The BeautyMatter team has been hard at work pulling together content activations for our inaugural FUTURE50 event. Conversations will tackle topics critical to understanding the market today and where beauty is going.
With a thoughtful blend of intimate networking opportunities and direct connections designed to take brands and stakeholders to the next level, FUTURE50 will be a dynamic gathering and catalyst that imagines what is to come and concretizes the future.
Join us in New York City on April 27 for our inaugural and annual event to bring together high-promise brands, smart money, outstanding technologies, state-of-the-art suppliers, and strategic partners that provide pathways for next-stage expansion.
The Content Lineup:
Making Sense Of The Beauty Investment Landscape
Despite a relative decline in deal activity in the back half of 2022 and Q1 of 2023, industry executives and dealmakers remain optimistic about the prospects for beauty this year and poised for ramped-up dealmaking. On the heels of L’Oréal's announcement of a $2.5 billion deal to acquire Aesop, L’Oréal Group President, Acquisitions Carol Hamilton shares insights on the current state of the beauty industry and the integration of newly acquired brands under one roof in Southern California.
Understanding The Indian Beauty Consumer
Indian startups are on fire, with a new generation of entrepreneurs flipping the script, building D2C beauty brands that have become investor darlings. Their innate cultural understanding of beauty consumer consumption has provided a competitive edge in an emerging market. The Good Glamm Group is a homegrown unicorn with a clear vision of building a generational digital first CPG house of brands built on a foundation of content and commerce. Co-founder Priyanka Gill will share how their content-driven acquisition flywheel has fueled hyper-growth and provide an insider's view of what makes the eighth-largest beauty market in the world tick.
Building A Modern Heritage Brand
The second time around, Bobbi Brown is building a different kind of business with Jones Road on the premise that the world doesn't need more beauty products - it needs better beauty products. Launched on October 26, 2020, the day her non-compete was up she left the trappings of big beauty behind and returned to her roots as a self-funded scrappy start-up. From Covid packaging hacks to using humor to turn around a negative viral TikTok moment, Jones Road has proven its a brand that matters, breaking through the noise and garnering cross-generational appeal. Bobbi Brown and her son Cody Plofker share how they've built a DTC juggernaut on their own terms.
The Future of Personalization Beyond Direct-to-Consumer (DTC)
Consumers are bombarded daily by new products, brands, and ideas, which makes the customer journey more complex than ever and the promise of personalization more powerful. The best DTC experiences use predictive personalization technology to personalize every touchpoint of the customer journey. Omnichannel dynamics have shifted radically, raising the bar on satisfying, retaining, and acquiring customers. Always-on, real-time, one-to-one communication, experiences, and products across the consumer ecosystem will become the new normal. Harnessing the full potential of analytics-driven personalization at scale will be a competitive edge and driver of future growth.
Who Is the Luxury Beauty Consumer and What Makes Them Tick?
We've seen significant shifts in the beauty landscape. A hyper-focus on value and the premiumization of mass has replaced the binary positioning of affordable or luxury―creating a race to the middle where "affordable luxury" offerings become the holy grail. This trend has left the true luxury end of the beauty spectrum unappealing to many while creating an opportunity for those with vision and patience. Luxury is a subjective concept with tenuous parameters and an often elusive brand position. However, you know it when you see it, and it is far more nuanced than price. The luxury consumer still exists, and social signals are inherent to consumerism, so what is the future of luxury beauty?
The Evolving Art And Science Of Product Development
The state of the current beauty landscape is one of evolution and disruption. There is no turning back—everything moves faster, the stakes are higher, and consumers simply don’t shop for beauty the way they have in the past. Product Development sits at the heart of successful beauty brands with the constant pressure to deliver successful, state-of-the-art products, because innovation has become a critical differentiator, and a hero product can be a powerful growth lever. Taking a concept from idea to launch has always been part science and art form, but as a business scales, intuition requires the substantiation of data. Our panel will share how big data, social listening, and AI are evolving the process.
The Evolution of "Center Brained" CMOs
Historically marketing has been viewed as a predominantly right-brained creative function responsible for brand and marketing campaign activity. The digital revolution changed the relationship between brands and customers, giving rise to a proliferation of marketing channels and tools and ushering in an era in which analytics and left-brain thinking drive decision-making. This evolution has increased the status and responsibilities of top marketing executives. Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) drive customer experience and harness data-driven insights that can impact corporate strategy and financial performance, elevating the role and expectations. The role is certainly not for the faint of heart, but modern center-brained CMOs wield the power of creative data-driven intelligence that fuels nimble omnichannel brands.
Redefining The Boundaries Of Beauty
Technology. Science. Representation. There is a realignment underway driven by unbridled innovation and boundary-shifting perceptions that could see the birth of an industry that looks wildly different. Beauty will exist in a space where the delineation between the physical and digital disappear, science will deliver unimaginable breakthroughs, and beauty will move beyond a binary construct. The only constant in beauty is change, and never more so than now. Technology and science are accelerating the industry at an unprecedented pace and societal shifts demand rethinking the meaning and purpose of the brands, products and services we create.
Retention Is the New Acquisition for Gen Z
A growth-at-all-cost mentality fueled marketers' obsession with customer acquisition, which is an expensive strategy resulting in costs multiple times higher than retaining existing customers. More for the sake of more doesn't mean much if you can’t hold on to what you’ve acquired. Attracting the elusive loyalty of Gen Z has forced a reframing of performance where retention is replacing the focus on filling the top of the funnel. If brands want to win over younger consumers, they must meet them where they are and earn their loyalty.
Platform Play Creating Synergies and Scale
Incubators, platforms, and portfolios come in all shapes and sizes. While there may be nuanced differences, all these business models share a similar strategy of creating a centralized entity to launch new brands and operate existing ones. Conceptually it's simple―achieve growth by creating operational efficiency with multiple brands by leveraging synergies, vertical integration, shared resources, and economies of scale. In reality, these business concepts are operationally intense and strike a balance of entrepreneurial vision and experienced execution. Success has the potential to create a competitive edge and opens new opportunities for brands looking to scale or exit.
