Lush Cosmetics Brand Story
Lush Cosmetics, the international chain of natural beauty products, with 900 stores spread across 49 countries is a saga of success. According to the recent figures, its global sale marking reached £723 million in 2016, which comes to approximately 900 million dollars, projecting an increase of 26% as compared to the previous year. Next year 2017 - total turnover shot up to 1.3 billion dollars! ‘Lush’ founders, Mark Constantine – a trichologist by profession and Liz Weir, beauty therapist passionately believed in creating organic products, produced by ethical means. The profitable venture, has a revolutionary concept, it sells handmade products that are 95% vegan, 100% egg free and 65% are self-preserving. Since its inception in 1995, company has maintained the ethical core, while earning an enviable profit margin. Let’s study the mind of this commercially viable and heartfelt, innovative business idea.
Brand Values, Vision and Mission
Honesty and transparency are major forces that form a powerful background for the company. The brand values - fair trade, no animal testing and ethical sourcing of raw material, promoted by Lush, have been backed by actions. The brand hasn’t compromised on its values, vision and mission to attain large scale profits. As Brandi Halls, Brand Communications Director at Lush, in an interview, explained the company’s belief system in a simple manner. She said, “Ethics have and always will be at the heart of the company. For us, you really can balance sustainability and profit—the two can’t be separated.”
Image Source: Lush
Vision of this brand is to care for humankind, environment and animals. Company follows the principles of fair trade while doing business. Mission is to save the environment, let sustainability prosper, be kind to animals. These products are not tested on animals; the testing is done on human volunteers. Natural ingredients used in these products has the tiniest or no possibility of being harmful to the user. Thus, justifying animal rights and human welfare at once.
Product Innovation and Creativity
Product Innovation - ‘Bath Bombs’ was first pitched to Body Shop in the late 1980s, it got rejected. These fragrant, fizzy bombs that crumble in water, are a common phenomenon now, but back then it was an innovative thought, capitalised by Lush, conceived by Constantine. Breaking out courageously into a chemical driven product industry is all the more challenging and meaningful. Lush won the market place by offering an innovative product range, developed at ‘farm kitchens’. Production team working in unison, under the leadership of Constantine, for more than 35 years has been continuously striving towards innovation.
Corporate Branding voice tone is fun, cheeky and expressive. Colour diversity of products is attractive and engaging, right from bright pink, baby pink, blue, white, golden to black! Golden eggs, white rabbits, orange round blocks, are some of the few graceful shapes with beautiful colours, that the brand has created. Product names are quirky and fonts have a hand written feel! Packaging is minimal and sometimes zero! Minimum material used is recycled.
Consumer and Retail Space
The selling chain is an owner-distributor network, products are distributed through the brand’s boutique and online store. It adopts a multi-channel strategy, with chain of stores all over the world. Brick and mortar stores are built after research being carried out for its placement area. Brand locates its stores at carefully selected sites only. It usually chooses high end shopping areas, next to luxury boutiques, since the consumer ‘Target Market’ does not include the price sensitive audience.
Product display at these stores has a unique style, for instance, a lot of items are placed in wooden racks that look like fruit stands, radiating freshness and rawness. “I’ve always loved the way fruit and vegetables are displayed in a grocery store” - says Constantine. When one enters the Lush store, a positive-friendly ambience, loaded with fruit fragrances and colourful imagery welcomes the buyer. Looking from the business study perspective, consumers buying Lush products are usually at the ‘readiness stage’ of purchase. They have an informed and interested attitude towards the product. Buyer is an enthusiastic, positive seeker, does not fall under ‘compulsive buyer’ bracket. These are people who have a thoughtful approach.
Digitally Intelligent
Lush works on the microservices model using in-house tech, a lot of times it also partners with tech companies for the service, connecting by means of Application Programming Interface (API). The brand works with Google Cloud servers, because they use renewable energy, and is a speedy service. Lush prefers working with the cloud system, because it is a secure option. Also, hardware failures will not cause data loss due to networked backups. This natural beauty company is a digitally sound organisation.
Their working infrastructure is technology driven. Technology, in the form of business tools enables work functionality, streamlining the working space and its structure. All the helpful tools, fulfilling business needs across different verticals are well connected, in form of an integrated system. Digitalization is a key factor that supports a flawless working set-up. They also have a Digital Shopping App promising an independent, fluid experience to the customer. Digital Transformation used wisely!
Innovation is exciting! And Lush loves innovation! They have pushed boundaries experimenting with ‘Packaging Innovation’. ‘Lush Lens’ was introduced in 2018, when their plastic free packaging product shop was launched. This is a digital packaging solution in built into its Augmented Reality product app. Invented and designed by the Lush R&D team, this feature uses ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘Product Recognition’. Customers visiting the store are given devices to scan the zero-packaging product range, in order to access information about the same.
Thus, using technology to save packaging material and inspire sustainable living. Creative spirit and a sensitive outlook can be clearly seen in the brand’s behaviour. Trying their best to make world a better place. Summing up the business story, Lush Cosmetics has proved that a brand can be intuitive, imaginative, responsible and still earn huge profits!