Inside Shiseido’s Growth Strategy
Shiseido is relying on science and celebrity for its next phase.
The Japanese skin care brand is introducing a new hero foundation — the RevitalEssence Skin Glow Foundation SPF 30 — while doubling down on its Benefiance eye cream with a reformulation and tapping Anne Hathaway to serve as the new global ambassador for the Vital Perfection range.
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That partnership encompasses a short film starring Hathaway, in addition to paid and social media. “What they all have in common is a real excellence, a timelessness, a legacy, a story,” Hathaway told WWD of the brands she partners with, which also include Bulgari. “They’re iconic on their own, so why wouldn’t I want to be a part of that?”
In the beauty realm, though, Hathaway said the key to results is consistency. “That’s not something you can buy,” she said. “A great skin cream is really wonderful, and it’s a cornerstone of a beauty routine, and I love this one. I use it morning and night, but if I don’t apply it, it doesn’t work.”
The brand campaign for the Vital Perfection range also features the tag line “Potential Has No Age,” and Shiseido is betting that the aging-positive ethos will resonate with Hathaway’s highly engaged audience.
“There are two aspects to this partnership: Anne is an Oscar-winning actress, a style icon, very relevant with broad reach and a very engaged audience in the U.S. It gives us the opportunity to continue to increase our brand awareness and reach new audiences and pop into the pop culture conversation,” said Alessio Rossi, Shiseido’s executive vice president of U.S. marketing. “Having a high number of followers is important to us, but Anne manages to keep engagement very high, which you don’t often see, and we believe it’s because she is very authentic.”
The company is also aiming to spark a dialogue around the connotations of aging.
“The message is about how people think about aging, which is mostly perceived as a negative thing, but we see it as a positive thing,” Rossi continued. “We think aging is a testament to the sum of the experiences you’ve gone through, and to say ‘potential has no age’ is an opportunity to celebrate inner beauty.”
He said that overall, brand performance has been strong.
“The brand is doing quite well. It’s been propelled by innovation specifically this year, and we continue to believe in our investments in science,” said Rossi. “They are a response to the ever more demanding expectations that consumers have in the U.S. And we believe there is a parallel between innovation and using the tag line of Anne’s campaign.”
Rossi also said continuing to overhaul existing heroes — such as the Benefiance Wrinkle Smoothing Eye Cream, the brand’s top-selling antiaging eye cream — is part of the plan. The reformulation debuted in the brand’s full distribution last month for $65.
“It’s a bit like fashion here — it’s never done, you continue to raise the bar,” he said. “The relaunch came from the fact that the eye area usually suffers more than one concern. [Benefiance] was already an established powerhouse in addressing eye wrinkles, but eye wrinkles and dark circles happen almost at the same time.”
That value proposition is striking a chord. “It’s already a favorite in the U.S. market, it’s already a bestseller at Sephora, it’s above plans and it’s double over last year,” Rossi continued.
According to an investor presentation for the first half of 2023, Shiseido brand sales grew 9 percent globally. New launch activity has also exceeded plans, and the brand is doubling down on the pillars of its business to ignite growth.
Among those are the RevitalEssence Skin Glow Foundation SPF 30, which launches today with select retailers and features pigment suspended in a skin care essence of fermented kefir and niacinamide. It retails for $56.
“It’s been an incredible year for makeup in general,” said Deborah Ross, senior vice president of global marketing for Shiseido makeup, of the business. “We see so much robust growth across so many segments. Shiseido makeup is experiencing that especially in Asia, where we are outpacing the market.”
Ross said the launch of RevitalEssence will also ignite that segment of the makeup business. “Our complexion and face will be accelerating double-digit increases significantly in the fourth quarter.”
Other categories, such as makeup tools and formats like bronzers and highlighters, are also bolstering the business.
“Bronzers and highlighters are good examples of the skinification of makeup and the desire for vibrant, hydrating, glowing skin calls for innovation in new formats, textures and creams,” Ross said. “Social Media is driving all of that forward. When we think about market segments, we’re thinking about where we have our expertise for something so unique.”
Ross started working on RevitalEssence before the pandemic, and noted that it was a response to a few key trends: multitasking makeup products and barrier health, as well as light-yet-buildable coverage. “We’ve always done hybrid foundations and always brought skin care technology into foundations,” Ross said. “When we got to RevitalEssence, we knew [consumers] wanted more, good-for-your-skin results.”
James Boehmer, Shiseido makeup’s global artistic director, noted the foundation’s skin care benefits, backed by consumer studies. After one week of use, 94 percent of users said their skin looked smoother while 88 percent said their skin felt hydrated.
“The brief for this product was to capture the consumer mindset of people who want their products to do more,” Boehmer said. “It comes back to this idea of, is it a skin care product, or a makeup product, or both? You can apply it with just fingertips, it feels like a serum. But it also works well with blushes and blenders.”
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