Cosmoprof North America will take place July 12-14, 2015, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.
Consumers' beauty requirements are changing as the United States and the rest of the planet becomes increasingly polycultural.
According to Kline & Co. figures cited by Cosmoprof, the multicultural beauty products market grew 3.7 % in 2014 and represents $1.2 trillion of projected buying power.
The boom in consumer engagement has led to increased competition for market share leading up to the establishment of a new collective majority of Hispanics, African Americans and Asians in the United States by 2042.
First Look: Tones of Beauty
Multicultural consumers are highly engaged and more motivated to buy beauty products compared to other consumers, explains Corey Huggins, founder and CEO of love, Aunt Bonnie and organizer of Cosmoprof's Tones of Beauty program.
Tones of Beauty will showcase 10 up-and-coming and established polyethnic brands with skin, hair, cosmetic, fragrance and lifestyle offerings, while also examining the needs and purchasing power of multicultural consumers. Brands will include earth's nectar and Clique by Roble, among others.
Huggins has worked with Maybelline, Black Opal and PhytoSpecific, as well as with beauty discovery subscription service GlossyBox. In building Tones of Beauty, he has assembled "brands that people should know" and which will benefit from exposure to key distributors, buyers and retailers, while also receiving PR support. Tones of Beauty will feature a sampling program for retailers to initiate exposure to hero SKUs.
The program will include integrated digital campaigns "to make a mark among multicultural consumers," while a group of multicultural digital influencers will create live brand and consumer interactions throughout the course of the event.
Additionally, love, Aunt Bonnie will use its Bonnie Box program to distribute to its members a one-time beauty sample box comprising hero products from each of the 10 exhibiting brands.
Leading up to the event, Huggins will bring five brands to New York for a press junket, providing PR exposure for the brands ahead of Cosmoprof.
Polyethnic Future
In a recent interview with Ad Age, Tristan Walker of Walker & Co. noted that multicultural consumers require companies to think outside the demographic box. Rather than solving issues for men or women of specific ethnicities, Walker said, it is important to solve specific issues such as coarse, curly hair, which may in fact transcend several ethnicities or cultures.
Higgins elaborates that the polyethnic evolution of the United States and beyond will eventually separate skin tone and beauty needs from any single cultural identity.
Brands that speak to the shifting mindsets and psychographics of multiethnic consumers are the ones that will bridge the gap and succeed.
This sense of "blendedness," as Huggins calls it, is the next frontier of cultural beauty: beauty for all.
