The benefit of surprise keeps quirky superstar young and fresh

Jonathan Charles finds out how Benefit Cosmetics' dynamic duo -  Ian Marshall, Managing Director and Gail Bojarski, General Manager - discovered the fledgling brand in 1996 and helped turn it into a world superstar. As Ian and Gail reveal there are major ambitions for the brand going forward. Published June 30, 2011

It may come as a surprise even to those working in the beauty business that benefit is the third largest makeup brand in the UK. Not only that but it is pushing Estée Lauder hard for that second spot and has a declared objective of easing Clinique off the top of the table within two or three years. And the launch of a revolutionary mascara - They’re Real - at the end of August may just help them achieve this.

An even bigger surprise perhaps is that benefit is the UK’s seventh largest beauty brand with a worldwide turnover of 600 million dollars. Not bad for a quirky makeup company that only launched a skincare range in April and has a relatively small fragrance business. And not bad either considering its history, spotted as it was by a fascinated Ian Marshall, (now Managing Director of the UK company) during a mission to New York in 1996 to search for a number of brands for him and his business partner, Gail Bojarski (General Manager), to bring to the UK market.

“We thought we’d start with a portfolio of three brands,” says Ian and as he explains, he had identified three exciting candidates: “An interesting unique skincare brand (Philosophy), a real makeup artist colour brand (Nars) and a quirky couldn’t make it out brand (benefit).” Well that was the original plan. In the event Philosophy and Nars were not ready to go international and although says Gail this was a big disappointment as “Nars could have been such a good contender for MAC and Philosophy could have quickly become a great lifestyle brand” - in the event even these knock-backs proved lucky as it meant the duo could devote their full energies to what they were shortly to discover was still only a fledgling brand, despite its development some 20 years earlier.

Quirky Fledgling Taught To Fly In The UK
Given the superstar status that benefit has acquired since that serendipitous moment in New York it would be easy now to think it was just a question of simply releasing the brand created in San Francisco in 1976 by Jean and Jane Ford onto the UK market. “Having first seen it in Henri Bendel we thought that it was much more established than it actually was,” recalls Gail. “It had gained some reputation in Northern California around the Bay area but apart from that it was tiny,” says Ian recalling the surprise of that realisation.

It was a dream start to the benefit adventure, however. Just two hours after delivering their proposal Jane Ford rang to accept it. And from that point everything “kicked off fast” in the UK with an almost immediate listing in Harrods followed quickly by distribution in Selfridges and House of Fraser.

So why was it so successful, so quickly? “We brought some discipline to the brand,” Ian explains. “At that stage there was a huge amount of creativity but there was no focus on discipline, structure, training, or indeed a clear business model. We had a clear understanding of what we wanted to do to make it happen in our chosen distribution channel, which was selected department stores and Boots.”

Despite little or no brand awareness, benefit had the major advantage of being so very different to its premium competition – “a hint of quirky pink in an otherwise black and white world”. As a result, says Ian, “we quickly realised we had something on our hands far bigger in potential than we originally envisaged. Because it was so quirky and so different”. But it was not all plain sailing. “Remember,” he continues, “the packaging was very basic. There were plastic sachets, the names were great, the product claims were great but the way it was merchandised was not very premium.”

Premium Can Be Fun - Really
They just hoped the sophisticated consumer would see past the packaging and fall in love with the quirky names and the quality of the products. And luckily this is exactly what happened. However, while iconic product names such as Dr Feelgood, benetint, Porefessional and BADgal remain fun and irreverent, the brand proposition says Ian has been completely upgraded: “Over the years the product packaging, the visuals and the whole benefit personality and DNA has been nurtured, polished, developed and honed and all that creativity has expressed itself in a far more coherent fashion. Today it looks like the brand we envisaged it to be all those years ago.”

Having fun, laughing at themselves and with their customers is all part of what makes benefit so special, as Gail explains. “Because we don’t advertise a massive thing for us is to make sure that everyone that comes to us has a great benefit experience, which means if they are laughing while at the counter, if they are having fun and don’t feel intimidated, whether they buy anything or not they are going to talk about the good time they have had and are likely to come back and perhaps bring a friend. And that’s how we drive footfall to our boutiques and counters.”

So the benefit philosophy is that while makeup is important using and applying it should be a time to relax and enjoy. “But how many times can you say you have gone into a department store and been overwhelmed by the fun everyone is having,” asks Ian. “Fragrance has probably got a little more element of humour about it,” he continues, “but in makeup and skincare it is all about aspirational glamour and celebrity, it’s so serious. We believe that there are millions of women out there who are actually bothered less about glitz and glamour, wanting instead, simple, straightforward and effective solutions to everyday makeup problems. And they don’t want to be faced with a perfectly made-up catwalk model when they are rushing to the store in their jeans and t-shirt. They want to be seen and met by somebody more like them.”

