From the start, BeautyMatter has provided actionable insights and business intelligence for leaders in the beauty industry to thrive in a dynamic and constantly changing marketplace. Now, we're taking our content live in our first BeautyMatter NEXT Summit: The Future of Beauty.
Using our team's collective experience as founders, operators, investors, and trend forecasters, we've designed content experiences to push boundaries and open minds, tapping a group of big thinkers to help us tackle real-time issues like supply chain and economic forces while we contemplate future-facing topics like the metaverse and the future of retail.
The Panel Lineup:
Clean 2.0: Open for Discussion + Debate
The clean beauty revolution of the last decade was grounded in good intentions and a crusade against chemicals. A war waged on certain ingredients has created a list of banned ingredients growing by the day. But how can something be called “good” or “bad” without knowing the context? Sweeping generalizations, fearmongering, and finger-pointing in brand marketing have created consumer confusion, and consumers have begun questioning "clean" claims. While the concept of clean has become table stakes with the category estimated to reach $22 billion by 2024, the term still lacks a unified definition, remaining open to interpretation and debate. We'll dive into the future of clean beauty with three industry veterans with shared intentions but differing opinions.
Speakers:
Pushing the Limits: Creating the Future of Brick + Mortar Retail
Brick-and-mortar has emerged from the flames of pandemic-induced shutdowns with renewed vigor. Physical retailers fighting to pry away consumers from the convenience of one-click mobile shopping have come in with some heavy artillery: experience-heavy pop-ups, AI and VR tools, and complimentary in-store services. Even so, novelty and gadgets can only take one so far. The true innovators are now redefining retail on their own terms, tapping into the physical format's hidden superpower: human connection, driven by technology. Beyond the anthropoid reciprocity, we look into channel agnosticism as the new means for industry growth, and the key to being everything, everywhere, all at once.
Speakers:
Building a Relentlessly Relevant Brand
With daily launches, callout culture, and a constantly evolving marketplace, launching a new beauty brand that's in it for the long haul is more challenging than ever. In an industry of overabundance, how can one create something truly innovative and unique that resonates with consumers on a deeper level, in an era when the concept of brand loyalty is becoming increasingly thin? We speak to three founders who have built challenger brands that break cultural taboos and define white space with clearly defined and powerful reasons for being outside the social media echo chamber.
Speakers:
Transparency Gets Transparent
Consumers demand it, and brands promise it. Call it scrutiny or common sense, but consumers are checking under the hood, questioning claims, and requiring substantiation.While the clean beauty movement has been the driver of transparency, the industry has been historically secretive, especially regarding the supply chain. There is little regulation when it comes to most of these claims, but we've entered a new era of radical transparency, making transparency very transparent. Technology has raised the bar, and businesses that meet the challenge will earn consumer trust and a competitive edge.
Speakers:
Making Sense of Beauty's Place in the Metaverse
Metawhat? Love them or hate them, virtual worlds are here to stay. The metaverse has become ground zero for all that is immersive, engaged, and virtual, with brands across the industry experimenting in the digital frontier. The potential for new revenue streams and ways to engage consumers appears infinite. However, metaverse development is still nascent, making the ability to create real value in a virtual world up for debate. Do you jump into the rapidly developing space for fear of being left behind, or do you watch actively from the sidelines? Hear firsthand from future-looking tech experts and brands that are navigating these new spaces.
Speakers:
Financial Markets: Growth, Inflation + Adapting to Unpredictable Times
The state of the economy, inflation, rising input costs, interest rates, and consumer sentiment are all top of mind for executives in beauty. Historically the beauty sector has been resilient, with some going as far as calling it recession proof. Thus far, beauty has actually fared pretty well, but will this continue? How will it impact growth and demand? How will the state of the capital markets impact fundraising, M&A, and access to capital? How must brands adapt to thrive in such unpredictable times?
Speakers:
Rethinking Beauty Supply Chains for an Uncertain World
Just as the supply chain snarls created by the pandemic began to unwind, a container ship stuck inside the Suez Canal, economic turmoil, the war in Ukraine, and climate-related events reinforced the fragility of current globalized supply chains optimized for low cost. Disruption today moves at breakneck speed, driving businesses to rethink and rebuild supply chains to reduce risk exposure as the world becomes more interconnected and turbulent. We will dig into the current state of the beauty supply chain and discuss how brands have begun to shift focus from optimizing "just in time" delivery to preparing for "just in case" eventualities by building solutions for resiliency.
Speaker:
Want to understand and be better prepared for what's next in beauty? Join Us.
