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Hey Reader,

I know... no email from me for weeks and now, two within 2 weeks. There's a reason, I promise! If you are a new subscriber and would like to read the first four emails, you can do so by clicking here. Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about our newest brands, as well as our new division...

That's a dramatic subject line 😲

Yes, it probably is. But it's true. Let me explain. Around this time last year, I rolled our Beauty and Haircare divisions together and called them, simply, Professional. I did this primarily because the smaller beauty division didn’t have the usual marketing, digital and PR support that haircare did. The customer base is loosely the same (they are all salons) so the move made sense. That reduced our group division structure to three: Professional, Retail and Direct to Consumer.

But, it wasn't to stay that way for long.

Around the same time, I met Colm Mackin and Helen Reavey of a new brand called Act + Acre. Helen’s story was incredible. Helen started her career at Peter Mark in Dundrum and after a move to the USA several years ago, trained to become a board certified Trichologist. Helen & Colm created and patented the Cold Processed technique to formulate their plant-based products. This avoids the traditional heat-based production, which can lessen the potency of nutrients in seed oils.

I loved the brand but on learning that they wanted to exist as an omnichannel brand (in both salon and premium retail), I struggled to fit it into our existing sales structure where I had one team on professional and another on retail. I had a conversation with a distributor friend who manages Olaplex in a European country about this issue and he advised from experience, that having two people call the shots of where a brand goes is never a good idea. So, this got me thinking…

Enter... Bumble and Bumble 🐝

It wasn’t long after Christmas when the phone rang.

It was The Estée Lauder Company. They were very happy with how we have managed and grown the AVEDA brand and subsequently, asked me to take over the management and distribution for Bumble & Bumble for them. This presented a very interesting opportunity, but I had a problem...

Bumble & Bumble already sits in both Professional and Retail. Just like with Act + Acre, I considered splitting the responsibility between Professional and Retail but, felt that the same problem would crop up. So, we took our time in contemplating if adding Bumble & Bumble was the right move. Not so much down to the brand (it really is a phenomenal range with an incredible story and history) but more around, could I deliver for Estée Lauder like we had before... and I felt to do this, I would need to make a change.

Finally landing one of my dream brands 🧪

I covered in it a previous email (here) but Living Proof was a long term want for me. I've always loved the brand, the look & the story and I watched on jealously as friends of mine distributed it in other markets. I finally asked one of them to do an introduction to the brand (after failing to go directly myself) and eventually, we had a break-trough! I put together a very compelling proposal of how we would manage and grow the brand in Ireland and they accepted.

As Living Proof is also omni-channel, I developed a plan. If I bundled these together, I could create a new team including sales, marketing, brand and PR, all managing these three great brands. Finally, my strategy started to make sense. All I needed was the person to head it up.

I eventually found Mary Kelly (well known to anyone that purchases premium hair care in Ireland) and convinced her of the strategy. You can follow Mary on Instagram here. Mary has become the Head of Sales & Education for the new Prestige division and we are working together on building both the team and the marketplace for the three brands in question. Mary reports directly to me, just like Dee Sheehy, the Head of Sales & Education in Professional so, the management structure remains flat.

All 3 brands (especially Act + Acre) have been super patient with me as I've gone through this journey and I'm very grateful for that. It makes me doubly motivated to get this to work for them. As for the name – the name Prestige was something that came to me one night. I was about to call it omnichannel but there was something entirely unsexy about that. I think Prestige speaks to both the quality of brand and retailer that we wish to partner with… and it sounds dead cool.

I hope you found this interesting. I'm going to be staying super close to this division in the coming months as it grows and takes shape. As always, I will be sharing our progress on my Instagram. There are three fabulous PR and Press events planned for October which I'm looking forward to talking more about.

Independence for KEVIN.MURPHY & Ireland 🇮🇪

In a final bit of news, you might have seen on LinkedIn here that National Beauty Distribution is now the official distributor in Ireland for KEVIN.MURPHY. I know, you probably thought that happened in 2015. Well, not quite. It wouldn't have been obvious from the outside, but NBD has always technically been a sub-distributor of the UK. This was a consequence of the initial company I entered into a relationship with being the "UK & Ireland" distributor.

Over the years and through repeated demonstrations of our loyalty and hard work to the brand, we have built a strong relationship with The KEVIN.MURPHY Group. The time came to eventually break away from dealing through the UK and I am very thankful to Peter, Lars, Vincent and the whole team in KM Copenhagen for believing in us and making the transition a possibility.

I love feedback on these so, just hit reply and tell me what’s interesting and what’s not.

take care,

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