In late August, I attended the Newtoptia Now natural products expo in Denver, Colorado, where industry professionals from across the CPG and Retail landscape met to sample and learn about new products ready to hit the shelves. This was the first year of the event (after sunsetting the Natural Product Expo East) and featured the new Glow Salon. The Glow Salon was the destination for conscious beauty and wellness. Glow revealed the future of conscious beauty with products that make us feel great inside and out. Featured brands included Pacha Soap Co, The American Boxer Inc., VegaJelly, The Bubble Factory, Sun Chlorella, Hempress Hygienics, and many more.
The natural product landscape has shifted to focus more on Beauty in recent years. The CPG industry and consumers now recognize that what you put into your body expands beyond just food. With skin being the body’s largest organ, much of what impacts your health is absorbed topically.
Conscious Beauty trends include:
- Clean-label, high performance skin care
- Products targeting perimenopause and menopause
- Waterless beauty products
- Upcycled ingredients
- Ingestible innovations
- More inclusive messaging
Ulta Beauty hosted a discussion on achieving retail success as a conscious beauty brand. There was also a Merchandising for Values & Results-Driven Shoppers discussion panel, including speaker Jen Coccaro, VP of Whole Body from Whole Foods. Some key takeaways from the discussion were:
- Biomimicry: Appeal to things that already exist. The most successful marketing brings it back to someone’s natural state.
- Serve your audience. If you want to drive foot traffic for a clean product audience, avoid fragrances which house lots of ingredients. Vegan consumers engage differently with brands vs. organic shoppers. Speak to each audience differently to address their needs.
- Storytelling is key to influencer marketing and carries over to events and displays/signage in-store.
- If you are a small or niche brand, the priority is to get someone to try your product – sampling demos and sampling through influencers.
- You need to do both marketing and packaging well. The essence of the product comes through in the packaging, while marketing can convey and tell that story in an effective way.
- Clean beauty is about health, but also sustainability. Brands need to consider minimizing plastic waste to align with environmentally friendly trends.
- Retailers, especially small ones, should be tying into events and seasonality to connect with communities and partners with like-minded brands.
- When pitching a retailer, always lead with your hero product.
- Make sure when pitching a retailer, you do your due diligence by reading their public reports and core values and customize your pitch to that specific retailer.
In summary, clean beauty is becoming increasingly prevalent across all retail channels. Consumers care about ingredients, and that no longer applies to only food & beverage products and brands.
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