In the crescendo of a painstaking effort to elevate Artistry’s positioning, the direct-selling skin-care and cosmetics brand is launching its first prestige fragrance. Developed with the agency Select World and fine fragrance supplier Givaudan, Flora Chic is designed to attract younger consumers to Artistry. While the brand has dabbled in scents for various local markets before, the $80 fragrance marks the brand’s entrance into the category on a global scale and sets the foundation for a broader fragrance franchise.
“It’s the pinnacle of it all,” said Sabrina Yu, managing director of Select World. “It shows a different side of the brand. In prestige skin care, there are general rules you have to abide by. You have to compete against technologies and innovations that are out there. With fragrance, it allows you to push the emotional connection you are trying to make with the consumer. We really wanted to show a slightly more youthful and playful side of the brand.” Kim Malewitz, director of beauty and personal care for Artistry, a staple of Alticor-owned Amway’s portfolio, added, “It is going to be a very strong launch for us. The distributors are so excited, and I think we may have underestimated what this can do for the brand. This is the first of more to come within the category, and we are treating this category as a major focus for us.”
Flora Chic was conceived around the idea of “grace in motion,” a phrase coined by Select World to epitomize Artistry’s sales consultants called Amway Business Owners. “Not only is our woman the consumer, she’s also the seller, the ambassador and a beauty expert,” said Yu. “What ‘grace in motion’ captures is not only that these women are invested in beauty, but that they are role models in their communities. They are women on the move who are very successful and other women look up to them, and want to be like them.” Malewitz summarized the inspiration for the fragrance, its packaging and campaign imagery in four words: alluring, irresistible, sophisticated and fun. “Selling skin care and makeup to their clients is different from fragrance for ABOs. Fragrance is an easy way to engage women,” she said, continuing, “It wasn’t an area that we were initially focusing on and now is the right time to do it as we have repositioning the brand. Fragrance is the last thing women put on as they walk out the door, and it was missing within our offering.”
Six years after Select World began upgrading Artistry and 12 years into its relationship with the brand, Yu and Malewitz suggested skin care and makeup are on the right track — and fragrance is an illustration of how far the brand has come. “Years back, we were a little bit too loose with the brand and markets were doing their own thing,” said Malewitz. “When we took a step back and looked at how Artistry was represented around the world, it was different, and we really lacked consistency. We wanted someone to, when they looked at the products and the packaging, know it was Artistry.” Yu remarked, “I am amazed at the growth this brand has seen and that, in six years, it is really at a place where it has seen so much success that it can launch a fragrance. When we started with this brand, it was a dream for us to launch a fragrance. Rarely in my career have I been able to say that I have seen something like this come to life. We have realized the strategic vision we had for the brand.”
The floral fragrance contains notes of French clementine, Bulgarian rose and ylang ylang. “It is a very universal fragrance,” said Yu. “You can wear it for all occasions of the day, and that was very important to us.” The pink crystal-cut bottle is curved to signify a women’s body, and is accented by a raw silk ribbon referencing the ties of ballet slippers and a cushioned cap symbolizing a luxurious tufted seat. “We wanted something with a bit of weight, but that also had playfulness to it. The color pink is important to Artistry, and it is youthful and fresh,” explained Yu. The campaign centers upon French model Kristine Froseth, a new face featured in Prada’s 2013 campaign. Photographed by Paola Kudacki, Froseth is adorned in shades of blush in the imagery to evoke a prima ballerina and infuse it with romanticism. “We loved her look. She has a look that appeals not just to the Asian market, but to the Western market as well and, quite honestly, she’s just so sweet,” said Yu. “She brought lightness to the campaign without feeling so young.”
Artistry is reinforcing the introduction of Flora Chic by providing samples to its ABOs, amplifying social media messaging, and spotlighting it in product catalogs, monthly publications and other materials. “For us, it becomes a conversation-starter,” said Malewitz. “A lot of times women will ask each other what fragrance they are wearing. In our business, when our ABOs are out and about, this will help them start a conversation. They are looking at it as an opportunity to share.”
The fragrance’s appeal internationally is vital to Artistry, which is heavily driven by sales outside the U.S. The brand has a presence in more than 100 countries and five million women annually purchase its products. Last year, Euromonitor International estimated Artistry’s skin-care revenues were almost $1.3 billion and ranked it the fourth-largest premium skin-care products purveyor in the world. The research firm approximated Artistry’s cosmetics sales at $208.6 million for the same period, placing it 16th in the world among premium cosmetics players. In Asia, a major region for Artistry, the sales performances of fragrances generally don’t rival skin-care products, but Yu and Malewitz are bullish on Flora Chic receiving a warm Asian welcome. Malewitz emphasized what’s critical for Artistry’s ABOs and their customers in Asia is the upscale look and feel of a product, a quality she praised Flora Chic for delivering. And she noted it will be a prized gift in Asian nations where gifting is a valued tradition.
“The distributors have been looking for that product that they could be proud of to give to someone or recommend to someone who is looking for a gift,” said Malewitz. “We have a lot of great antiaging products, but that is not typically something that you would gift someone. This will be something that they will be proud to display in their bathrooms and hand off to other women as a beautiful representation of Artistry.”