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Join Dean DeBiase and Stirling Murray - CEO & Founder at The Red Tree as they discuss the challenges facing the global health, beauty and wellness industries. Red Tree is one of the top action-oriented beauty brand consultancy groups that provides strategic advisement to a mix of large and startup brands, and the group also manages certain brands in specific regions around the world.
On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, industry veteran Stirling Murray, CEO of Red Tree, the UK's leading international brand consultancy, joined me to discuss the challenges facing the global health, beauty and wellness industries.
Deep Roots
Stirling’s roots are deep in the beauty industry, having worked for copious companies, including Unilever, Estee Lauder, and Chanel globally. Red Tree is one of the top action-oriented consultancy groups that provides strategic advisement to a mix of large and startup brands, and the group also manages certain brands in specific regions around the world. He calls it “country managers” managing brands internationally, a new gig-economy type service that I think most startups and many large companies, across sectors will be considering in the 20's.
“This crisis has taught us - if we didn’t know this before - that we have no control over most of what happens. Yet the things we can control - our reaction to events - need to step up big time.” - SM
Pandemic Pivot
Since the beginning of the pandemic, retailers and brands have had to maneuver in the “new world” of the beauty industry. A lot has changed, from the shift online to store closings, making it essential to engage with consumers now and overcome adversity actively. Stirling mentions UK retailer, SPACE NK with 73 store locations. They had to close down all of their stores, but haven’t let the pandemic stop them. They started an e-commerce site to entice consumers while at home and emerged stronger. These are the types of rebooted companies that will succeed and more need to follow in their footsteps or they may disappear.
2021 Trends
Stirling has written articles addressing post-COVID trends that will significantly impact the industry and how retailers must reboot enjoyable shopping experiences. Some key points he thinks are important are transparency, ethical beauty, CBD, and anti-pollution. Although COVID has been detrimental to some categories, like cosmetics and luxury, they too are highly resilient and have abundant white space opportunities for growth, both for the indie-startups and established brands.
Everything has changed and to achieve success, so you must think differently, adapt, and overcome digital noise and the ever-changing industry, trade aggressively digitally, and out-reach (not just reach out) to your consumer base. The brands that do this will be the ones to succeed while the rest will fall behind. “This crisis has taught us - if we didn’t know this before - that we have no control over most of what happens. Yet the things we can control - our reaction to events - need to step up big time.” - Stirling Murray
Listen in for some great insights, watch it here https://youtu.be/F1PR0a1XmjA or tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
About The Reboot Chronicles Podcast: Hosted by Dean DeBiase, The Reboot Chronicles is a popular no-holds-barred podcast on iHeart Radio, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and YouTube that has been bringing together CEOs, entrepreneurs, authors, and global leaders, for over a decade, to discuss how organizations are rebooting their leadership-competitiveness of everything from growth, innovation, and technology to talent, culture, and governance. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://www.revieve.com/rebootchronicles
Named a “Growth Guru” by Inc. Magazine, Dean DeBiase is a Faculty Member at Kellogg School of Management and Silicon Valley serial CEO, where he has served in chief executive and chairman roles of more than a dozen emerging growth companies, CEO of Fortune 500 subsidiaries, and a director on public, private, family-enterprise, CVC, PE and VC boards. He is a Technology Fellow at Northwestern University, a Board Leadership Fellow at The National Association of Corporate Directors, and an Advisor to the National Science Foundation. A Forbes Contributor and co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo, Dean, is working on his next book, Dancing with Startups. Connect with Dean here: www.linkedin.com/in/FollowDean
