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Caudalie: The Art of Localisation

39m 6s

Caudalie: The Art of Localisation

In this podcast episode, MJ interviews Alice Langston, head of marketing for Cordley, about localising a French luxury brand for the UK market. Alice emphasises that localisation must respect brand DNA—such as Cordley’s focus on effectiveness, naturality, and sustainability—while adapting levers to resonate locally. UK consumers are trend-led, flippant, and heavily influenced by dynamic marketing, unlike French consumers who are loyal and ingredient-focused. To address this, Cordley uses a global toolkit but selects local taglines, ambassadors, and media strategies. For instance, they launched their first UK-specific influencer campaign with TikTok star Amelia Olivia, which brought cool points and engaged a younger audience. Alice highlights the importance of transcreation over translation, ensuring one-liners in out-of-home ads connect quickly, and avoiding claims like “number one in French pharmacies” that don’t resonate. Media mixes are tailored per collection: premium anti-aging products get targeted, premium placements, while blemish ranges go full-force on TikTok. Challenges include receiving assets designed for French pharmacy retail (limited formats) and fighting for local autonomy. Alice manages media in-house, finding out-of-home effective for subconscious brand awareness, though difficult to measure. Overall, she stresses that understanding local consumer behaviour and fighting for data-backed decisions are key to successful localisation.

Transcription

7730 Words, 41117 Characters

English
[Music] From consumer insights across the world to the latest tactics and trends, you're listening to leap into luxury, the go-to marketing podcast for luxury brands. I'm MJ and today we're talking to Alice Langston, head of marketing for Cordley. Alice is the driving force behind Cordley's remarkable growth in the UK market. With over eight years of experience in the luxury industry including us successful stint at one-on-one skin, Alice has a proven track record of delivering innovative and impactful marketing campaigns. Under her leadership, Cordley has successfully executed its largest media campaign to date and now growing five times faster than the market. Today we're going to be diving into a topic that is particularly close to all our professional lives, the art of localisation. Alice, thank you so much for joining us today. It's lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you for having me. So first of all, I'd love to know when it comes to growing a luxury brand like Cordley in the UK market, how crucial is a considered approach to localising content for your British consumers? So I think localisation is everything but it has to come with boundaries. So I think the most consistent brands, for example, when you recognise the turquoise blue, you see it for the straightaway brand. And those brands have been doing consistently well with the same brand image for years. But what I would say is understanding your brand DNA, what are your fundamentals? Is it effectiveness? Is it naturality? Is it tech? Is it luxury? Is it sustainability? The fundamentals have to remain, but what levers you pull per market can change and you need to pick what levers really, really resonate properly with your market and your consumer. So one of the ways that Cordley kind of does this is we are, we run by Paris as well, head office is the heritage of the brand, but what we do in subsidiary markets is we have a toolkit that's given to us by Paris per campaign and within that is kind of the the boundaries of what we can play with and I will get that toolkit and activate it in my market and pick what local tag lines or phrases or kind of key points you want to land and make sure that they're relevant to me. So there's always guidelines, we always have the DNA but we play with it essentially. Yeah it's interesting, this is basically for the listeners who don't know this is what we do pretty much every day with all the brands we work with. So we're very familiar with that concept of receiving a toolkit and then cherry picking out what's going to work best and you know some brands have a lot of freedom to do that if they're a massive market where they kind of own a lot of sales globally and some have less ownership. I think in my experience UK marketing teams are quite lucky and that they are such a big market they do get a bit more freedom. Are you able to share some specific examples of how you've adapted your marketing strategies for UK? Yeah for sure I think just a bit of context with poorly being a French brand we are essentially a French pharmacy brand and heritage we've been going for 25 years and within Europe so not just France we are sold within a pharmacy. However the UK consumer shops totally differently you may get to pharmacy for your prescription, your bungella and then we would shop for skincare luxury skincare within a retail environment so already I've got massive challenges because the market that feeds me the information doesn't have the same model or consumer model that we do here so already I'm faced with a big difference. We have to make sure that what we use or what we develop is relevant to where we sell, where we speak to, where we communicate and some of the things that we've been doing particularly this year now we're a bit more established is playing with who we have as archaea