1 - A Unique way of entering the German Beauty Market                                 

In 2011, we were launching the 2^nd edition of the Innovation Awards to give the opportunity to brands to successfully enter the Germany Beauty Market.

With a sales volume of over €12.6 billion for Cosmetics, Toiletries and Perfumes*, Germany is the biggest national market in Europe, followed by France, the UK and Italy. As such, Germany is a highly attractive market for new brands and can offer a potential huge long-term business success.

While large and attractive, the German beauty market is characterized by highly concentrated powerful retail structures, close (d) networks and decentralized organizations. These factors make it a difficult market to enter. Direct access to the powerful retailers is difficult; the selection process of new brands often takes a long time.

Excellent relationships and senior expert knowledge are prerequisites, which significantly increase the likelihood of successfully entering the market.

* Euromonitor Sales Report 2010

2 - The Beauty Alliance                                                                                                                              

To help beauty brands enter this market successfully, Beyond Beauty signed an exclusive partnership with the Beauty Alliance (http://www.beauty-alliance.de/en/home.html). The Beauty Alliance is the largest German network of independent selective perfumeries comprising 950 powerful stores in Germany owned by 210 retailers. On a European level Beauty Alliance Germany is organized in the Beauty Alliance International with the 3 other partners: Beauty Success in France, Beauty Alliance Suisse and Beauty Alliance Austria. The Beauty Alliance is THE retail network of privately owned perfumeries that will allow innovative and creative brands to emerge successfully and to establish themselves on a long-term, sustainable basis.

Additionally around 50% of the perfumeries are equipped with beauty institutes, which offer skincare brands with beauty rituals the possibility to also be sold through cabin treatments and as such, form the leading group of beauty intitutes in the German Market.

This partnership is enabled and coordinated by Michaela Merk (Merk Vision & Partners), expert consultant in the cosmetics business for the German and French Market.

Objective is to award the most innovative beauty brands with the highest market potential and allow them to enter the portfolio of Beauty Alliance on an exclusive basis by decision of an expert committee. 

3 - Benefits for Winning Brands

We all know how hard it is to access top retailers and get a chance of being invited to present your brand.

This award gives all brands a chance of being evaluated by an expert jury. The most convincing 6 brands will present themselves in front of the jury comprising the top management of the Beauty Alliance, beauty journalists and consultants. 3 brands will have the opportunity to start negotiations directly with the Beauty Alliance top management to potentially expand their brand within this huge retail network of highly professional and profitably run specialist stores with a high level of individual service and advice.

After successful negotiations, you will benefit from special treatment within the Beauty Alliance:

1/ Expert advise on the best launch strategy for your brand

2/ Establishment of the contact with the most suitable distributor or agent for your brand

3/ Privileged advertisement and advertorials in all media support of the Beauty Alliance:

-       Beauty Talk, a consumer magazine with a circulation of 400 000 units

-       Profiline, a magazine destined to over 5000 employees

-       Beauty Alliance website and newsletters

-       etc

Your brand will profit from media coverage in Germany and France throughout the whole selection process. Dedicated journalists and PR experts from Beyond Beauty and Beauty Alliance will accompany the event.

Tailor-made coaching by Merk-Vision

In order to avoid making mistakes and losing time when you enter this huge market, Michaela Merk, expert consultant in the cosmetics industry with particular focus on the German market, will provide an exclusive seminar during the Beyond Beauty Show to all participating brands at the Innovation Awards.

4- Who can participate?

• Your brand should not be distributed in Germany yet

• You are highly motivated to enter the German Market and be distributed within the network of the Beauty Alliance under an exclusive contract.

• Your brand is based on an innovative or attractive concept and differentiates itself from competitors in the market through its packaging, formula, benefits, and quality....

• Also very new brands can participate as long as the concept and the products are finalized.

• All the brands exhibiting at the Beyond Beauty Paris Trade Fair 2011 got a special rate of 790 €

• For non-exhibiting brands at the Beyond Beauty Paris Trade Fair the participation fee was 1900€

• The subscription period was running between April 1st to June 30th 2011

Make sure you do correspond to every criteria otherwise we would not be able to validate your application.

5 - How to participate?                                                                                                                                       

For the edition in 2011, brands had to validate their participation  before the date of June 30^th:

1. For the exhibiting brands, an account of 66% of your booth plus the 790 € of participation fee for the awards

2. For the non-exhibiting brands, the full amount of 1 900 €.

3. Fill in and return the application form you will receive following your inscription

4. Send maximum 5 products of your choice (each product has to be sent twice), to the address that will be communicated after reception of your application form

5. Additional or complementary information about your brand (marketing PR brochures) can also be sent

The participation process for the next Innovation Awards will start in spring 2012.

6 - The selection process

Between July and September a specially-composed jury studied each brand and preselect the 6 most innovative and interesting brands for the German Market.

The top 6 pre-selected brands were announced on September 12th, 2011. They were invited to present themselves in front of the Jury, the day after, on September 13th, 2010.  The Jury was composed of highly influential members of the Beauty Alliance, the German beauty press.

The most convincing brands were chosen by the Beauty Alliance and will start the negotiation to potentially expand their brand within this huge retail network.

Special benefit for all participating brands: a seminar about the German Beauty Market animated by Michaela Merk on Monday12th of September.

 7 - Contact

If you are interested, please contact directly Michaela Merk, Managing Director and founder of Merk Vision at innovationawards@merk-vision.com or by phone at + 33 (0)6 19 11 10 65 or by fax at + 33 (0)1 44 54 00 38

We will be pleased to count you among the participants of the new edition of the Innovation Awards 2012.

Best regards,

              Christian LORENZ                                      Michaela MERK                                                                         David Bondi

General Manager Beauty Alliance                                Managing Director & Founder                                                        CEO ITEC France