Little makeover necessary among top 10 - cosmetics sales at discount stores - Top Brands, Part 1: Store Manager Survey

Discount Store News, Oct 16, 1989

Little Makeover Necessary Among Top 10

For the sixth straight year Maybelline, Cover Girl, Revlon and Max Factor were the top four cosmetic brands at discount stores, according to results of DSN's 1989 Top Brands Survey.

And the four just keep getting bigger.

Maybelline, Cover Girl and Revlon garnered more mentions this year as top performers than they did a year ago, increasing their influence and dominance in the category.

Max Factor, which recorded a one percentage point slip this year, split its influence with Maxell, its parent company.

Maxell was named as a top performing brand with enough mentions to make it No. 7 on the list in a three-way tie with Clairol and Noxell, maker of Noxema.

If Max Factor and Maxell are added together, the cosmetics company would have increased its hold on the No. 4 spot on the Top Brands list. But it would have remained in the fourth slot, still far behind No. 3 Revlon.

Seven of last year's top 10 labels returned to the Top Brands list this year.

The labels not returning to the top 10 are: Almay, down two spots this year to 12th; Sally Hansen, down two places to 11th; Hazel Bishop, which tied Almay for 10th last year but now at 15th; and Aziza, tied with Clairol in 1988 for the No. 7 spot slipped to 13th on the current survey.

New to the list this year are Clarion, in sixth; Maxell, in the three-way tie for seventh; and Coty in 10th.

L'Oreal, last year's sixth place finisher on the top 10 brands list in cosmetics, rose to fifth on the current survey but with the same number of mentions.

Overall, the top four brands advanced, or strengthened their hold on their respective positions, at the expense of other highly-recognizable cosmetic labels.

Maybelline, with a firm hold on the No. 1 spot on the chart, was mentioned as a top performing brand by three-quarters of the managers surveyed. It increased its position among conventional and upscale discounters, in three of the four regions and three of the four discount chains.

So strong is Maybelline that nearly nine of 10 store managers at K mart and Ames/Zayre mentioned the label as a top performing brand.

For both discounters, Cover Girl was second and Revlon, third.

Maybelline's biggest increase this year was recorded in the Northeast where it advanced 15 percentage points from last year, 25 percentage points ahead of second place Cover Girl.

In the one region where Maybelline did not advance its position, the North Central, it held even with its results from the prior year's survey.

The only decline in dominance recorded by Maybelline was at Wal-Mart. Store managers there said Maybelline was a top performing cosmetic brand slightly less often than they did a year ago but still got three-quarters of all mentions.

Despite all of the increases, Target store managers named Revlon as their top performing brand by three percentage points over Maybelline.

Two-thirds of Target store managers named Revlon as their top performing cosmetics brand, followed closely by Maybelline and Cover Girl in third.

Cover Girl, No. 2 overall, enhanced its standing everywhere but at upscale discounters, in the West and at Wal-Mart and Target.

Wal-Mart buyers named Cover Girl as a top performing brand four out of 10 times, a little less than a year ago. Cover Girl maintains its No. 2 position at Wal-Mart and was closely followed by Revlon, which increased its position at the Bentonville, Ark.-based chain.

Revlon was in third and L'Oreal in fourth.

Target store managers were less enthused with Cover Girl. Four out of 10 managers of the Minneapolis-based upscale discounter named Cover Girl as a top performing cosmetics brand, down from six of 10 a year ago.

Cover Girl's most dramatic increase was recorded at K mart and by retailers in the North Central.

Six out of 10 discounters in the North Central named Cover Girl a top performer this year, up from four out of 10 last year. In the Northeast, Cover Girl gained 10 percentage points from the 1988 survey.

Third place Revlon recorded a modest increase over last year among all discounters, but more sizeable gains among discounters in the Midwest and at K mart and Target.

Target managers gave Revlon its biggest advantage but the scales were balanced by a small decline at upscale discounters and a more substantial one in the Northeast region.

Revlon was the No. 1 cosmetics brand at Target followed by Maybelline - which tied with Cover Girl for the one-two spots in 1988 - and Cover Girl in third.

Max Factor's hold on the No. 4 position was a product of small advances and setbacks. Advances were recorded among conventional discounters, in the Northeast and at K mart, Wal-Mart and Target.

Max Factor recorded setbacks by upscale discounters, in the South and at Ames/Zayre.

L'Oreal, No. 5 on the top brands list in cosmetics, lost ground everywhere but in the West and at Wal-Mart.

In fact, it appears that Wal-Mart is the biggest supporter of L'Oreal products.

More than one-quarter of all Wal-Mart managers surveyed named L'Oreal as a top performing brand. In contrast, few K mart or Target managers named L'Oreal as a top performer and no Ames-Zayre managers did.