visual or who we have as our ambassadors and that is a way that we can actually directly speak to a local consumer. It's taken a few years because we needed to be established but this year for example we did our first ever influencer campaigns. It was going against the grain from what the rest of Europe kind of had and in terms of their ambassador, their visual, their model and we actually picked a local influencer who really really resonated with the target audience and that was where we we went against the grain or you were totally different but we knew that there was a massive benefit there of having someone identifiable to that audience and it worked so well so we're really pleased that we did that. So nice being able to go back to global and say actually. Yeah, I'll try to do that. Because it's an uphill battle all the time you're trying to be there you know protecting the brand but equally you've got to protect your corner of that brand. Exactly. You've got to fight for what you need and the data is right there right there either back in your way. Yeah, yeah. So that's so good. This was your first influencer campaign or was this the first where you've owned the rights to it? In the rights in terms of like a global, sorry not global like a UK campaign. We obviously have an influencer, we call them the courtly crew so that's who we have on like a retainer. It's so kind of unofficially and the courtly crew. Oh yeah, we have, no, we use a lot of posters. So yeah, we obviously do do that part of the part of the business but we actually selected someone who was a bit more of a true ambassador who was right for that campaign and that product and we did a full shoot so she was essentially like our celebrity face. Who did you use? We used Amelia Olivia so she is almost like a huge tick tocker who had been a bit of a fan for the brand for years and we knew that where we were wanting to reach a bit of a cool audience. We were massive cool points basically by using her. Don't we've got like a whole episode dedicated to the and it dedicated to brand's ex-loid tiktok. Yeah, so it just gave us that a little bit of a fresh spin on what we wanted to do and again it was just a case and point of where we knew that we needed to kind of not attack seems a little bit strong but we needed to make sure that we were engaging in that audience in a way that they they understood and recognised who we were speaking to. So yeah it was successful and that UK specific audience as well. Are there any other cultural nuances that differ between the French market and the UK market that you have to deal with on a regular basis? Even just the kind of culture from a shopper perspective we are a very influenced market. We have a little bit more synergy with like a US shopper and a US consumer and I think that we are very trend led we're less loyal. We're a little bit more flippant but we are very inspired and I would say we're very trendy and but the French consumer really speaks to effectiveness and ingredients. They are a lot more considered with their purchases. They're incredibly loyal to a French brand and and I think that they just look at they have different values. We move faster. We are a lot faster in terms of our speed and how purchasing choices were influenced very quickly whereas none of this makes us sound good. Very big. Very big. Very big. Very big. Very big. Very big. But it means that we have to be a lot more dynamic and we are a lot more creative. We have to market bigger and better than the rest because we can't rely on the French soul of the brand necessarily where a French shopper would just resonate because it is a high quality luxury brand. We are a lot more dynamic and we are a lot more fun. There's a lot more opportunity that comes out of that as well. So again, even just from a differentiation perspective when it comes to marketing and media we're a lot more expensive. We have a lot more competition like beyond a lot more competition and again it comes back to when I was mentioning this toolkit. It's kind of very set up for marketing within a French pharmacy and we have in Europe we have mass amounts of pharmacies but that marketing piece is replicated on like a mass scale but the marketing within a pharmacy space can't be more limited. You may have a poster on a window, a till-point impulse unit or you may do events but they don't have social accounts, websites, they don't have big animation windows and hotspots and whatever. So therefore when I get this toolkit and I go but we need six months to animate something within I don't know a space in K-O or a self-agence that is like a full spec pop up or something. It's so different so my need state is very very different to what I get so I need to it's a lot of challenges working with that. I don't think that's unique if it helps. We have the same thing where we're constantly dealing with huge multimedia sites and a lot of brands have that kind of struggle with trying to get the volume and the kind of breadth of assets they need out of label. Okay we kind of spoke there a little bit about French customers acting differently and even the kind of retail environments in which you would advertise and in which they purchase being very different to the UK market. So how do you ensure when you're operating in the UK that you're representing the brand's core values and identity, that provenance, you know, all of those things at the French audience as whole dear but adapting them and kind