The British Beauty Council is dedicated to ensuring our community is armed with the knowledge and resources it needs to develop our industry overseas. As the Government pivots its focus on growth and we all continue to feel the repercussions of Brexit, ensuring you know how to trade correctly is key.

With that in mind, we collaborated with BeautyMatter – a US-based beauty intelligence platform – on an afternoon summit focused on breaking the US market, understanding the American consumer and how selling across the pond is markedly different to here in the UK.

Are you a business owner interested in expansion, or, do you simply want to know more about US trends and opportunities?  Here’s a run-down of the event:

Understanding the US Market

The BeautyMatter team took to the stage to open the event with an insightful exploration of the US customer. Not only did the presentation uncover key tools for appealing to the American consumer, it also covered key strategies for tackling competitors and adhering to trends in the audience’s potential new customer pool.

John Cafarelli, COO of BeautyMatter, said: ‘The US market has become channel agnostic, this means that whatever was left in the old distribution playbook has been thrown out of the window.’ He then went on to cite an old distribution framework that forced brands to launch at department stores and premium retailers before moving down the distribution pyramid to mass opportunities.

Cafarelli continues: ‘These rules that used to dictate the way you distributed are no longer valid… now you need to signal and build your brand independent of distribution with retail no longer offering the brand building leverage it once did.’

The new American Market Place

In a series of 15-minute fireside chats CEO of BeautyMatter Kelly Kovack picked the brains of business owners with newly expanded brands. Kovack spoke to Ju Rhyu, Co-Founder & CEO of Hero Cosmetics, Brandon Pemberton from Market Defense and Sally-Anne Limb and Head of Insights at Spring Studios. The one-on-one interviews covered the varying challenges, unique opportunities and learnings that each of the business leaders have learnt from expanding – and existing – in the US.

Breaking Through the Noise

After sitting in the fireside hot-seat, Sally-Anne Limb presented her unique insights into branding across the pond. Having worked on marketing campaigns which have British beauty leaders in the US market, she was uniquely placed to explore the expectations of the new market.

From this, Spring Studios compiled an exclusive report ‘Breaking through the Noise’ which details five key principles & insights that Brit beauty brands should keep in mind when developing an overseas strategy.

Interested in trading overseas? Check out the British Beauty Council Trade Hub.