M Professional makeup: cosmetics attitude in effect

Drug Store News, August 5, 1996 by Liz Parks

OK, like it's really important to get teens to shop your cosmetics department, right?

But you're so clueless, right, trying to figure out how to do it?

Well, like hello ... Maybe, you don't have to figure it out. Like, maybe the operative word is not teens. Maybe the target is not a teen demographic, but youth, a youth demographic. Ya know?

Like those semantic distinctions make a difference, OK. Like, you know, teens is a small segment and a wicked-fickle segment, and youth, is like what, a state of mind or something. So if you shoot for youth mentality, you could wind up with customers of all ages, like even grandmas today do aerobics and wear brown lipstick, ya know. You see what I'm saying.

No, of course you don't. But let me start again. There is a new makeup out on the market, just gaining distribution now in some major chains, that seems to be doing what every chain drug cosmetic category manager in the world says she or he is trying to do: getting young people to buy their makeups in their local drug stores.

What is that makeup? It's a hot new line called M Professional, and it's blowing out the doors of chains such as Longs Drug and about to go into a limited 700-store distribution launch at Walgreens.

What makes it different? Well I could say the packaging, the shades, the quality for the price, but I think it's more than that. I think this is the first mass market cosmetic line with "attitude." I mean, I think if Bruce Willis were a girl, he might wear M lipstick and M nail enamel. When Robin Williams goes into drag, he probably is wearing this makeup.

Who makes it? A company called Professional Makeup whose headquarters is in Malibu, Calif., and owned by a partnership team that includes musicians, some of the creatives from an agency that deals with stars such as Arnold Schwartzenager and Madonna, and a makeup artist who counts among her clients Estee Lauder model Paulina Porizkova, Baywatch's Pamela Anderson, actress Rachel Hunter, and like you couldn't guess this, Madonna,

The chief executive of Professional Makeup is David MacEachern, a partner in MKI, an advertising/public relations agency also based in Malibu.

"Fashion is geared to youthfulness," he said. "That's partly how we came up with the brand name M. M stands for movies, models, makeup, MTV. It stands for magazines, Madonna, Malibu and for Michelle [the makeup artist Michele van der Hule]."

Michelle created the M line, and she is featured in many of the ads, photographed working on her famous clients and talking about makeup tips.

The ads themselves are fun. In one print ad, the camera zeros in for a black white close-up of a model's provocative eyes and lips. The only references to the product in the Big Red M on a black background, and directly under that a vertical profile of a lipstick and the tag line: "not tested on animals unless you count men..."

MacEachern credits former Walgreens cosmetic buyer Barbara Williams with creating that line and giving his company permission to use it.

Professional Makeup was started up 18 months ago. Product is currently chainwide in all Fred Meyer stores, averaging three unit sales per day per store out of 36 linear inches. Sales per linear foot so far are over $1,300. In some Longs stores in Hawaii, M is generating wholesale sales of over $1,000 a week.

However MacEachern--as well as some chain drug store buyers-cautions that the line may not be appropriate for all stores. It does not sell as fast in stores with mostly older customers, and in some markets in the Midwest. sales have been much less dramatic.

But in addition to Walgreens, Shoppers Drug Mart has taken the line for 770 of its stores. Brooks is taking it for 150 doors. H.E. Butt will soon have it in all stores. Thrifty PayLess will test it in 35 stores.

A major mass merchandise chain is testing the M power wing in selected stores. Two of the test stores sold out in four weeks and immediately expanded their space allocations from a power wing to a 72 by 48 inch in-line set.

Longs gives the line two feet in about 90 stores with some stores giving it as much as four feet.

It doesn't hurt that M is allied with the Reprise Record division of Warner Brothers. All its products come packaged in a plastic case that looks remarkably like a CD.

This summer, M is sponsoring 20 free music concerts in conjunction with Warner Bros. records. In public appearances, M is also allying itself with the drive to Stop Violence Against Women and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.