Uncharted territory: Beauty navigates a new way forward amid challenges

Carlotta Jacobson, president, CEW 
One of CEW’s strengths has always been to offer knowledge and networking, and now that mission is more critical than ever. With the largest global database in the industry of more than 10,000 executives, CEW is in an ideal position to give back to the beauty community by offering free programming and content to both members and nonmembers.

We are producing a robust calendar of webinars that we are now offering for free. We have also opened subscription access and adapted the content of our Beauty News digital newsletter to provide timely information for brands in developing strategies to navigate these uncharted waters. In addition, we are working to create our events into digital experiences, and offering virtual member meetups and discussion forums to help people feel less isolated while working remotely. 

We will continue to develop our plans to meet the changing needs of the industry over the course of the coming months. Over these many years, the beauty industry has supported CEW, and it is our priority to support them in a time of need.

Mahisha Dellinger, CEO and founder, Curls Beauty
Curls has manufactured thousands of FDA-approved KN95 masks and hand sanitizers that it has donated to local hospitals in Texas and New York City. Curls is including a free bottle of hand sanitizer with every order purchased on curls.biz. In early April, Curls will kick off a two-week series of virtual wellness seminars on Instagram led by various female experts to help practice self-care, along with recovery tactics, for when the pandemic ends. 

As far as the current state of the mass beauty market and how it will change the rest of the year, beauty was thriving and is typically a recession-proof industry. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, this will dramatically change. Dark days are coming for the retail industry as COVID-19 spreads across the United States. Stores closed, larger gatherings were banned, and people spent time in homes only going out when necessary. 

My message to the industry: Listen to the consumer, deliver an experience they long for, not what you think they want. Studies show that the consumer and retail executives’ opinions on key buying experiences are disjointed.

Shannon Curtin, CEO, New World Natural Brands
NPD reported skin care would fare well during the crisis as a matter of people continuing to adhere to their skin care regimen and the increased demand in hand and body moisturizers. I am seeing this in our business as our brand portfolio is predominantly skin focused, however, our specialty teas and wellness gummies are continuing to sell during this time too. 

Consumers are looking for ways to adapt to the changes happening daily and are very focused on holistic health right now. The healthy beauty category — holistic beauty — will continue to grow in and out of the crisis. 

Our five brands have different primary channels of distribution, however, they all started in someone’s house and online. We are fortunate that we have a solid online business. As we began thinking about our own stores and salons closing, similar to Italy, we prepared ourselves to become a direct-to-consumer, Amazon and e-commerce only business a few weeks ago. 

We applaud the work that Amazon is doing to supply the demand of the U.S. population. We have been working around the clock to keep up with the changes to fulfill consumer demand differently. The work of retailers has been world class in their efforts to help consumers from their physical locations, and, as a result, our agility muscles are growing with each passing hour. Flexibility is the new normal. 

We are hopeful the Senate can come to an agreement soon on ways to help businesses and the independent beauty professionals impacted by COVID-19. Our beauty advisors, stylists, massage therapists, makeup artists, aestheticians and many others in this industry that are unable to work right now are incredible, creative and caring people. We need a bridge of relief for a few weeks, so they can go back to work as soon as it is safe to do so.

As an industry, we are doing everything we can to define a new path forward in unchartered territory. I have witnessed an immense dedication to serving consumers and customers in new ways. When given a challenge, the industry has become a coalition to serve the greater good. The beauty industry specializes in care through listening and human touch, and while we may not be medical professionals, we do know how to take care of others.

Care begins with listening. We listen to consumers by asking questions while they sit in a stylist chair, by reading their reviews, by performing a Google word search, by having a conversation with a beauty advisor, by collaborating with an influencer or an affiliate. Our industry superpower is listening to what is needed and creating an action plan to resolve it.  

To be clear, we are in a battle. When I worked for a big house beauty company a few years ago, I learned how to prepare for long battles. Every big and small beauty business must reforecast as if they were a direct-to-consumer and e-commerce-only business for the next eight to 12 weeks. As such, all of us are going to have to make really difficult choices to avoid a liquidity crisis. Indie brands that were once an hour by hour business are now managed minute by minute. Indie brands do not have big company problems, we have big problems for a small company. But we do have agility on our side.

The most agile and consumer-centric companies will weather the storm and recover, although we’ll have inevitable battle wounds. While on the battlefield, I use my four P’s of leadership as a guiding principle: Purpose, People, Process and Profit. We can’t lose sight of why we rise and who we rise for. This is a battle that happens every 100 years, and we are in this together. 

Scott McKenzie, leader of Nielsen Intelligence and senior vice president of communications, Nielsen
As the novel coronavirus sweeps the world, companies around the globe have refocused efforts to figure out how to navigate through this very serious and turbulent time. For many drug store categories, consumer demand levels are hitting record levels and record speed. To help shed some light, a Nielsen investigation has identified six key consumer behavior threshold levels that tie directly to concerns around the novel coronavirus outbreak. The thresholds offer early signals of spending patterns, particularly for emergency pantry items and health supplies, and we are seeing these patterns being mirrored across multiple markets.  

The six threshold levels based on early indicators across markets (though at different times as the virus outbreak evolves at different rates in different geographies) are detailed below. Each one correlates with different levels of consumption. For drug store players in the United States, learning from purchase habits in countries where consumers have progressed through the six threshold levels may help supply chain management in the states and regions that have been most hit with COVID-19. 

They are:

• Proactive health-minded buying;
• Reactive health management;
• Pantry preparation;
• Quarantine living preparation;
• Restricted living; and
• Living a new normal.

The outbreak has caused an array of changes in shopping behavior, and we’re focused on understanding the ones that will come next, how long they’ll last — and whether any will stay with us after the outbreak is behind us. As patterns begin to emerge in response to news events of this nature, it will be imperative for companies to learn from these scenarios to sustain growth.

Mia Duchnowski, CEO and co-founder, Oars & Alps 
Oars + Alps is working relentlessly to give our consumers what they are asking for — antibacterial hand products. We produced hand sanitizer sprays and hand sanitizer gels in weeks, which wasn’t our plan in early March. But given the challenging times with COVID-19, we are doing our part to ensure that people are able to keep themselves safe.