Stop, think and act like a consumer

Drug Store News, Dec 9, 1996 by Lisa I. Fried

Category managers have a lot of pressure on them these days. They're expected to manage efficient assortments, keep an eye on other retail classes of trade, maximize growth opportunities, price competitively, strategically plan advertising and promotions and understand and meet consumer needs.

The consumer piece, often the most subjective requires a great deal of input from vendors and a fair amount of skepticism on the part of the category manager. If vendors have done their homework, they can answer a lot of questions about the intended audience and its needs and habits. They should be able to detail clearly why consumers need the product, and what they can expect it to deliver.

When a category manager ultimately decides to add or pass on a new item or line, the expected consumer satisfaction from a product is only one of many important elements they consider. Yet, if customers buy a product and it doesn't thicken their hair, minimize their wrinkles or cover their grey hair, they likely won't buy it again.

No one can be right 100 percent of the time. And a category manager can't possibly try every product, or guarantee its results.

But if for a moment in this harried, complex process, category managers put themselves in the mindset of a consumer, they might improve their chances of success. That point was driven home for me in October when I had the unique opportunity to spend a day at L'Oreal's Hair Care and Hair Color Research and Development center in Clichy, France, one of several R&D centers L'Oreal operates.

This visit was an eye-opening experience for me, and served to remind me how important the R&D process is in understanding and meeting consumer needs.

Far removed from the pressures L'Oreal's sales and marketing executives face, several hundred scientists across the Atlantic devote their attention to the study of human hair. Their work ultimately drives the development of the new products that appear on retail shelves in both the U.S. and in the rest of the world.

Like category managers they are experts, but their subject matter - hair cells, cuticles and melanin - is far more technical in nature. They spend their days studying all shades and types of hair and understanding its growth patterns, vulnerabilities and strengths.

The R&D center in Clichy focuses on understanding consumer hair problems and using advanced technology to develop new, pure and efficacious molecules, polymers, surfactants and hair dyes to address those problems, according to Marie-Christine Auzou, head of L'Oreal's scientific communication.

"It can take years before the research shows up in a new product on the shelf," Auzuou said. "For example, we have been studying the causes of hair loss for years. Now we are attempting to develop a product to prevent it."

For example, a 10-year research project on ceramide, the hair's natural fortifier, resulted in the 1995 launch of the Fortavive line of shampoos and conditioners. The line includes a new molecule called Ceramide-R, which L'Oreal asserts replicates the hair's natural ceramide, and penetrates the hair to fix damaged cuticles. Today researchers are assessing what benefits this new molecule might bring to its U.S. styling products. Ceramide-R is already used in L'Oreal's European styling line called Elseve.

As for hair color, the scientists study all the features women worry about: shine, richness of color and fading. Water and light can wreak havoc on a colored head. And the scientists put all new dyes through a variety of light and water tests to see how well they will hold up.

After watching these tests, I began to understand how L'Oreal can feel confident asserting that a color will cover up to 100 percent of the gray, or last after six to 21 shampoos.

To make such claims, researchers put 10,000 swatches of human hair through a battery of tests each year that mimic real-life situations. For example, to see how well a color holds up to shampooing, swatches of hair are put through a shampooing machine, in which they are dipped up and down in shampoo for several minutes and then rinsed with water. They are then dried in an oven, which simulates blow-drying.

To see how well a color holds up after exposure to UV light, researchers place swatches in a light resistance machine. Two days in the machine simulates one month in sunlight.

For shampoos, conditioner and styling aids, the testing equipment is equally impressive. Machines test the effects that products, brushing and UV light have on the hair's resistance and other properties. A scanning device is used to sweep over a section of treated hair and identify the resulting buildup, breakage and shine. Another device shows the impact a styling aid or conditioner can have on an individual strand of hair. The device measures the point in which individual strands of hair break.

When a new product has performed as it should in the lab, it is sent downstairs to a testing center, staffed by 70 technicians, that is designed to function similarly to a salon. The technicians test products and new formulas on 6,500 men and women who participate in more than 90,000 tests each year.