This Vogue Business Beauty Index article is part of our Advanced Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to The Long View from Vogue Business and bi-monthly Market Insights Reports and webinars, sign up for Advanced Membership here.
In the second edition of the Vogue Business Beauty Index, The Ordinary continues to lead, while L’Oréal powerhouses La Roche-Posay and Cerave take second and third place, rising four and five positions, respectively, bolstered by consumer sentiment and digital performance.
Index newcomers Clarins, Clinique and Rhode enter at ninth, 11th and 29th, respectively. Clarins’s performance highlights the power of trust, emerging as the most trusted brand within the Index, with quality and efficacy key to its prestige. Clinique is the most well-known brand for consumers, in part due to an innovative approach that places it ahead of competitors. The brand taps into a consumer desire for diagnostics and virtual try-on, while leading in more creative uses of technology, such as its development of inclusive metaverse avatars in partnership with Daz. Rhode, meanwhile, proves that digital engagement does not always coincide with high awareness. Despite scoring within the top 10 brands for media impact value (the value of media placements or mentions), according to Launchmetrics on Instagram, awareness for the brand was the second lowest at 37 per cent.
The beauty industry has demonstrated resilience against inflation. In a consumer sentiment survey of more than 3,000 respondents across six markets, consumers are more likely to purchase brands within the Beauty Index this year than last. And price rises are also not expected to deter beauty shoppers. Over two-thirds of respondents (67.7 per cent) say they will continue to buy the same, or more expensive, products if the prices of beauty goods rise further over the next year, with consumers in the French market proving particularly irrepressible at 72.6 per cent.
Economic recovery echoes through the industry more widely, as acquisitions from Puig (Dr Barbara Sturm), Unilever (K18) and Shiseido (Dr Dennis Gross) indicate a return to M&A enthusiasm following a bearish sentiment during the pandemic. As Vogue Business beauty editor Nateisha Scott says in an exclusive interview, “Larger companies are seeing the diverse technological and digital capabilities of smaller companies, increasing the appetite to bring them into the fold and acquire the forward-thinking innovations they have built over time.” Under this bullish environment, the Index’s evaluation of established global leaders and disruptive newcomers becomes a crucial indicator for investors, incubators and entrepreneurs alike.
Within the digital pillar, the celebrity buzz around Charlotte Tilbury in last year’s Beauty Index is yet to subside. The brand harnesses ambassadors during key moments — like the Met Gala and the Oscars — mimicking prime marketing touchpoints across the luxury fashion calendar. Trust and authenticity, meanwhile, emerge as two further driving forces on social platforms. Feeding into these principles, Cerave tops the digital pillar thanks to a social-first strategy that capitalises on its science-backed credentials through partnerships with dermatologists, as well as an ironic Super Bowl campaign featuring actor Michael Cera.
Innovation can further drive trust with consumers through data-science tools, virtual consultations and product personalisation, all of which beauty consumers now demand from brands despite them being a struggle to adopt at scale. Kiehl’s is the only Index brand to have previously offered true product personalisation in an audit of 30 beauty players — the discontinuation of which reinforces the barriers to growth — even though 74.6 per cent of consumers want this. Innovation should not be a purely practical consideration for beauty brands. However, according to Noelly Michoux, founder and CEO of 456 Skin: “Today’s beauty innovation has to integrate the emotional, cognitive, even cultural aspects of the consumer’s needs.”
The ESG brand criteria is increasingly challenging this edition as we look to capture evidence of genuine progress alongside policy commitments. Certification and reporting practice has been added to the audit, as well as a brand questionnaire to gather insights (not previously in the public domain) on the progress around labour rights. Seventy per cent of brands report their ESG practices on a regular basis, yet just three out of 30 brands have participated in the survey, highlighting a lack of transparency when it comes to workers’ rights more specifically. With beauty consumers caring more about fair wages than any other sustainability issue, brands would do well to increase their level of transparency, as well as their accountability to the industry.
Certification becomes a chief differentiator within the ESG pillar: Elf Cosmetics is the only brand using Fairtrade-certified factories, Honest Beauty is the sole purveyor of USDA-certified organic ingredients, and just four of the cohort are B-Corp certified. Meanwhile, collective action comes increasingly to the fore as consortiums rise in prevalence. The importance of which is stressed in our exclusive interview with Annie Olivier, head of growth at B Lab UK, the certifier of B Corporations. “We can’t solve problems in silo; businesses that focus on one stakeholder over another are missing a huge opportunity to purposefully contribute to shaping the future we need,” she says.
Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
You can learn more about the Vogue Business Index and Advanced Membership here.
