A recent report on the world’s strongest beauty labels has highlighted the dominance of legacy brands, with long-running and affordable favourites such as Olay and Avon dominating the top ten.
Valuation firm Brand Finance’s annual ranking of the 50 biggest global beauty brands measures areas including current market value and customer loyalty, with the number one spot going to America’s Olay — which was launched in 1950.
The second and third spot went to US brand Avon and France’s L’Oreal respectively. Both companies have been around for over 100 years. In fact, all but nine of the top 50 brands are over 60 years old, and 15 of them are over 100 years old.
“Consumers are loyal to brands because of the trust factor, which is especially important in beauty products,” Elise Neils, managing director of Brand Finance USA told Forbes.
“Legacy brands have history and significance across generations, and women are more willing to be loyal to brands that they’re putting on their body.”
Rounding out the top five are Neutrogena (launched in 1930) and Nivea (founded 1882), while Lancôme, Dove and Estee Lauder come sixth, seventh and eighth. Historical Japanese companies Biore and Shiseido complete the top ten respectively.
“Whilst the Top 50 Beauty Brands might appear to be dominated by the USA, France and UK, nations such as Japan have begun to emerge as forerunners in the industry and it seems likely that as the European economic crisis continues we will soon see the appearance of many more beauty brands from the emerging markets in our global ranking,” commented Brand Finance CEO David Haigh.
Interestingly, beauty brands with a high social media following, including Clinique, Maybelline and Dior, aren’t in the top ten — although some of those at the top have helped update their image this way.
For example, it was shown in a study of some of the world’s biggest beauty brands by digital blog L2 earlier this year that Dove had enjoyed the biggest growth in Facebook ‘likes’ from January 2011 to January 2012 and @AvonInsider had enjoyed the largest Twitter follower growth.
There has already been a noted resurgence of affordable long-running beauty brands of late, with recent reports of Sudocrem antiseptic healing cream, which originated 80 years ago, enjoying a 150 percent rise in sales since last year in the UK.
The old‑fashioned cream has been used to treat skin troubles including cold sores and spots, with famous endorsers of the product including British pop star Cheryl Cole. Meanwhile, celebrities such as Kylie Minogue are famously said to use the affordable Pond’s Cold Cream, which was first developed in 1918 by New York pharmacist Theron T Pond. – AFP RELAXNEWS
