CVS' Salma Hayek Nuance: 3 Things That Drag the Brand Down + 3 Things That Can Lift It

1. Salma Hayek
Nuance:
Now and
Future
How Salma Hayek/CVS Brand is
Faltering
and
What Can Be Done to Help it Survive
in the Crowded Market
@ThisIsMadisonM
Updated 2017

2. CVS’ Beauty Segment
● Beauty consists 4.2% of CVS earnings
(Annual Report 2016)
● CVS holds a 40% share of total drugstore
beauty sales.
● 17 million ExtraCare Beauty Club members.

3. CVS’ Beauty Segment
● In 2014, CVS has elevated its cosmetics wall across
4,500 locations, and its facial offerings in 2,000 stores.
(DrugStoreNews.Com 2015)
● Strategy to focus on higher margin categories like
healthy and beauty at the expense of lower margin,
declining categories…” (Helena Foulkes, CVS/Pharmacy
President 2015)
● Company tracking and introducing trending unique

4. Nuance Salma Hayek
● The +100 product line debuted in 2011, exclusively in
CVS stores
● Awarded “Launch of the Year:Mass 2011” by Women’s
Wear Daily
● The makeup line revamped/reformulated/relaunched in
2015
● Advertised as product of ancient beauty secrets and
exotic botanic ingredients

5. Personal care industry: big mark ups,
big competition
● While the market continues to grow, so does the
competition from big and small brands, from mass market
to premium, filling the ever expanding niches (such as K
Beauty or natural cosmetics)
● With markups ranging from 50% to over 300% (acne
products) no wonder the personal care industry attracts
investors and newcomers
● At the same time, global consumer trends shifts affect the

6. Celebrities are interested in direct
involvement w/beauty brands
Actresses, like Drew Barrymore or Gwyneth Paltrow, move
from being just a face of a beauty brand to be actively
involved in launching, producing and promoting beauty
products.

7. At the same time, celebrity endorsement
ain’t what it used to be...
Rise of social media skewed some of the traditional
marketing efforts in favor of organic Word of Mouth and the
so called Influencers.
In 2016, influencer collaborations in the prestige makeup
division brought in an average of twice the money of
traditional celebrity-led ones in their first month. ( The NPD
Group U.S. Prestige Beauty Makeup Launches, Top 50, Jan-

8. At the same time, celebrity endorsement ain’t
what it used to be...
Celebrities also tend to move from a brand to brand:
-Salma herself used to advertise Avon
-Gwen Stefani moved from L’Oreal/Urban Decay to Revlon
-Cover Girl spokesperson Ellen DeGeneres just appeared in
Revlon’s The Love Project
-Drew Barrymore used her experience as a CoverGirl to

9. Salma Hayek - Wasted Opportunity?
Unlike Jessica Alba’s Honest brand, Salma Hayek’s Nuance
had some growing pains.
It also failed to fully capitalize on its exposure in the CVS
stores and the significant built in star power of the actress
who can count on the input and expertise of one of the
biggest names in luxury, Francois-Henri Pinault, CEO of
Kering.
In other words, Nuance brand should be bigger, with
better PR/word of mouth than it currently has.

10. Salma Hayek - Wasted Opportunity?
Salma Hayek was nominated for an
Oscar for playing Frida Kahlo, a role
that made her a household name.
Eventually, the movie won Oscar for
Best Makeup (sic!)
CVS DIDN’T capitalize on it at all
within the Nuance range, until in 2017
when the drugstore began to offer (not

11. What drags the brand down
1. Lack of a clear value
proposition/differentiator
The brand’s story is all over the place:
Salma claims her products built on her
grandma’s expertise in mixing natural
beauty products
Of course, we never see her
grandmother or mother in any
“My grandmother, who
was a beauty, she died
at 96 with no wrinkles.
And you should see my
mother! We have some
family secrets.” (Salma
Hayek, NYT T
Magazine, 2011)

