Why, if it is true that Unilever now owns TIGI haircare, L'Oreal owns Matrix, and Proctor and Gamble now hosts Nioxin, these brands are in trouble in the salon marketplace?

They, and several dozen other lines owned by the giants are seeing salons running away from these once respected brands.

Sales in the past two years are down 40% and, in some brands, almost non-existent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Does not P&G brag about its strategic placement in trusted partners - salons - to help Sebastian, Graham Webb and Wella Professional grow in the big box stores?

Is Unilever still pouring dollars into salon marketing while placing TIGI next to its Suave brand in every Walmart and Safeway across the country? Why is L'Oreal having such a hard time keeping their sales figures in line, despite ownerships in Maly's West and Columbia Beauty?

The figures for Matrix, Redken 5th Avenue and Pureology are slipping against an onslaught by new independent lines postured to regain the consumers' niches abandoned by lines now owned by the giant soap companies. The plans to dominate the huge salon market are fading away like the vodka paradise of a cheap drunk.

Giant companies buy smaller independent brands all the time and screw it up royally. They buy a brand, place it against lines they already own in venues that do not support the current clients of the lines, mess with the ingredients so the lines are all vanilla copies of their own poorly performing brands and proceed to watch the sales fall feet first into the grave.

Take the case of Fender guitars, once an independent and superior product designed by professional players for the elite of the industry. Once CBS bought it - because, after all, CBS makes music CDs - they stopped innovating and let manufacturing go to locations that built a cheaper guitar and not a better one.

This marriage lasted ten years before the stock of Fender plummeted and knock-off Strats from Japan were the superior choice of serious guitarists. Fender is coming back as the standard in electric guitars due to a purchase by enthusiasts and ex-employees for pennies on the dollar.

When Quaker Oats bought Snapple in 1994, Snapple was the choice of youth and New Age fans and was only found in small shops, quick marts and whole food outlets. Quaker ran it through its Gatoraid distribution channels and Snapple was postured as direct competition for Coke and Pepsi in mass marketing. The brand lost 20% of sales each year and Quaker dumped it for chump change. Cadbury bought Snapple and, because Cadbury made a mint placing its confections in a variety of small stores as well as the giants, Snapple is now worth over one billion dollars.

The success of many brands in the salon industry is determined by its proper placement with the stylist community. Customers buy, to be sure, but stylists recommend and their opinion trumps the marketing wiles of the giant soap companies.

The giants are hobbled by their inability to understand the consumer, despite their surveys and market focus groups. Everyone lies to them and tells them what they want to hear just to get their free gift or money.

No one wants to hang out with these idiots in the way they would with, say Oribe or Frederic Fekkai. The conversation with Unilever would be all dollars and cents rather than discussions about art and fashion from the fountainheads of genius.

The stylist cannot be as creative without the voices of master practitioners and these are the ones they will always go to for education, inspiration and products.

All anyone has to do to overtake them is to do everything exactly opposite of what they are currently doing. Keep your ingredients true, build a loyal fan base of salons stylist and clients, stay out of the shopping mall beauty supplies, be operated by professional stylists and chemists, and never ever lie to your customers.

We would like to offer one reflection to the dozens of smaller independent brands struggling against the soap giants. We are hopeful that you are bringing quality back into our salons. We will do our best to trust you and embrace your ideals, but we have been in love before and our hearts are broken.

All will go well if you remember this: mention your profits once at a board meeting before you spend an hour talking up you latest shows and fashion releases and you may as well pack it in and sell your precious baby to the vampires on the road to purgatory.

All the money they will give you is blood money and you won't be able to spend it fast enough to wipe its stain from your hands.

You have been warned.

Article by: Edward Paul - Capelli d'Oro ©2009

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