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Month: September 2017

FROM BOOKS TO BEAUTY AND THE MALE AVON LADY

FROM BOOKS TO BEAUTY AND THE MALE AVON LADY

 

avon logo

Despite its name being inspired by the British river, Avon’s origins are American. The first ‘Avon lady’ was in fact a man and the business actually started in books not beauty.

That first Avon ‘Lady’ was a young door-to-door salesman, David McConnell, who originally came from Oswego, New York. He began working for the Union Publishing Company in 1877 selling magazines, greeting cards and books. He was reasonably successful and purchased 50% of the Union Publishing Company for $500.

McConnellMcConnell however found that books weren’t always an easy sell and he resorted to the then popular marketing ploy of offering a free introductory gift in exchange for being allowed to come in and make his sales pitch.

Given that most of his clients were women, he thought a complimentary vial of perfume would work well so, with some help from a local pharmacist, he blended the original scent himself. He soon discovered that many of his customers were much more interested in the fragrance than they were in his books.

He would later say that “The book business was not congenial to me” and so he announced to his partner, who had now moved to California, his intention to sell perfume. His partner enthusiastically agreed and even suggested that he call the new company the California Perfume Company “because of the great profusion of flowers in California.”

california perfume

The door-to-door formula for perfume sales was ideal for that time-period in America. McConnell focused on small towns, where his home-based clients often had no means of travelling to shops where they could buy perfumes. As his biography says “At the turn of the century, about 80 percent of the California Perfume Company’s “Depot Agents” lived and sold in communities of less than 1,000 (white) population.”

However, what really took the brand to new heights was when McConnell realised that the perfect salesperson might in fact be a woman so he hired his first female sales representative – the first female ‘Avon lady’. Persis Foster Eames Albee was a 50 year old wife and mother of two. McConnell would later call her the “Mother of the California Perfume Company”.

AlbeeIt is she who is credited with creating the company’s system for distributing products. She travelled all around the north-east by buggy and train, not only selling door-to-door but recruiting and training other women as salespeople. Albee recognised that these women (Agents) would not have to travel but could sell in their own communities. The fact they were actually part of the communities in which they sold gave them a credibility with their friends and neighbours, a credibility and accessibility that no travelling salesman could match.

The company allowed these women to purchase products and literature and resell the items in their own time in their own style. It was the first time this kind of approach had been used in cosmetics and was one that has allowed the brand to prosper for over a century.

What Albee and McConnell were now selling was a business opportunity for women — women who needed money — usually older, married women. It would give them the chance to earn an independent income. It was an appealing idea and, in 1887, just one year into his perfume business, they already had a team of 12 agents selling the now 18-piece fragrance line.

In 1905, the company launched Outlook magazine, a publication for sharing advice with employees and keeping representatives up-to-date on other company news. The following year they had enough products to release a sales catalogue, another move that helped further grow sales.

It wasn’t however until 1928 that the company started using the Avon name, which different sources say came from the fact that it is the birthplace of McConnell’s favourite playwright, or that, when visiting Shakespeare’s home at Stratford-On-Avon, McConnell was taken by the way the countryside resembled that around his home in Suffern, New York.

lipsticks

The name may have changed and the range expanded but the brand remains committed to “empowering women around the globe” and states its purpose as “to create a world with more empowered women”. It aims to stay true to the set of guiding principles that McConnell developed all those years ago:

⦁ Providing an earnings opportunity so individuals can achieve financial independence and enjoy all that comes with such an accomplishment.
⦁ Recognizing everyone’s unique contributions.
⦁ Giving back to the communities Avon serves.
⦁ Offering the highest quality products with a guarantee of satisfaction.
⦁ Maintaining and cherishing the “friendly spirit of Avon.”

And the moral is it isn’t just what you sell but the way that you sell it. Is there a better route to market for your brand?

Footnote: Avon is not the only brand where the founder started in one business but found his ‘door opener’ gift would prove to the truly successful brand. William Wrigley Jr sold soap and baking giving away sticks of chewing gum before moving into the confectionery business.

 From wasted to wanted: Doing what couldn’t be done

 From wasted to wanted: Doing what couldn’t be done

e-leather 2

Over the years, I’ve worked on many different brands from lots of different categories and in a variety of different countries.

One of the brands I feel very lucky you have worked on in recent years is E-Leather.

They describe themselves on their website as “an award winning, environmentally friendly materials technology company that uses traditional leather fibres and high-powered water to produce a technologically advanced eco-leather material.”

However that doesn’t do them justice.

chris-bevan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On an early visit to their site, I noticed a tribute to their founder, the inventor, Chris Bevan (1937-2012). It read…

 

Somebody said that it “couldn’t be done…”

But, he with a chuckle replied that “maybe it couldn’t,”

but he would be one who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin on his face.

If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done,

and he did it.

 

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that; at least no one has done it”;

but he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

and the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

without any doubting or quiddit,

he started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done,

and he did it.

 

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

there are thousands to prophesy failure;

there are thousands to point out to you one by one,

the dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,

just take off your coat and go to it;

just start to sing as you tackle the thing that “couldn’t be done,”

and you’ll do it.

 

It turns out that Chris Bevan was a man who hated unnecessary waste. When he learnt that up to 50% of every leather hide often ends up in landfill, he decided that something needed to be done.

His first idea was to use the leather off-cuts from the shoe industry and turn them into insulation. An idea that wasn’t so much re-cycling but upcycling. The offcuts hadn’t been used but they were still being treated as waste. His idea was to upgrade the wasted into something wanted.

Creating a viable insulation product proved difficult, the fibres would often clog up before forming into the blocks but that didn’t stop Chris.

In some articles I’ve read, new inspiration followed a fall. They report that one day, still looking for a solution, Chris slipped on a bit of shredded leather in the lab, and fell in a heap on top of it. Getting up he noticed how the fibres had been compressed together into what looked like a new mini-sheet of leather. It gave him an idea and rather than insulation, he started to think how he could create a new material.

e leather

Unfortunately, I was told the story of fall was just that, a story. However Chris’ determination was genuine and he did finally find an alternative use for the unwanted offcuts which was a new material.

Using what is a now patented technology and based on the wonderfully named “hydro-entanglement”, Chris found a way to sandwich genuine leather fibres around a micro textile inner core, all without the use of any adhesives, so creating a leather-fibre composite which was christened E-Leather.  It is a high tech, high performance material that contains a high percentage of real leather, but which is much lighter and more economical than traditional leather.

While it looks and feels just like leather, it can be produced in rolls, something that can’t be done with traditional leather. This means E-Leather is easier to use, considerably reducing manufacturing wastage.

E-Leather-1

The products were introduced in 2007 and the business has built from an original base in aviation with development of product lines for ground transport, commercial & domestic furniture and footwear. Production and sales have grown rapidly and the company has won numerous green awards along the way.

Not bad for something they said couldn’t be done.

Chris Bevan died in 2012 but the company “still honours the vision of our founder Chris Bevan, and his commitment to the development of a clean technology product and culture”.

For me what makes this brand so special is how it cleverly turns the wasted into the wanted, with a wonderful trinity of benefits – it is a product that is good for businesses, good for customers and good for the planet.