of selecting the content you're using to appeal to the UK market? There's many ways I think when we look to activate a project whether it be within a retail space or whether it's a brand collaboration for example, it's about ensuring that there's a like for like understanding and connection there that for example if we did a brand collaboration we would make sure that that brand had similar DNA points were they sustainable were they did they care about naturality? If I went and went rogue and went for something that was more science-led or tech-led or something there's definitely a miss there and we're not speaking to the same people so we need to find ways that we we target that audience that actually have the same values and same DNA and again in a retail space when we animate for sure we look at what we can do in terms of production that sustainable we use sustainable materials that messaging has to be at the forefront that we are effective clean and the natural which is what the quarterly DNA is so that has to remain the same and we just make sure that our platforms and and our Combs channels are back. relevant to that. When it comes to those messages though and forgive me because like I say, we deal with this on a daily basis. There is such a huge difference between translating a message from say, you know, French approved coffee over to English. There's so much that can get lost in translation, which is why more and more we're hearing about trans creation which is something that we do internally and we push for so much. I wrote a whole article on it last year. You did, you did, was so passionate. I mean, can you tell me how you would explain the benefits of trans creating rather than translating from a person who has to who has to fight this battle? So I would say I fight this battle daily because I check all of our translations that come through from Paris and I never want to go against the grain because ultimately not to do myself a disservice. Obviously I activate the brand within my space, right? So I'm not the one there at the heart creating it. But I have to make sure that the, we land the messages very quickly and they have to be correct because especially within terms of media you have such a short time where you can connect to that customer. You'd love to tell them the world but you can't, especially if it's something out of home. You have maybe one tagline and you need to make sure that that is the one thing that they're going to take away from you. So what I do for translations is, I mean, we always look at the copy to make sure we have a copywriter on hand but it's more, I need to make sure that the identity remains but I can't go against the grain but I need to make sure it connects more to it. So it's definitely a conundrum. It never, it's never, ever easy but I just know the importance of that one tagline particular out of home has to be, it's fundamental. It's also tricky when there are so many different stakeholders that play as well and I'm speaking specifically about like legal teams, compliance teams. You know, like this word makes sense as a translation but not allowed to use it. So it is a tricky one to maneuver I feel for you. I think as well some of the things that hold true to France are, for example, number one in French pharmacies or you know, ex-emounts sold in French pharmacies. They want to sing to the high, you know, the highest rooftops about those clothes because they are vital but they, I may maybe told to use it on POSM or something and I'm thinking well the consumer doesn't really care that we're number X in French pharmacies for this range. So I have to sometimes win battles there that I feel like there's better use of that space for copy. Even the word pharmacy there, like I, I think, like you said, I think Bondella when I say, I think Bondella when I think pharmacy. But actually when I stand back and think about it, you know, the likes of boots and super drug, the beauty retailers, they are essentially pharmacies, but I haven't viewed them as that. So that is actually even that word has its own stigma. I totally agree. So yeah, that's, and again, particularly when you're looking at, again, you're almost like retail space within an, an ad. I don't want it to be used up the things that aren't going to resonate. So I will, again, we always have the pyramid of messages which sits within what I'm given for a campaign and I will just pick and choose but I don't go too far against the grain because it's not, it's not necessarily my job. It's just like picking the ones that will resonate the most. Okay, so talking there about kind of things that are going to resonate, do you find different media resonates better in the UK than it does in France, for example? I would say I tailor my media based on the campaign versus the being a massive difference. I would say we're a little bit more digital than you're up for sure. There's definitely that element to it. So I, in terms of my media mix, the balance will be different to what we do in France. They're very much an out of home industry and it works so well for them. But what I would say is my approach to media is very, is very dependent on the collections. So we, as much as we have our target audience and we have our consumer, it can change and it really pivots depending on what the range is. So when it comes to each collection, I will, I do get a brief from the, the media director in Paris but I will look at that media mix based on what