Amid Sustained Growth, Cover Girl Launches Skin Care Campaign
Cover Girl is kicking off a new campaign to sustain its gain in relevance and market share.
The Coty Inc.-owned brand, which announced the appointment of America Ferrera as its latest face late last year, is inaugurating the launch of its first skin care range with a campaign starring the actress.
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The brand’s strategy, in part masterminded by Stefano Curti, Coty’s chief brands officer, has led to a changing of the tides indicative of Coty’s turnaround as a whole.
“The big headline is that Cover Girl is back to growth, and we have seen now the longest period of sustained market share growth in five years,” Curti told WWD. “We’ve revived the core of the equity of Cover Girl, and we started regaining momentum in March 2021. Now, almost 12 months later, we’ve been now growing and gaining share for 14 consecutive weeks.”
Banking on “clean” product positioning with a slew of new launches last year — starting with its Clean Fresh range of complexion products, a vegan mascara and its first foray into skin care — the brand is relying on old and new rosters of spokespeople to market them. Last year, the brand revived its partnership with model Niki Taylor, who first served as a Cover Girl three decades ago.
“We brought back Niki Taylor, we invested back in the core of the business, and we brought back this genuine, fresh approach [to beauty],” Curti said. “We are really dominating in the clean space in the mass market. Now, we are launching Clean Fresh skin care, so we continue to own the space.”
Ferrera appealed to Curti for a number of reasons, Curti explained. “She’s a good storyteller, and she has an authentic story to tell,” he said. “It’s an addition to a roster that more and more represents America, in the United States. From a personality perspective, it adds to the fresh look to how the brand has evolved over time.”
It is also an important demographic approach, Curti said, given Ferrera’s Latinx heritage. “She fits the profile of the changing American consumer, which is the Hispanic consumer … 20 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic, it is the fastest-growing and youngest population. Eighty percent of them buy beauty once a month, and the values of the Hispanic consumer in beauty is very much aligned to our value: integrity over price.”
The campaign takes a similar form to Taylor’s, which was self-shot throughout the pandemic. “The commercial ends with ‘My name is America, and I am a Cover Girl,'” he said. “We’re going to use her story to connect with the brand and provide the brand with this fresh, new voice.” The campaign’s later iterations will feature the skin care range’s hero product, the Weightless Water Cream.
“I’m over the moon that my journey as a Cover Girl is beginning with the launch of the new Clean Fresh Skincare collection,” Ferrara said in a statement. “Since I was 17, wearing makeup has been part of my job. Skin care on the other hand, is something I came to love on my own and it’s really become my beauty priority. When I’m not working, I love to have bare skin that’s healthy and beautiful all on its own.”
More fresh faces and “clean” products are in the works for the year, too. “You will continue to see Cover Girl pioneer in the clean, health and wellness space in the mass market. That’s what the equity is grounded in,” Curti said. “That’s where the brand has responded very well, so you will see more of that in other categories.”
For more from WWD.com, see:
Catching Up With Coty Inc. at DKMS
Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian West Beauty Brands Get New Leader
Cover Girl Is Gaining Market Share Again
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