12. What drags down the brand
1.a Lack of clear value
proposition/differentiator
Neither packaging nor in store
advertising reinforce the idea
Salma’s brand uses unique
ingredients. Instead...
“Because I have a miracle ingredient
nobody else has — tepezcohuite,
that is used in the hospital for burn
victims for skin regeneration. It’s not
expensive, although I could have
made it expensive. If you use caviar
and gold, it is more expensive, but I
don’t think it’s any better than the
others. I can take them on any day.
Gold is not regenerating the skin of
burn victims, neither is the caviar.”
Salma Hayek
NYMag.com The Cut May 2015

13. What drags the brand down
...the packaging
‘borrows’ colors from
other brands,
a huge disadvantage
for Nuance products
that already look
relatively generic on
the shelf, blending in
with other beauty

14. What drags down the brand
2. Lack of good word of mouth/viral excitement about
relatively new brand
Nuance brand hasn't got one star product that generates
lots of word of mouth excitement that could creating a halo
effect for other products in the line.
2017 YouTube results for Salma Hayek Nuance are at
around 3,250 vs 7,350 for Walmart’s FlowerBeauty.
Neither can compete with over 2 million results for Jessica

15. What drags down the brand
3. Tired formulations
Nuance boasts unique ingredients that allegedly work great
at a fraction of a cost, but, unlike other beauty brands that
offer many samples to regular consumers and influencers
alike, customers are not invited to try and see for
themselves.

16. What drags down the brand
3. Tired formulations
Nuance marketing and PR also don’t
show Salma actively working on the
formulations her grandma allegedly
concocted.
For contrast, see Drew Barrymore
working w/manufacturers on the
formulas, a point she continuously

17. What can lift the brand
1. Capitalize on Salma Hayek’s secrets more and in a
new way:
-reposition the brand from “exotic botanical ingredients”(a
statement many brands make) to secrets she can share;
beauty secrets she learned in her childhood and during her
cosmopolitan country hopping Hollywood star life.
Women are always interested in stars’ lifestyles. Many a
gossip magazine profiles center around the star sharing her

18. What can lift the brand
1a. New name, new positioning:
Salma’s Secrets
-air of mystery (intriguing name worked for Victoria’s Secret)
-never ending opportunities for product ingredient reveals e.g.
Salma shares a new secret she learned from top skin people
(just like Cindy Crawford w/ Meaningful Beauty) or South
American traditional medicine.

19. What can lift the brand
2. Paring down the offerings
Focus on the few products that can really deliver the value
proposition and expand only once customers are convinced
they are worth $$.
E.g.
Only once consumers consistently buy Salma’s Secrets
cream with tepezcohuite can the brand promote a make up

20. What can lift the brand
3. Reimagining the packaging!
-more important than ever (see Christian Louboutin
make up launch)
-make it look like you can take some of Salma’s
glamour with you home
-help Nuance stand out

21. What can lift the brand
3a. Packaging: Execution Example
Make a shampoo bottle into an
award like statue.
Salma can talk about her days as
struggling actress who practised her
award acceptance speeches in a
bathroom.
SALMA’S
SECRETS
Award
Winning Shampoo

22. What can lift the brand SALMA’S SECRETS
Marketing Execution
● Salma talks with press how a
childhood friend or a fellow
Hollywood star told her about a
unique secret ingredient and how
she begged CVS to incorporate it
in her products and share it with
her fans. Her claims have to be
followed with a reformulated

23. What can lift the brand SALMA’S SECRETS
Marketing Execution
● CVS reveals carefully selected
products that reiterate the
brand’s exclusive and time
proven ingredients via
marketing, packaging and in store
educational materials.
● The strategy helps better

24. What can lift the brand SALMA’S SECRETS
Marketing Execution
● Unique packaging, improved
quality and intriguing PR help the
sales and reinvigorate the
struggling line.

25. Summary
Nuance can continue to be a solid
drugstore exclusive beauty line only
if it pivots its positioning and
marketing.
In a crowded market of beauty
products, Nuance is risking being a
run of a mill shelf space hugger
that will be pushed out by other
bigger or more exciting new brands.

26. Thank you
For reading!
Questions? Contact
Madison Morris
Madisontodaynow@gm
ail.com
@ThisIsMadisonM
Updated 2017