the collection is. So if we're going very premium, a very anti-aging, I might steer away from tube advertising or I might steer away from mass scale out of home. I might do something more targeted close to points of sale that really resonate to that, to that product and understand where your consumer is. I don't want any wasted ad space, especially in a premium landscape because it's not premium. And then ultimately when you're looking at that kind of print and digital piece, ensuring that that audience is there, the price points there and yeah, don't go too massive, it's premium. But then also when we have a younger, a younger collection that is made before a blemish range, we want to be, you know, full font on TikTok and we want to be super social, we want to engage through these influencer channels because again that's where the consumer is. So I definitely change my media mix depending on the collection. Okay, and presumably you have the support and insight from a local media buying partner no, no Oh Yeah, no, I Media for quarterly, you Moment yeah at the moment so up to this point yeah, I've been doing it kind of within my team It's been great for learning for us to do trial and error. There's a lot of like testing things that we've been doing to make sure that we are Giving certain media's ago different comms ago and learning from things we do we do follow suit from France and do a lot of out of home Because we know that really helps in terms of our Distribution and our points of sale getting those kind of core crucial cities out home is one of my favourite media As I'm quite a Love it. I think a lot of premium brands stare away a lot I think but I'd go further and say that a lot of brands are staring away Out in and outside of beauty and luxury totally because Because the data is not instantly there in your pockets Yeah, you cannot collect a row ass on that which means that when you're at your you know end of Meeting you say this investment. Well, we're not sure how when we think about well, you know, but the cut-throughs When you see a great out of home campaign that is done really really well Like it just stops you in your tracks. I don't think it's just because I work in the industry and I particularly like that media Like a genuinely can stop me in my tracks sometimes and I don't think I'm a bad one. Yeah As well, I think a lot of consumers don't and don't realise how Drawn in town of home. They are. I think it's often like a subconscious thing and That you are I think this that kind of isn't that the age or thing It's like seven seven repetitions and you've got the brand at brand awareness there So they totally increase that not long ago to like the 11th repetition Okay, we've grown harder But the thing without a homeless if you're looking at it your core on your way from A to B or somewhat you are not distracted Doing something else. So you're not in the middle of watching your favorite program You're not in you know, this is not an ad interrupting your day, but something you are so much more receptive to I know We're like Daniels is the best those tube stops. I sit there and read all their little yeah Like it's so much copy for an out of home Yes, but I read it all those cross track ones I Anytime I'm in any situation where a brand wants to put so many like different messages on there on there Ads and I'm like it won't work here, but you know where it will work We child that actually recently and it was super I think it's just the impact is so strong Yeah, and again particularly cross track you have got you know I hope that you've come with you know more frequently than five minutes But say for example you've got five minutes of someone actually stood there waiting you don't really get signal down there So you've got captured them out of time 100 so get to that customer I don't know if you've ever taken the district line, but you've definitely got more time than that That's one for the Londoners Okay, so you don't use a media partner do you use any local partners to help you localize this content and and go out there or is this you know just this So no in terms of all the booking it comes through me at the moment But we do have an in-house studio in Paris. We essentially will get a key visual from Paris So there's never there's never tons of formats and things we do stay true and have constant Assistant message and a consistent visual, but we have a studio and we have me basically So yeah, everything Someone bring this one on a wine So no, it's yeah, but I really enjoy The media element and I think yeah with even without a home It's it's not as easy to measure, but I think there's a lot of gratification when you really pull it off and you can see things from a 360 perspective With because I handle media, but within obviously entirety of marketing for me It's just one of my funnels that I have to feed into a lever I pull but I make sure that consistency super Super crucial because you always know your audience better than you think you are if you take yourself out of work And you actually think about what what's the luxury consumer doing every single day? So you'd wake up and likely look at your phone you probably scroll through Instagram or a red web scene or something and can we talk it from that very first Wake up, which is a military what you do and then you know, maybe they get a black cab to Harris where they're gonna go shopping Can we brand that cap and then can they go to Harris or space and K wherever