Meaningful Beauty is getting a Millennial makeover after 13 years on the market.
Cindy Crawford’s Guthy-Renker-owned skin-care brand, developed by her own cosmetic doctor, Dr. Jean-Louis Sebagh, is unveiling new packaging and four new stockkeeping-units with modernized formulas next month. While one product — a serum — contains an update to the brand’s proprietary French melon ingredient, another product — a day moisturizer — offers protection from environmental pollution, including damage caused by infrared and blue light coming from smart phone, computer and television screens.
Abandoning its traditional, infomercial-first rollout schedule, Meaningful Beauty will launch the new collection in Ulta Beauty stores on Aug. 20, followed by Amazon and QVC and then a new infomercial in September. Guthy-Renker has already begun rolling out a digital and social media campaign targeted at the 25- to 34-year-old demographic.
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Crawford told WWD the update was initially about getting the latest technology to brand’s the core customer base — 35 and up, with a big percentage in the 45-plus range. But the products also work for the selfie generation.
“The main mission is to keep Meaningful Beauty users we’ve had for more than 10 years now. We’ve earned their trust already, but…I’m getting older and as my needs change, I assume our customers’ needs are changing, too, and I want to give them solutions,” Crawford said. “But we’ll be attracting new customers with some of the innovations. Dr. Sebagh is so amazing at that — he first started talking about environmental pollution beyond SPF over 10 years ago.”
The effects of blue light on the skin, said Dr. Sebagh, are potentially as damaging — if not more so — than harm caused by the sun.
“Think about it — you spend more time in front of a computer than outside in the sun. Girls are [using flash to take selfies] 500 times a day,” said Dr. Sebagh, who operates clinics in London and Paris, as well as his own prestige line. Crawford has been a patient of Sebagh’s since she was 28. “One major culprit of aging is light pollution in general…young girls are coming in to dermatologist offices with fine lines, irritations, brown spots — [blue light] is in fact harming your skin if you expose yourself too much.”
The new products include a triple exfoliating treatment that also works as a mask, an overnight crème — the brand’s first with retinol — a day moisturizer containing the blue light filter, and a serum that harnesses melon stem cells, said to be more powerful than the brand’s original melon product. The products retail from $52 to $76.
“It’s not a complete relaunch, but more of an evolution,” said Laura Lum, senior vice president of retail and brand marketing at Guthy-Renker. “We’re keeping the melon heritage but adding new technology, ingredients and benefits…so many people are [in front of] screens, and we wanted to [provide] protection against pollution for that. The anticipation is out there in the market, so timing is good right now.”
Lum said Guthy-Renker is aiming to grow its Millennial customer base to ultimately comprise 15 percent of the business. “[Millennials] are very makeup heavy, but with the trend of ‘no makeup makeup’ there’s a need for skin-care benefits,” she said.
Guthy-Renker declined to give specific figures, but industry sources estimate the brand could reach $100 million in sales within the first year of this launch.