Mented Cosmetics Founders are Now 15th and 16th Black Women to Raise $1M Capital
Cofounders Amanda Johnson and KJ Miller of Mented Cosmetics have become the 15th and 16th African-American women who are able to raise $1 million in capital for their business. Mented Costemtics is a makeup line for created for women of color. The two founders met in Harvard Business School where they were classmates.
For starters, the duo as originally aiming to raise half a million in funding. However, their cosmetic line has received more than they initially planned and the cofounders are over the moon.
Johnson and Miller have been working hard on Mented and early this year, they were able to finally start taking pre-orders. Their core products are nontoxic, vegan lipsticks that are specifically formulated for women of color. The company was able to launch their brand officially on March 2017.
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They are moving forward by expanding their cosmetic line and include eye makeup in the collection. The investment is geared towards expanding their product range, growing their team, and building a strong marketing campaign.
Although the brand has only launched lipsticks, it plans to grow their products to become a complete beauty line. According to Miller, their customers are always asking for more. The company’s goal is to make their customers, specifically women of color, to feel that they are a priority.
Mented has received great response with their organic marketing strategy. Women of color have been sharing their photos and experiences with Mented Cosmetics. Their customers are helping them spread the word through various social media platforms.
Women have been tagging the brand in their posts as well as their friends. The brand is maximizing the use of word of mouth. Women of color are getting the message clearly. Before they are only the 2nd priority customer but with Mented Cosmetics, they are the hero of the
Mazal Group was founded in 2007, in Chatsworth, California. They have six main brands and two brands being developed. With their emphasis on cosmetics, they have shown excessive growth in the last few years, opening an average of eight new stores and ten kiosks each year. They have eighty-four employees in their headquarters, up from the initial eight that started in 2007. In 2013, the cosmetics industry in the United States earned revenues of $56.63 billion, with facial skin care representing 27% of the industry (Exhibit 1). CEO, Adi Oded, says, “The cosmetics industry, especially in skincare, is booming. We have all these baby boomers getting older and looking for anti-aging solutions and we are giving them those solutions” (personal communication, June 27, 2014). The cosmetic industry is constantly developing and this in-depth analysis will provide the explanation of why Mazal Group has had so much success in recent years.
The transition to modern consumerism involved not just the introduction of responsible product formulation, but fundamental transformations of social behavior. Women were at the heart of this development in the cosmetic industry, and we will consider the contributions of two of them: Annie Turnbo Malone and Madame C. J. Walker. These women and their contemporaries paved the way for Estee Lauder and Mary Kay Ash in our time.
Since Rihanna is one the most popular female singer in the world, people already know a lot about her. Her persona or her character would have a great impact on the sales of the product, since all her followers around the world be influenced by her. The purpose of the ad seem to be to sell her products but there is another hidden intention. That would be rising awareness among people that every colored women should feel confident and good about themselves. For instance, Rihanna used a model who’s also well know but also has certain skin tone like the model who has albinism. Albinism is when a person’s skin tone is extremely white. Not a lot of makeup lines make products for that skin tone, but Rihanna did and increased her audience and provided a clear intention of her makeup line.
Where commercials that are selling a product to women focus on beauty or the ease of use using wording like sleek clean lines, soft, makes life easier. This is because men are portrayed as being masculine and being responsible for outdoor chores like lawn maintenance where as women are portrayed as delicate and weak and tend to be in charge of daily in home chores like cooking, and cleaning. While analyzing the genders used in the commercials and what the roles were we found that the women tended to do the shopping and asking the questions about products and the men seemed to be bored and were there to pay the bill and be the one responsible for the assembly of the product purchased. The colors of the products being sold play important role as well. Men seem to be more attracted to darker or bolder colors like black, red, green, and blue where products for women are usually lighter or softer colors like white, or pastels.
In the industry of cosmetology there has been women that have played an important role. Like Sarah Breedlove, who later became known as Madam C.J. Walker was America’s first African American female millionaire. She was born poor and orphaned, but later built her own business of manufacture hair products. A scalp infection lead her to the creation of her products. Like many women she struggled to find the solution to her problem, after she tried thousands of products, soon she started loosing her hair. While sleeping she had a dream of a man advising her of ingredients she needed to mix. She got up the next morning and did as her dream demanded. To her surprise this product had worked, she then begun selling her unique formula (“Beauty”). Who would have thought a women could have became so successful. They say dreams can lead you to great accomplishments and this was the case of Sarah Breedlove. Another example of a successful women is Jane Iredale, founder and president of Iredale Mineral Cosmetics. Jane Iredale introduced the full line of cosmetics, she wanted to create cosmetics that were beneficial to the skin. In order to make her products the best, she collaborated with make up artist, dermatologist, and plastic surgeons in the production (“Beauty”). These two women are great icons of the Beaut...
Horst Rechelbacher founded Aveda in 1978. Aveda started with one product shampoo that Rechelbacher had created in his kitchen sink leading to the development of conditioners and all other products. Aveda is now a successful business with 5000 employees, and has store locations in 33 different countries and 7231 beauty shops. All of Aveda’s products are manufactured in their factory in Minnesota; the Estee Lauder Company now owns Aveda. Estee Launder purchased Aveda in 1997 for $350 million, since then Aveda has doubled their annual sales.
