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Enjoying double-digit growth every year
since it began trading in London in
1973, beauty brand Molton Brown has
grown a loyal UK customer base while
opening stores in 70-plus countries and getting
its products, such as Recharge Black Pepper
Bodywash and White Mulberry Fine Liquid
Handwash, into the spas and en-suites of more
than 1,500 luxury hotels worldwide.
Among the brand's far-flung fans was Japan's
Kao Corporation, the world's third largest
personal products conglomerate, which bought
the company in October 2005 for €230m. A year
later Molton Brown's chief financial officer chief
Sara Halton, was promoted to the role of chief
executive, entrusted to take the brand further for
its parent – but at a stately pace. Fresh from a trip
to Tokyo where the Japanese top brass signed off
on a five-year business plan, Halton offers that "Kao views us as a Fabergé egg and wants us to
stay that way." This might be a tactful way of
indicating the scale of things. While Kao is a €6bn
a year behemoth, Molton Brown's annual sales are
around just €100m.
Having also swallowed domestic rival
Kanebo Cosmetics two years ago for €2.93bn,
a deal that has not so far unlocked too many
expected synergies, one might also suppose
that Kao CEO Motoki Ozaki has had his
mulberry-softened hands full of late.
Indeed Halton, the first woman to head a
Kao company, was apparently just told to "get
on and run this the way you want to, and as long
as the numbers stack up we're happy." Halton
says Ozaki has asked only that she continues
to nourish Molton Brown's domestic roots and
continue to buff up its core brand values. Oh, and
it needs to keep on with double-digit growth in
an increasingly cut-throat global market.
Halton's most radical business decision was
last September when Molton Brown ended its
seven-year partnership with British Airways,
under which Molton Brown provided amenity
bags for the airline's business class passengers
and had a store at Heathrow airport. Although the
official line was that with BA preparing to operate
from Heathrow's Terminal 5 from next autumn, it
simply "was the time for Molton Brown to assess
the future value of the relationship," Halton says
now: "It's all about pride in the brand."
Clearly this is a poke at an airline that recently
endured labour disputes and a price fixing
scandal on the transatlantic routes on which the
pampering factor was played up in ad
campaigns. Of course, the snub
could also be part of a concerted
attempt by Halton to make her
mark, while reasserting Molton
Brown's pedigree.
Yet Molton Brown does not have
the caché of, say, Jean Paul Gautier, Lancome or
Acqua di Parma lines. It does not do complex or
continental, and is associated less with high-end
marketed skincare and perfume than more
prosaic hand soaps and shower gels. Moreover,
since 1978, all the potions and lotions have been
overseen by creative director Dale Daxon Bowers,
a particularly reclusive Englishwoman.
As marketing director Amy Nelson-Bennett
explains: "We get a lot of people who say 'I work
damn hard but I don't want to re-mortgage the
family home to reward myself' – and they reward
themselves with Molton Brown." A 300ml bottle
of hand soap retails for €21.
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