Makeup By Women For Women
And that realism is also fundamental to how benefit operates, say Gail. “Jane and Jean’s philosophy has always been ‘makeup by women for women’. Instead of them saying we are makeup artists or celebrity artists their view is we know what women want because we are women. They create products to solve problems. And this is where Fake Its, our core line, came from. The products are beauty solutions and problem solvers. It is a bit like ‘as it says on the tin’. The name might make you laugh but there is real efficacy to the product. They are easy to use and our customers don’t have to be exclusive benefit users, they can be using lots of different brands and benefit will fit in and compliment whatever they are using.”

Keeping everything fresh all the time, appeals to fashion driven customers of all ages – a dynamic launch programme combined with the efficacy of the brand ensures teenage customers stay with benefit as they mature. “The age of the customer is what has surprised us most,” says Ian. “At first we had in mind the sophisticated 25-35 year old, the perfect demographic in many ways, but then we were surprised that there were lots of older women who correctly perceived that the products delivered solutions to their challenges. Then we realised it was more of a lifestyle choice than a question of age. But what has blown us away over the last ten years is that as brand awareness has grown it has come so strongly to the attention of the young.”

And brand awareness is set to explode this year as benefit prepares for the end of August launch of They’re Real Mascara. “This will be the biggest single launch that we will ever have had in the history of benefit,” declares Gail confidently. “They’re Real is the best mascara on the market in my 25 years of experience. It’s absolutely unbelievable. Every person we have given one to try, beauty editors, publishers, hard nosed retail buyers, all have responded as one saying ‘this knocks everything else off top spot’.”

Growing Excitement About Skincare
“Strategically though,” says Ian, “the launch of skincare is more important. How many makeup companies can you think of over the last 25 years have successfully traversed a fence and built a very dynamic and successful skincare business? There are very few. We are beginning to get very excited about the results we are getting on skincare. It is already 10% of our business and according to NPD for April, after just two weeks trading in all accounts nationally (following a two week exclusive period in Debenhams), we have been catapulted into a top 10 skincare brand.

“We put a big focus on the skincare launch but boy has it paid dividends. It is not even as though we have hundreds of SKUs. The initial launch was just five products, that was it!” Gail attributes the skincare line’s early success to its lower-premium price range of £19.50 to £26.50 and to the high quality of the product developed for benefit by the LVMH Laboratories (benefit became part of LVMH’s group of companies in 2000). “The packaging looks great, very girly, apothecary feel,” she says. “It is really simple but incredibly effective. It is all about luminosity and radiance, health and great looking skin.”

Considering all that has happened over the last 15 years it is hardly a secret when Gail declares “launching is something that benefit is very good at”. She continues: “We launch ten new products a year including three A launches. They are always fresh, always different.” And in addition to They’re Real and the skincare range, another new product exciting the team is the introduction later this month of Ch Cha Tint which has already gone down a storm in Korea - benefit’s largest export market - where in one only month’s trading 50,000 units have been sold through 36 outlets.

Challenge Now To Keep It Real
Somewhat ironically Ian and Gail have now built the size of business that they both “ran away from”. “So the trick now,” says Ian, “is to keep it real. We do not want a traditional corporate office or adopt an approach similar to everyone else’s.” So the headquarters in Chelmsford suits the differentiation of the brand very well and helps give expression to the creativity of the obviously ‘am-dram’ talented head office ‘cast’. The team are currently producing and starring in a series of humorous two to three minute videos – some featuring a ‘tongue in cheek’ take on new products, some providing a unique insight into why a ‘dysfunctional office environment is best….’ A selection of these ‘home movies’ are on this site now and all are available to view on Youtube.

Benefit’s ambition is to reach one billion dollars of global sales in the next three years. As for the UK, says Ian “our long term aim is to be the number one beauty brand”, what is certain is that strong foundations are in place and benefit’s personality and products continue to delight. So it will hardly come as a shock to anyone when the quirky little brand from sunny San Francisco does indeed become the UK’s number one makeup brand.

Ends

Picture Caption
When Ian Marshall and Gail Bojarski first discovered benefit in 1996 it “had gained some reputation in Northern California around the Bay area but apart from that it was tiny” - now it is a superstar makeup brand and Ian and Gail are now “beginning to get very excited” about the prospects of the brand’s new skincare range