Lets start at the beginning Makeup Art Cosmetics or MAC was created in 1984 by two men, Frank Tosken a seasoned makeup artist and photographer and Frank Angelo a successful business owner of a chain of salons in Toronto. They found that cosmetic products that were readily available were not performing well under the intense environment of studio lights & perspiration, had little color payoff, and were constantly having to be touched up. So, they created cosmetic formulas and colors that met these specific needs. By using them backstage on models and performers news traveled fast about how wonderful these products were. At first MAC was only available to the professional makeup artist. Then by word of mouth news spread to the general population and was maid available to the public and in 1994 was purchased by the Estee Lauder who owns many of the world's favorite cosmetic brands. MAC continues to be a testimonial brand of cosmetics, meaning that there is no paid advertising for MAC to promote their traditional product. They rely solely on testimonials and word of mouth advertisement. However you may find that MAC does advertise only one product and that is Viva Glam Lipstick. This is their charity lipstick and it comes in five different shades.
Based on the information provided in the L’Oreal case, Yue Sai struggled to grow and capture additional sales in the high-end Chinese cosmetics sector. In the past, L’Oreal attempted to position Yue Sai in several different ways which can be viewed as detrimental to the company image, showing uncertainty as the company struggles to see which positioning strategy will stick. The most recent positioning presented in the case, which desires to “deliver Yue Sai’s longstanding brand promise that ‘Nobody knows Chinese skin better than Yue Sai’”, allows the highest probability of success for the company capitalizing on countless fresh trends in Chinese cosmetics (6). The positioning statement would reflect this new strategy: “For the modern Chinese woman Yue Sai offers a line of high-end cosmetics. Unlike other high-end cosmetics Yue Sai combines traditional Chinese medicine and sophisticated technology adapted to the unique skin type of Chinese women.” Yue Sai saw reasonable success and hope in the new Vital Essential line which utilized traditional Chinese medicine and, therefore, resulted in above average repeat purchases. Continuing to focus the strategy around traditional Chinese medicine should benefit Yue Sai considerably. Another suggested strategy would be to wholly reposition Yue Sai, however this is ill advised. As stated in the case, Yue Sai tried numerous different positioning strategies, which ultimately provided no clear path strategy. Repositioning would show uncertainty in the company, lowering brand value in the eyes of the consumer.
MAC (Makeup Art Cosmetics) is originally a Canadian company that has been operating for more than 20 years and it has already penetrate to many countries all around the world, in the North and South America at most. It sells brand cosmetics of high quality that is intended for professional as well as everyday usage. The brand is sought-after also by many celebrities, fashion models, and photographers because of its delicate texture, huge choice of colors, and durability. The products are usually very well tolerated on every skin type and MAC make-up items are also suitable for women with sensitive eyes (MAC, 2007, p. 1). The prices of the MAC cosmetics are comparable with other high quality world brands, i.e. those which cannot be bought in drugstores, but in the specialized cosmetic stores or international perfumeries that the company has a contract with. That hinders the company from further expansion into other countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, because of the limited ways of sale.
In the 1920s, makeup played a vital role especially for women trying to recover from the fears and horrors of the war. After the recession, it lead to an increase of manufacturing new cosmetic products and brands such as Maybelline. As makeup made its debut to the world, stores were opening and slogans such as “try before you buy” just like Gordon Selfridge proclaimed women to get a sense of what products to use along with spreading the word to others if content with the amazing outcome. Face and complexion was considered by most as an important factor for representing beauty of an artificial face. Face powder was very essential because many women wanted to create a light, sandy
In 1984, new CEO Owen-Jones began pushing for L’Oreal to become the largest cosmetics firm in the United States. In order to accomplish this, the company began assessing acquisition opportunities that would broaden L’Oreal brands throughout the U.S. The first tw...
According to the textbook case study, the main reason is due to the market in the United States for cosmetics are very mature, not to mention extremely competitive. Because of this, Avon made the decision to put its emphasis – and resources – in less-competitive markets. (Daniels, 2010)
After studying the cosmetic market we can identify a series of needs in this market:
...t advertisement. For instance, actress Sandra Bullock is the face of “Artistry” beauty products (See figure 1.1). Sponsorship is another way that Amway uses to advertise their products, for example, “Artistry” sponsors Miss America competition every single year and “Nutrilite” sponsors AC Milan football team and football legend Ronaldinho (See figure 1.2 and 1.3). In terms of promotion one of the Amway’s major tasks is to build good public relations. This company is always ready to give full support for charities and campaigns which help poor children, disadvantage people, green environment etc. (See figure 1.4). In 2014 Amway organises to participate in the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon which is the biggest women-only event of its kind in the world. Last year, 30 ABOs from Ireland participated in the event and managed to raise over 2500 euros for Special Olympics.
First of all, Women of color in are considered unfortunate in the eyes of society that give them a weaker image. The color of the skin plays a fundamental in achieving personal goals towards social or professional success. In a society where white skin is a sign of good image of success and attractiveness (Lacey, 2002). they use the products to win the men’s attraction that favor white skin over dark skin in getting. In addition, media contributed to draw a picture of standards beauty by engaging light skin women in its advertising ads (Lacey, 2002).