Adore Beauty is an online beauty retailer in Australia that has carved out a unique niche in the market.
Founded by Kate Morris, the company set out to challenge the traditional beauty retail landscape, which was dominated by large department stores and intimidating beauty counters.
SEE ALSO: Ingredients over brands: APAC consumers willing to pay up for science-backed beauty
At the heart of Adore Beauty’s success is a customer-centric approach that puts the power back in the hands of the consumer. By removing the barriers and providing an inclusive, relatable, and authentic shopping experience, the brand has built a loyal following of beauty enthusiasts.
According to Adore Beauty’s head of retail marketing, Gerard Richardson, the company’s competitive edge lies in its unwavering commitment to its brand proposition and customer needs. “Our brand is built on relatability and authenticity, and we stand firmly behind this,” he explains.
Retail in Asia speaks with Richardson ahead of his appearance at eTail Connect in Australia.
RiA: Can you tell us about your background and your priorities as head of retail marketing at Adore Beauty?
Gerard Richardson: Reflecting on my 15 year career, it has spanned a few different retail formats in a relatively short space of time. Starting on the shop floor, moving through travel retail, omni, small business, salon pro and now pure play, it’s provided a truly cross functional experience. Each has provided a different practical application of those well studied marketing principles but more importantly, a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour and how vastly different it really can be across the retail industry. One thing is for sure, I am a retail fanatic who couldn’t see myself in any other industry.
For the last seven years, I have been in the wonderful world of beauty – a very special industry for its people, R&D and consumer centric mindset. Joining Adore Beauty three years ago, I not only moved countries (New Zealand to Australia), but I also moved into a world I only touched in previous roles; that of digital pure play where data really is king.
As head of retail marketing, I am responsible for trade, retail media and campaign strategy, working closely with our 280-plus brand partners. A very commercially centred role, driving trade for the business is at the heart of what I do.
Partnering with our brand partners, my team and I bring to life individual brand strategies and create a unique campaign calendar that delivers over 200 campaigns a year, to ultimately hit those all important, key revenue targets.
In addition, but by no means less important, driving growth for retail media at Adore, falls within my remit. As the world of cookies departs, first party data remains critical to the success of our brand partners with Adore’s iconic brand providing an added advantage. Creating and driving the strategy to deliver growth in this space is a truly exciting part of my role.
RiA: Adore Beauty is one of Australia’s leading online beauty retailers – what are some of the keys to this success when it comes to building loyalty and attracting customers to the platform?
Richardson: Adore Beauty set out to change the beauty landscape. Not content with large department stores and their intimidating counters, our founder Kate Morris, wanted something different for Australia (and now New Zealand).
Removing those barriers and putting choice back in the hands of the customer has always remained at the core of all that we do. This mentality and customer centricity has never changed at Adore. Of course, it’s natural to talk about delivering a best in class experience, strong loyalty programme and the mountains of data we have. But those are easily replicable. The Adore competitive edge remains those key marketing pillars: unique and clear brand proposition that puts the customer at the heart, delivering on their needs.
Our brand is built on relatability and authenticity, and standing firmly behind this – we are your beauty best friend.
Importantly, we are the real deal, not what social media now tells us authenticity is. It comes across in all that we do, most visibly of course in our content. You’ll always see the Adore Beauty team reporting on what they love and often, maybe what wasn’t quite right for them. It’s a different type of social selling where genuine opinion is the currency. Customers want to come to Adore for more than just buying products, but to research like they might Google. They want our advice and we’re more than happy to be there for them.
Aside from brand, we offer exceptional value to our customers. Whether that be through extremely fast shipping, the vast range and selection of brands or the goodie bags and plethora of offers always available; we give our customers more than just a product in a box (plus, don’t forget the free TimTam!). This is important for those customers who want more bang for their buck, or even more dollars in their back pocket. We keep moving with our customers, providing exceptional value and choice.
SEE ALSO: Shiseido reveals new CEO Kentaro Fujiwara will start in 2025
RiA: How is Adore Beauty maximising retail media opportunities?
Richardson: Retail Media is still relatively new at Adore, only about three years old. What started as promoting a blog on Meta once a month, continues to grow as a key opportunity for our almost 300 brand partners to connect with our audience.
While the generally accepted reason for offering retail media is to give external parties access to their market audience we recognised early on that our unique tone of voice adds additional value and reasons to invest. We’re rapidly expanding our channels. Moving from just blog and social channels, we’re leveraging content across out-of-home, print, activations, podcasts and more. We’re still in our infancy and have a huge runway ahead, centred on our unique tone of voice.
RiA: What is your outlook for retail media in the coming years? Any trends or opportunities that you are watching out for?
Richardson: Incredibly positive. We’re striving for meaningful growth that is valuable for our partners and our business as we start to untap this new area. We’re working closely with our partners to develop a programme that delivers on their needs as well as ours. This is a key step with brands becoming more and more interested in retail media as other mainstream advertising and marketing media costs and efficacy vary. Changes in privacy and cookies are going to make any retailer’s audience and customer attention more important and valuable than ever before.
As a multi-brand retailer, our partners know we have over 800k active customers and many more visitors to site ready to learn about and shop their brand.
SEE ALSO: Roger Salhab outlines Garnier’s strategy to cater to the sophisticated Asian beauty consumer
RiA: Can you share what the audience can expect to hear from you at eTail Connect Australia and what excites you about this event?
Richardson: I am incredibly excited to be speaking at eTail Connect. I will be on a panel speaking to retail media, emphasising how Adore remains true to its brand identity with some great examples. I will also share some stories about times when customers have challenged our authenticity and how we’ve needed to adapt to ensure we remain true to our core brand values. There will also be discussion on the current economic climate and how the customer is responding – a topic I love talking about.
