K&B's first ethnic promotions tie into history, B-T-S

Drug Store News, Sept 7, 1992

At K&B, ethnic hair care buyer Chuck Gautreaux has launched the chain's first fully-coordinated promotions for African-American hair care products.

This year, Gautreaux has done two major promotions for ethnic. The first: a month-long event that broke during Black History Month; the second: another month-long event that broke for Back To School. In both cases, the chain put together a promotion involving approximately 15 brands.

All the brands were featured in a full page of the K&B's chainwide circular, and stores tied into the promotion by building endcaps and off-shelf displays that remained up for a month.

K&B supported the promotion with a variety of in-store events in which the chain and participating vendors gave away coupons, rebates and free samples.

"It's the first time we've put together a shared format promotion involving several vendors and combined it with in-store events and coordinated advertising," said Gautreaux.

"We felt that we hadn't promoted to the degree we should with this category, and we wanted to feature more brands at special prices. You need these added values to bring the customers into your store."

K&B has ethnic sets in about 65 percent of their stores, averaging between 8 and 12 feet for the department. K&B warehouses all its ethnic hair care except for two lines that they buy through a distributor. Its best selling line right now is Luster with the S Curl Kits and Pink Oil Moisturizer.

Other hot items are the Ampro styling products and Optimum Care. Baby Love is doing very well in K&B stores.

In some stores, the chain cross merchandises Baby Love in both the baby and ethnic departments, but Gautreaux says it sells best in ethnic hair care.