Shedding Its Old Image, Avon Calls on Teens
Sixteen-year-old Nicolle Hudson and her friends love Avon makeup. At school, they look over the brochures, picking out lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, which is just in their price range, about $4 to $8 each. Hudson, of Waldorf, Md., even finds her favorite perfume, Millennia, through Avon.
“When I was little, I always thought it was something for old women and stuff,” Hudson said of Avon products, which her mother sells. “Now the books are focused on teenagers and younger women. Their fragrances, they don’t smell like something my 70-year-old grandma would wear.”
Avon Products Inc. has certainly been trying to shed the vestiges of its 1950s “Ding-dong, Avon calling” image, trying to make itself look younger by featuring younger women in its ads and going beyond ceramic knickknacks in its gift selection. But last month the company announced a more extreme rejuvenation plan: to develop, by 2003, cosmetics, skin-care products and possibly jewelry for teenage girls.
And not only that: Avon thinks it can persuade young girls to sell the makeup and fragrances to one another, like Little Avon Ladies.
Acknowledging that Avon has little experience with the younger crowd, Joseph Faranda, group vice president of strategy and new business, said, nonetheless, “We know when you talk to teens and ask them who they like to buy from, it’s their friends. Word of mouth is extremely important.” He added: “We think we can offer them an earnings opportunity that is more flexible.”
Heading the newly created teen business division will be former Glamour magazine publisher Deborah I. Fine.
Avon’s news didn’t surprise Michael Wood, vice president of Teenage Research Unlimited, a Northbrook, Ill., market research firm that studies teen habits. Businesses cannot afford to ignore the “echo boom,” the teenage children of the baby boomers, he said. By 2010, the teenage population will reach nearly 35 million, surpassing the baby boom generation at its peak of 33 million. That gives echo boomers enormous buying power.
