaled and they are quite widely distributed now, I still think they have that brand founder ethos, which I think they've been able to keep much better than I think some of the other corporations have done when they've bought brands from founders. And I do wonder whether that was maybe Tiffany's choice around, why she went with them as well. And I'm interested to see. Yeah. What other brands do and who they sell to.

Yeah, absolutely. And do you think that time might play a factor in this as well? So one of the things I often talk about when I'm on stage, because, you know, there's very much this sort of indie versus mainstream battle still ongoing, is I often talk about Estee Lauder and some of these other sort of original founders. And of course Estee Lauder started off her billion dollar brand in a small kitchen in 1946. But nowadays no one would look at the Estee Lauder brand and think that's an indie brand. I know the brand story, I know the heritage.

Yeah. And I think it's ages and stages as well. I think if you are around when Body Shop launched, you'll remember that Anita Roddick was a true visionary. It went to l' Oreal and it, it got diluted. I think they didn't quite know what to do with it. They didn't fully integrate it into the portfolio. And actually I'm quite excited for the brand now. It's now been bought by Natura, which is a Brazilian company. And they've very quickly created their flagship Bond street store to be more conceptual. And immersive and gone back to the values. So I think that's a really nice example. A brand can still go back to what its values are. At the end of the day, it is about brand values.

Interesting though, because I can see that the public might view that independently owned element very different to the actual people in the industry. And that's what makes the whole topic so fascinating. Of course. Do you think there's a discrepancy then between public perception of what indie means and what the industry means by indie beauty?

Definitely, I think there's different tiers of indie. I think the industry refers to indie brands as still quite small, maybe very little investment. But then actually if you start to think about what an indie brand is, Charlotte Tilbury is still an indie brand. It has investment, but it hasn't got this majority shareholder. I'm sure when people listen to this in the future that might be a different story. But Huda Beauty, Anastasia, Beverly Hills, they still have that founder behind them, but they're, they're huge now. So then I suppose that's like the top tier aspiration for an indie brand.

Yeah, I can totally get that. And I think that obviously working with so many indie brands in our community, I'm not sure that they would fully look at it the same way because some of them might look at these astronomical figures in terms of turnover and go, you know, we're talking tens of millions, hundreds of millions, they're nowhere near that. They may be, you know, in five figures or possibly six figure turnover. So I can see that that's an interesting discrepancy which maybe needs exploring a little bit more in the future.

Definitely.

Do you think an indie brand can still maintain its ethos and heritage once it goes mainstream?

I think it can if it again keeps its brand values. And actually when I was thinking about this conversation we were having today, I was thinking what really makes the brand values of an indie brand, so to speak. And I think there's a couple of different elements within that. We've obviously talked about founder led. I think the visibility of a founder is really crucial to that and how they tell their story and communicate. I suppose, opposed to a mainstream brand that would have a famous brand ambassador behind them. I think community is really key. Indie brands encourage brand advocates, they encourage social sharing, user generated content I think is another value and also linked with that, they really value two way communication. So I think they bring their customers on the journey, whether it's with product development or what their marketing campaign is, rather than a mainstream brand. Having, I suppose, advertising campaigns. So I feel like that communication method is quite different. So I think if some of these brands, once they've scaled and once they do have large investment, if they can keep some of that ethos and values, I think it's, it's really crucial to maintaining that indie vibe.

Yeah, it's an interesting1. The two way communication1 is something I find fascinating because of course when you speak to an indie brand often, I mean I'm talking about the small ones here, you know, you will be speaking to the founder, the formulator, the person in charge of HR and finance and the person doing social media and everything. But you know, I have it on good authority from some of the people I know who work for big brands that when you send them a message about their products, it will literally never ever reach the formulation or R and D team. I often wonder whether the mainstream industry is really missing a trick there because although yes, you will receive messages from people that have no relevance on what you're producing, there might be some gold in there that you could really use to develop your brand new, your formulations, your ethos. And I wonder if that's ever something that the mainstream industry would entertain.

Oh, I wish they would. I think they should. I think it's a massive opportunity and they've got these big teams. I'm sure there's somebody, their customer service team that could write a report at the end of the week and say just summarize some of the key points and mail it to the right team. And they review it every quarter, every six months, whenever they're doing their product development, phasing. I think it's important. And they've become all these kind of sub Facebook groups of people saying oh, I wish the shade of lipstick had come back or why don't they make this anymore? And the information's out there as well, so listening to it is valuable.

