Mactivity at the POS
Theatre’ and ‘animation’ might be the buzzwords of the industry today, but there are few brands for whom the word ‘animation’ resonates as strongly as Canadian professional cosmetics brand MAC (Make-up Art Cosmetics). The cosmetics brand, whose striking colours and durable products lend themselves to photo shoots, catwalks and spotlights, was founded in 1984 by Toronto makeup artist Frank Toskan and hair salon owner Frank Angelo. Just as every product is tested backstage by the brand’s partners in the fashion industry before it hits the shelves, a similar scrutiny is applied to the retail of its products in both domestic and travel retail locations.
MAC claims to be the first cosmetics brand to invest in the training and education of its staff as well as the customer’s point of sale experience. Each of its duty free POS has dedicated sales staff and trained makeup artists as standard. Having these artists on-hand to assist customers is part of the brand’s raison d’être of celebrating makeup artistry. Executive director of MAC Travel Retail Karrissa Le Cerf explains why activity at the point of sale is crucial to the MAC retail experience.
“We have people on counter that are actual resident trainers; their job function is to work with the makeup artists and develop them in terms of their artistry skills and selling skills on a daily basis,” says Le Cerf. “We celebrate the individuals at the brand, and try and focus on artistry skills rather than the dollar.”
The dollar is, as always, the end goal, but Le Cerf believes that a focus on artistry and enhancing the POS experience for both staff and consumers naturally gives way to sales results. One of the brand’s most notable features is its commitment to monthly themes and shades. “MAC tends to reinvent itself every month with a new shade animation and visual, and it creates a lot of activity and that’s what brings customers into our stores,” Le Cerf comments.
The latest animation is inspired by that ultimate beauty icon, Barbie. “If you go into stores now it’s actually quite amazing; makeup artists design themselves to look like Barbie. These artists turn the colour animation into life through their enthusiasm, through actually using the makeup themselves,” Le Cerf tells Frontier. Every season MAC artists wear the colours from the latest MAC theme, colour or product focus. “Once the customer is in the store, it’s the artists that transform a customer into a sale,” she adds.
Traditional brand wisdom dictates that playing around too much with a brand image can confuse consumers, but Le Cerf insists that the MAC message is a consistent one. “MAC has a lot of activity on counter every month, so you want to make sure that when the customer comes in that they’re not totally lost with their surroundings because there’s too much going on. MAC is very planned, very strategic and very purposeful.
“We are really committed to constantly providing very stimulating on-counter experience for our artists, and there’s also a very high respect for a person’s individuality – as long as the clothes are the MAC black and the makeup follows the current shade animation, then we encourage people to wear their hair, makeup and clothes however they want.”
The encouraging of individuality is a crucial part of the original MAC mantra, ‘All races. All sexes. All ages.’ And though first impressions suggest that MAC is a brand for the younger generation, the group’s internal consumer surveys report that the age split of MAC consumers is surprisingly even, with 14- to 25-year-olds composing 33% of business, 25-35 age group 33% and 35-65 20%.
“I think a lot of brands talk about the fact that their target market is everyone. What I’ve been very proud of since I’ve been part of the MAC family is that they’re actually very particular about that mantra of ‘All Races, All Ages, All Sexes.’ Just recently I had to go back and present MAC as a brand to some of my retailers to encourage them to increase the shade offering in some categories, to make sure that we do in fact cater for all,” says Le Cerf.
The brand, which is now owned by New-York based beauty house Estée Lauder, opened its first travel retail outlet in Hawaii in 1996. Over a decade later and MAC now has 47 points of sale in 20 countries worldwide. Growth has been steady, explains Le Cerf: “MAC is very particular about where they launch in their space and location, and we have a very specific distribution strategy.”
She continues: “Clinique, Lancôme and Lauder – their purpose in life and part of their brand DNA is to be accessible. I think part of the fun with MAC is that you can’t get it everywhere.” This is certainly evident when MAC is compared to its sister brand Clinique, which has around 1,800 points of sale in travel retail.
They might be comparatively few in number, but the brand’s TR locations are performing well, with two locations making the MAC top ten list: Dublin in Ireland and Lotte Incheon in Seoul, Korea.
In the Americas, MAC has just opened its first travel retail door in its home town of Toronto, and the brand still has plenty of room to grow, Le Cerf insists. “We have a lot of distribution plans in not just North America, but South and Latin America as well. There’s lots of opportunity in the Caribbean, Brazil and Colombia.” MAC opened a TR door in the Bahamas last December.
And it is not just new openings that suggest the brand’s commitment to the channel. MAC has just launched its first comprehensive TR exclusive line, MAC TRIP. “We have had TR exclusives before but I say that this is the first comprehensive programme because there’s been a very strategic approach to launching the specific sets that we have and the way that we’ve launched them throughout the year in terms of seasonality,” Le Cerf explains.
With demonstrated attention to detail combined with a proactive POS strategy, the future looks colourful for this bold cosmetics brand. “There’s so much potential for travel retail,” enthuses Le Cerf. “We opened 11 doors last year, we’re going to open another 6 or 7 this year, and we have another 10 or 12 planned for next year, so we’re expanding a lot faster then we were at the beginning.”
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