Iconic family leading brand, Clarins is an internationally known luxury skin care, cosmetics, and perfume company. Their heritage combines an entrepreneurial spirit, agility, and curiosity. The company values the contribution of their talented employees all around the world, and anticipates the long-term impact of their decisions to promote responsible beauty. This awareness of the environmental and health issues that have made the reputation of the brand, has attracted sensitive young generations involved in these questions.
Nicolas Prieur joined the company in 2008 and is today the General Manager of the affiliate in Switzerland. Today, with his remarkable taste for entrepreneurship, he manages the number one brand in Switzerland and at the same time commits to take care of their people: employees and customers.
Vendom.jobs - What is the organisation between Clarins Swiss affiliate and the French head office?
Nicolas Prieur - Clarins is a family business created in the 1950s by a visionary man, Jacques Courtin Clarins, who passed on his company to his two sons. Today, the third generation is also on board.
The spirit of the company in its organization and operation remains based on transmission, a taste for entrepreneurship and a concern for strong proximity and permanent exchange between the headquarter and the local entities.
The international development of the brand has been achieved year after year by women and men placed at the head of each of the group's 23 subsidiaries, in a pure spirit of autonomous entrepreneurship and management as close as possible to consumers and territories. Jacques Courtin used to say to his General Managers: "Manage your subsidiary as if it were your own business, with the same autonomy and proximity to the customer".
The Clarins organization between the head office and the subsidiaries is still anchored in the same spirit today: Paris defines the orientations, the course, the brand vision, but each General Manager and his team have great latitude to deploy and develop the brand locally thanks to a constant dialogue with the headquarter in an agile mode.
V.J. - Could you tell us about your main markets?
N. P. - Clarins has been and remains the leader brand in prestige skincare in Europe since the 1980s. We are the Number one brand in many European countries such as France, UK, Spain, Germany, Russia and Switzerland.
We have just taken the leading position in Canada, Sweden last year and we are in the top 3 leading brands in most of the other countries.
Proof that we continue to recruit new consumers all ages thanks to our strength of permanent innovation and unique DNA.
Being a leading French brand is also a major asset in the conquest of new territories for us, such as Asian countries and China in particular. We started this conquest later than our main European / American competitors, but with much stronger growth levels today: China has become our largest market in 2019.
And we want to continue our success story everywhere … Our ambition for 2025: Become the number 1 Skincare brand authority worldwide!
V.J. - How would you describe the Clarins users community? What is its profil?
N. P. - I am often asked this question and each time I answer the same thing. We don't have specific profiles of our consumers. Because listening to Women is at the center of our culture, Clarins has a very wide range of consumers in terms of age or socio-cultural profiles.
As a skincare expert, we offer them a very wide range of solutions for the skin and we can therefore respond to a maximum of needs expressed by women of all ages and lifestyles.
Our ambition to make women's lives more beautiful daily takes on its full meaning here.
V.J. - Have you noticed modifications regarding the consumption of your customers? How di you manage to maintain a connection with them during the past year?
N. P. - I would say yes and no at the same time.
Every generation has new buying behavior. The newest generation is used to live its experience online: finding out about trends, researching ingredients, seeing if the company acts for the environment, checking product ratings and forums. Finally, looking for the best deals either online or in-store.
Older generations are getting more and more used to digital content, but still prefer to have a personal advice from our Beauty Coaches in-store.
What remains common to all our consumers today, whatever the generation, is that they want us to pursue our commitments as a socially responsible company, respectful of the environment and committed to others. Which is fully shared by us since we have been one of the first company to be fully engaged in CSR development.
One thing remains key: always listening to our consumers needs which has characterized our know-how and is one of our brand values since the beginning. That is the reason why we have a very high level of loyal consumers and a wide range of consumers profiles.
V.J. - Clarins is well known for its use natural products. Could you tell us about your current projects regarding sustainability, ethics, etc.?
N. P. - As I underlined, a love for nature has been one of the key driving forces behind our way of doing and being since 1954. Clarins has always been a human company, naturally responsible and engaged. Everything is about transmission and long-term vision since years. That’s why we are all fully committed in taking care of our environment and people.
Today, facing truth to these guiding principles, we want to infuse our « raison d’être » to all our CSR policy with an extended double promise: « Caring for people and Caring for the planet ».
Beyond the convictions and actions, Clarins commits to do more. Our group has established a clear roadmap that sets up a series of quantitative, time-based commitments for each of the pillars associated with its two above (CSR).
I can share with you some of our ambitions to achieve within the next years:
- Have 100% of our skin care products packaging recyclable by 2025
- Strengthen our support to programs helping protection of nature and of biodiversity. (Plastic Odyssey, Reforestation and Agroecology)
- Re-enforce our sustainable sourcing charter and develop fair trade programs where we outsource the production of ingredients (almost 11 today and 7 more this year to come) …
Today, CSR is not a separate topic it takes place in our daily activities because we sincerely believe in a bigger role for the industry of beauty: the beauty of the human body, the personal beauty, the beauty of relationships and of the planet, it’s all part of the human adventure. Our mission: « make life more beautiful, passing on a more beautiful planet. »
V.J. - How is the Clarins philosophy expressed within luxury hotels? Could you tell us about your Spa offers?
N. P. - Clarins brand was born in 1954 in Rue Tronchet in Paris when Jacques Courtin Clarins created the first Beauty Salon. With over sixty years of expertise in the Art of touch, our philosophy is and remains to bring to life a magical treatment moment to everyone. Beyond the treatment, each experience in our Boutiques & Skin Spas or Hotel Spas is a moment of listening, a close relationship between a beauty expert and her client, in a privileged bond of trust and intimacy.
Over the years, we have developed long-term partnerships with prestigious hotels that share our values: to provide guests with an unforgettable moment of personalized well-being in an exceptional, timeless environment. Our ambition is to commit ourselves to business partners for a long-term relationship by building this unique experience together and sharing the same vision.
We work close with our partners to train their Beauty Experts in the excellence of the Clarins touch and listen to their needs for ultra-personalized treatments. In addition, unique services, a nutritional and holistic approach to beauty in hotels located in places of escape.
In the past we also had the occasion to create an exceptional premium Spa MY BLEND in some of the best Palaces in the World. This new My Blend brand was created by Doctor Olivier Courtin Clarins and allows ultra-personalization services with more than 400 possible combinations of concentrated active ingredients thanks to a personal skin diagnosis. All the know-how of the Clarins touch has been included in the treatments as well as the development of this new brand.
V.J. - What could be the next steps of the development of such an iconic brand?
N. P. - I would say that there are no limits to the development of a brand like Clarins in the years to come. Despite the turbulence linked to COVID worldwide, our owners, including the third generation that has just joined the board, ensure that the company has a stable medium-term perspective, which is a major asset.
We have a strong ambition to become the number one skincare brand in the world within 5 years, but also to strengthen our position as a reference in the world of wellness.
How? by betting on our strengths which are our differences, by winning more new customers in Asia, by strengthening our leadership in Europe, by being a pioneer in new consumer trends and by focusing on proximity and on the relevance of our offers locally.
And of course, to keep the entrepreneurial mindset locally, the permanent dialogue between the local teams and the head office, this is the secret of Clarins’ success.
Above all, we continue to listen, listen, listen to women to make their lives more beautiful every day. It is a beautiful mission from the heart that fills us fully for the future with the ambition to respect our planet, for a more responsible beauty.
That's what keeps driving me personally when I join my team every morning.
(Photo credit: Clarins)
