Our Chairman, Paul Walton, was recently quoted in Marketing Week discussing the growth in global male personal care brands. The full article by David Benady is available here if you have access to their Pitch section – if not then you can read what Paul had to say in the extract below:

‘The multinationals have piled into the male personal care area over recent years. “Everybody is looking for growth in flat western markets, and male grooming is such a happening area,” says Paul Walton, chief strategy director at Cello Group. But he says there are serious questions about how effectively personal care giants such as P&G, L’Oreal and Unilever are managing to cut through in the male grooming market. The difficulty, he believes, lies building  global personal care brands for men when in some markets, the whole idea of men paying too much attention to their appearance and applying skin moisturisers is considered effeminate.

“You won’t sell many ‘L’Oreal Men Expert Hydra Energetic Eye Roll-Ons’ in Dayton, Ohio. In New York and Los Angeles maybe, but men in mid-America listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd do not do skincare,” says Walton.’

We are delighted to announce that Dave Lawrence, Head of The Value Engineers Kids Practice, has been quoted in this week’s Marketing Week main feature article ‘Brand awareness comes as part of growing up’ by MaryLou Costa.

The article discusses that children today are reacting to brands with a sophisticated awareness and strong opinions about their ‘coolness’.

Dave comments on kids marketing:

“Kids are important as consumers in their own right, but the worry is that brand owners are going to exclude them from the marketing process out of a fear of being labelled irresponsible.”

Product integrity is key when addressing children, Lawrence says. This might involve creating new products, reformulating existing lines or simply doing more marketing around healthier brands. PepsiCo took this route in March when it announced it would put more focus on its healthier brands, such as Pepsi Raw, Pepsi Max, Tropicana and Walkers Baked.

Lawrence says the most constructive marketing initiatives for young people allow “kids to be kids” through appropriate activities for their age group or sponsorship of youth events.

For those that get it wrong, Lawrence says it will hit them where it hurts – sales. “Parents are becoming more discerning about what they buy for their children,” he warns.

Read the full article on Marketing Week online.

Dave Lawrence, head of The Value Engineers Kids, has just recently been published in Marketing Week commenting on the article: “Put your brand in the hands of mother”. Read for yourself what he has to say: