Stella & Dot-owned direct-sell skin-care brand Ever is going after a younger customer.
Today, the beauty company launches its Pretty Young Trio, a three-step skin-care regimen including a makeup-removing cleanser, a brightening gel and a moisturizer made for millennials.
Since its 2016 launch, Ever has largely focused on a slightly older demographic with its five-step, anti-aging Pure Results skin-care routine. Ever uses a peer-to-peer selling model, much like heritage beauty players like Mary Kay and Avon. Its independent specialists and customers range in age from 36 to 42 years old.
“Launching PYT is about millennials,” said Ever general manager, Ani Hadjinian. “We want to open up the funnel of who can participate and relate to our products.” That the assortment is edited to three steps from five plays up Ever’s merchandising and marketing approach to “uncomplicated” skin care for younger women. While Ever wouldn’t reveal its investment in Pretty Young Trio or annual sales, it did say revenue for the company had grown threefold since its 2016 launch.
Ever has been gauging interest among millennial consumers since March, with its color cosmetics debut that included a numbered cheek and eye palette, lip gloss, mascara, brow pencil and three makeup brushes.
Though the makeup push was about women of all ages, the company did partner with market research and product review platform Influenster on a millennial-focused campaign around its Whiplash Speed Volumizing Mascara. Ever performed in the higher end of Influenster’s average performance for campaigns of its size: The one-and-a-half month Whiplash campaign generated over 205 reviews on EverSkin.com and 3.7 million social media impressions.
“As digital natives, millennials have had access to more platforms for consuming, creating and sharing content. Peer-to-peer no longer just happens face-to-face with people you know but is fueled by things like social networking, texting, online ratings and reviews, and via a much-expanded digital network,” said Influenster vp of beauty brand partnerships Laura Brinker, of the campaign.
Ever vp of sales and field development Paula Floyd said that one-third of Ever specialists engage in selling products through their own social platforms and many are micro-influencers themselves. This makes the Pretty Young Trio launch well poised for millennials, both specialists and customers.
Ever specialists receive up to 35 percent sales commission on products sold, dependent on time commitment and sales. (Ever kits range in price from $79 for digital marketing and online training tools to $599 for 23 products.) These independent business owners make anywhere from $200 to $168,000, as of 2017 company data. Ever has seen its field community double since last year and has the highest concentration of specialists in Kansas City, Missouri; the outskirts of Dallas and Houston, Texas; and non-metro cities in California.
Out of the gate, Ever will not be employing a different recruitment strategy for Pretty Young Trio — it currently promotes recruitment on its website and on social, but it recognizes there is opportunity, said Fold. Though Avon has suffered as of late, even ousting CEO Sheri McCoy, social selling has been a boon for companies like Rodan & Fields, which achieved more than $1.5 billion in revenue in 2017 and was ranked the No. 1 skincare brand in North America by research firm Euromonitor. Millennial-focused beauty brand Glossier, which received $52 million in venture capital funding in February, also revealed to Bloomberg its plans for a standalone social selling site for its brand.
To announce the new younger product line to specialists, Ever debuted the product assortment internally at its annual Beauty Summit (a national sales conference) this past weekend in Carlsbad, California, prior to today’s launch. That was intentional, said Floyd, as it is a “buzz” moment for specialists to engage in the product themselves before selling commences today.
“These specialists are the epitome of being an influencer today, because what actually gets customers to convert to purchase is now reviews, ratings and hearing from someone they know that they personally love the product,” said Hadjinian.
To that end, Ever won’t be discounting pure influencer marketing completely. It employed the strategy for its color launch in March, in collaboration with influencer marketing platform Fohr. For Pretty Young Trio, the vetting isn’t just about influencers within the beauty and lifestyle spaces.
Starting this week, the brand has partnered with college-focused new-media brand HerCampus and InfluenceHer Collective, a curated network of blogs and vlogs for young women, to share tutorials online and across social platforms. Unlike the Ever makeup debut, which employed women like celebrity makeup artist Jamie Greenberg, these 18 to 20 influencers are between the ages of 18 and 30, and are micro-influencers, with social followings of 10,000 or more.
