Cult favourite: st tropez
Michelle Feeney is the new chief executive of self-tanning brand, St Tropez - a business making £17 million a year at retail in the UK. Sasha Lill reports
Appointed to raise global awareness of
She worked with Lynne Franks in the 80s - the Saatchi and Saatchi of PR of the time - where she built and headed up the beauty accounts, before moving to New York to run her own PR firm.
Here, she helped evolve cult hairdressers Bumble and bumble, and launched the salon's product range, before joining Estée Lauder in 1994 where she spent 11 years, handling Prescriptives, Aramis and Crème de la Mer, and rising to the rank of vice-president global communications for MAC Cosmetics.
After marrying and moving back to the UK, she continued to work with MAC in London, setting up a European operation, before taking a year out to consult (but still with Estée Lauder), when her daughter was born.
In a way, the St Tropez brand chose her. The first time she was approached by LCD (the private equity company that bought the brand) to run St Tropez she declined, wanting to chill out and get her feet back on the ground. But when LCD came back a year later, it was an offer she couldn't refuse.
cult brands
"My strength is that I am a cult brander," she explains. "If you look at Bumble and bumble, MAC and Crème de la Mer, it's all cult branding. It is a particular skill-set.
"St Tropez is another cult brand - and that's what excited me about the job.
"The brand has that 'I love it' factor - but needs to get to the next level. It has an amazing logo and a following in three different distribution channels - salons, high-end department stores, and Boots - which is unusual for beauty brands.
"St Tropez is a cool brand, and the fashion brand of sunless tanning. We are also the market leader. This means we also have to act like the market leader and not follow others but invent products that mean we are first to market, supporting the business that has been created.
"Companies can come out with products, but you can't buy 10 years of professional heritage overnight, which St Tropez has. It has all the elements there to make it a bigger global brand."
Michelle plans to extend the cult branding - and that means being part of popular culture.
"We spray-tanned people at the Grammys and the Brit Awards, and are involved with a surfing competition in Newquay, Cornwall. The idea is to be fashionably tanned, because it is fashionable not to have a suntan," she explains.
being the best
"On the professional side, it is up to us to provide key products specifically for salons. I know the potential of great word-of-mouth and of amazing service - and this is where the professional industry comes into play.
"First, we have unique spray-tanning equipment - the best on the market - and that's one interface with professionals. The other is our retail products. The range has recently been extended with Tan Intensifier and Rapide Face."
Michelle feels that, in the past, the way St Tropez has done business with professionals hasn't necessarily been as strong as it could be - and it's the company's responsibility to engage salons to be business partners, as other professional brands do.
She plans to focus on the treatment side and new, salon-only products.
"We have one treatment, but there is much more we can add on to that. Like any company you inherit, there are these wonderful gems, but you've got to make them into something bigger.
"Likewise, with tanning-booths, we've had the same spray tanning solution since the company started, so there are many benefits we can bring to that now."
Currently, she is working on a three-year product development plan to upgrade the way treatments are offered in salons, as well as to the consumer.
"We are 'The Ultimate Tan' company, so our colour for now is tan and bronze, but I want to extend it and include cosmetic bronzing, for example. We won't compete on a pure skincare level, but if it works with the tan proposition, then St Tropez should be the company to provide that."
She is also evolving the St Tropez image and has commissioned top fashion photographer, Solve Sundsbo.
"He's interested in working with us because St Tropez is an iconic brand with an iconic image. However, because of this, I have to be a brand protector. It's about respecting the brand's iconic status, but also evolving it to be much more relevant for today."
Michelle feels the St Tropez logo is powerful, "so I won't mess with that, but the company's packaging needs some alignment in its communication. We need to look at what's in the product range and how it speaks to customers - both professional and end customer.
"To hold on to our lead we have to be smarter, faster and better. The reason St Tropez has remained number one is that the product performs brilliantly.
"Nobody else has replicated that, so even though it might not have had the grooviest image or an advertising campaign, the product has spoken for itself.
moving forward
"However, product development is our lifeblood, and it's up to me to engage new product development.
"Technology has changed, customer needs have changed, and so have ingredients - and we've got the opportunity to do other products that will be fantastic.
"Training is also important. Investment in people is invaluable, especially
when your people are your voice - so we are going to be doing a lot of that, too.
"What interests me about this brand is if you look at some of the challenges women have with self-esteem, we can make a difference - and a quick-and-easy one. We are not selling the dream: it's a reality.
"Coco Chanel made tanning in the sun fashionable - and St Tropez has made tanning out of the sun fashionable.
"I want to continue that, especially now there are concerns about skin cancer. It is not fashionable to go in the sun but people want to bare their body and look good.
"If you can pay £25, spare 15-minutes, and be left feeling a million dollars - then, fantastic."