So there's a real missed opportunity out there if you're not listening to your customers and opening up those two way communications channels. Which is possibly why indie has been so successful in the last decade.

Yeah, again, beauty's emotive. It's really personal. So people always have a personal connection to the way they look or the way their skin feels. And actually if they've had a brand or a product that's really, I suppose, changed how they feel about themselves, they want to talk about that as well. So to think that a brand's listening to them is. Yeah, is that you can't put money.

On that value so in your opinion, is the mainstream industry, the beauty industry, starting to take indie brands seriously?

Oh, absolutely, I really think so. The big corporations wouldn't be buying them otherwise. So they're buying them to sustain their growth and also to learn from. I think they could probably learn from them a bit more as well. I don't think they always integrate them into the teams as quickly as maybe they could do. But then you look at also websites like Cult Beauty that scaled so quickly in the last few years is now multi million pound business. People go there to find out what the hottest, newest brands are. It's a destination.

Do you think the indie beauty sector will continue to grow and continue to get taken over potentially by the mainstream sector?

I think there's huge possibilities for indie beauty and I think it is being fast tracked now. I mean when we're recording this we're just going through Covid and actually the kind of the way the customer behaviour is happening and purchasing habits, people are really looking at what they are purchasing and why they're purchasing it as well. So I think this conscious consumerism movement has been happening and bubbling away for a while, but actually it's becoming much more widespread as people really do think about what they're purchasing. They might not be able to purchase as much, but actually then they want to purchase something that really means something to them that's special, that's considered and whether what ethics the brand has as well. And I think how brands and retailers have responded to the virus as well and the behavior has been quite important.

Okay, so finally then, what's next for the indie beauty sector?

There's just so much opportunity for it. I think we're going to see more retailers jumping on the indie, indie bandwagon much quicker. I think there's still a lot of retailers that are still really focused on the big players. I think particularly in physical environments that they don't really. They're not set up for that. But I think they're going to have to evolve if they haven't got that set up. And there's lots more, I suppose independent retailers that are really, I suppose curating an edit based on a customer's profile and requirements as well, which is really interesting. So I just think it's going to be much more accessible for customers to access indie beauty across multiple different channels and social media has provided that. And then platforms like Shopify I think are just doing amazing things. That is deemed to be bigger than Amazon because actually the amount of brands that it distributes through all of its shopify accounts is incredible. So technology is playing an amazing part in helping indie beauty brands so exciting times ahead.

In that case, yeah, absolutely. So if our listeners want to hear more about you, find out more about you, where can they get in touch?

Head to my website, the best place to go, which is wiz&co.com so wiz without an H W I Z Z. And yes, follow me on social media channels. So I'm the most active on Instagram and LinkedIn. But yeah, please get in touch Comment message I love hearing from brands and love working with mainstream brands and indie brands as well. I love the shuffle and how things are being really. Yeah, things are changing quickly.

Exciting. Well, we'll include all of those links with the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today, Wiz.

Pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Thank you Wiz for joining me for this podcast. Now, over the years I've seen people tell me that indie means a certain size of company or a certain number of staff, or that the term indie refers to the way that a founder keeps things local or even refers to the types of ingredients they use. In other words, I know that this topic has the potential to generate quite an emotive response, particularly from many indie beauty brand founders who may view things very differently to investors or even the general public. So I hope that this podcast has fired you up to come and tell us on our social channels what you think. Do you agree that indie means just independently owned, or do you feel that the term indie refers to more than that? Is an indie beauty brand more of a local brand? Possibly even a brand that intentionally keeps things small, slow and sustainable? What's the tipping point for you personally? If a business is selling millions in stock, are they still indie? I want to hear from you, and I would also encourage you to listen to one of our previous Green Beauty Conversations podcasts in which I explored whether indie beauty brand founders are selling out by selling up. So please do join the discussion and leave us a comment on our social channels to tell us what you think indie beauty is and isn't. The Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you, so please do come and tell us your views. Thank you for joining Wiz and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations where we look at what it takes for an indie beauty brand to go mainstream. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on itunes or Spotify and subscribe. Stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanicaormula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn. We are everywhere. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.