TORONTO — There aren't too many entrepreneurs at the helm of technology startups who are equally comfortable discussing the finer points of data analytics and the importance of finding the right conditioner depending on whether you have fine or oily hair.
Ray Cao may be one of the few.
As the chief executive and founder of Toronto's Loose Button Inc., Mr. Cao and his team set out with one goal in mind: helping brands connect with and forge deeper relationships with customers.
Loose Button's creation, the Luxe Box, is designed to change the way the health and beauty industries market to potential customers by putting a new twist on the one thing most women find hard to resist — the free sample.
Already the company is garnering support from the upper echelons of the cosmetics and retail industries. The company counts fashion retail icon Harry Rosen among its roster of advisors, as well as former Star Media Group president Jagoda Pike and Raymond O'Kane, national director of Bank of Montreal's retail, automotive and finance division.
In the cosmetics world, health and beauty companies rely on free samples to encourage women to try out the latest products. However, one of the biggest challenges for these brands is to get the right products into the hands of the right customers.
For years, if a brand was looking to market a new moisturizing cream, it would hand out free samples outside Union Station in Toronto, ship them out in the mail or give them away at the cosmetics counters in department stores.
But this method obviously had its flaws. Brands didn't know the right products were making it into the hands of the right customers. Was the new shampoo designed for curly hair reaching women with curly hair? It was also next to impossible to track how many of those free samples encouraged women to buy the new product.
"Their whole sampling program was broken," said Mr. Cao, a University of Waterloo grad.
Enter the Luxe Box. Each month, Loose Button mails out a tiny box containing between three and five deluxe samples of new health and beauty products to its members. Women can register to receive the boxes once a month, at a cost of $12 a month.
The service — which until last week was available by invite only — launched publicly last week in Canada. Mr. Cao said the company hopes to launch in the United States this year.
Members fill out a profile that gives Loose Button information about their hair colour, complexion, skin tone and makeup preferences. Each box is then tailored to meet the profile of the members. Each product comes with a small description, as well as information on where members can purchase full-size items.
While Mr. Cao said brands are lining up to place their products in front of the company's rapidly growing user base — Loose Button charges brands a fee to be featured in the Luxe Box-the demographic information the company is collecting about its members will help the cosmetic industry to more effectively target potential customers as the service expands.
The service is also proving to be a hit with users. A quick YouTube search for "Luxe Box" reveals dozens of videos of women "unboxing" their monthly shipments with the same exuberance as gadget geeks unpacking the latest iPad.
"For brands it's all about targeting and segmenting the right customers to go after," Mr. Cao said.
mhartley@nationalpost.com
No comments:
Post a Comment