and can we be on the you know on the bus on the bus stops within that space and then can they be seen in a Window or an animation table in that store and then plus the amazing customer service so that consumer journey is tight and it works So when you get that 360 right it's it's the consistency that gets you so I love it - Yeah, yeah. - And we've done a lot of taxi wraps, I think there are, and bus wraps, actually, I think it's a really effective piece of media. I think sometimes brands can walk because it's quite a high-medium investment on a totally get that. But just the reach is unbelievable and they're really memorable pieces. - Yeah. - You know what's so funny as well is what you just said, they're memorable pieces, that we could help a brand execute a global 360 campaign, and the one thing that they get excited about is seeing their capital. - I'm so like, I'm running around London, honestly, with my phone, and I'm thinking the people in the cab are like, thinking I'm taking photos of them, but I'm not, I'm just thinking, it's crazy, but they're so cool. And then we, when we did it recently, we also fed into an influencer event, so we had a global trip to London, and we picked them all up from the airport. So really, you can maximise it more than you think. And then inside the cabs, I think you can have call outs as well, so they can scan to sign up, and you can kind of gain email sign ups and things like that, so you can use them to your advantage, more than them just literally being a taxi basically. - You gotta capture that data. (laughing) - So I see the benefits of you keeping everything sort of under your roof, essentially. It means that you can look after your brand, you can protect your brand, protect your baby, especially that UK arm of it. We, in fact, we've been working with some of our luxury clients for 10, 15, 20 years. - 20, I'm not old enough. - For two. - I've been on the whole time. - I am. (laughing) But I think there is a reason for that. And there is such a trust that is required, because you are letting go of part of that control. And this is a brand that in itself has been building out it's DNA for decades or hundreds of years, and you have a long, to dilute that again with another agency partner is quite frightening. So, and that's the reason why we've been doing this for so long for these brands. But I also see that benefit, but you surely, if you have expansion plans or growth plans for the brand, which I don't doubt that you do, I mean, at some point would need to onboard that support and those partners. How would you approach ensuring that those brand values, brand DNA, those brand elements are not diluted that way? - I think, I mean, it's a tricky one for sure. There's only so much I can do on my own. And sometimes, well, in terms of my skillset, it takes bringing on experts to learn more also. So, there's massive value in utilizing support. And I think that quarterly, it's still found to lead 25 years old next year. And I think that they have, we really stay true to who we are because we have the control and we have most things in house. But again, it can sometimes only take you so far because you've kind of become a little bit blind to things as well. So, I'm hoping with the growth that we're having that we will need more agency support, I guess. But I think the thing for me is that there's got to be shared values that is a given. I think in terms of onboarding someone as well, I'd almost bring someone in and I'd almost do like a product training and I've had brand training just to make sure that they are speaking your language even outside of this office wall. So, and also when, I think with agencies that have worked for other like-minded brands that they've been there before, they know the right contacts and things within the industry. But again, who also felt value thinks that sustainability and the DNA. So, it's about shared values. - Yeah, but it also needs to be about added values as well, right? And different kind of values like you need, if you were to have a partner with anybody else, they need to be adding to what you're already into. - Yeah, yeah. - And adding to expertise. I mean, there's been many a situation that we've come across where certain partners with certain brands have been trying to fit a square peg in around hard to get, you know, to get something over the line and it's not right for the brand. And it's quite a frustrating situation for them to be in. So, that's super interesting. - Yeah, I think like you'd like you say, whenever a brand, I was gonna say Heritage Brand there, but even a younger kind of luxury brand, I think it's so important to feel that the people who you're working with are as passionate about the brand as you are. - Totally. - So, I think they have to be an extension of your brand. Because it's funny you should say that. Our language on our website was, "Were an extension of your team." (laughing) - But it is so, so true. - Yeah. - Because I think as well, when you have agency support, it's not for a one-stop project, it needs to be a long-term thing because that's when you get the long-life benefit of it. So, I think once you've got the show values and then the extension piece needs to come from the connection and communication. So, yeah. - This is a conversation for in-house as well, though. Like, if for many of our clients we speak to them and more and more so of late, we're actually hearing that the legal teams and compliance teams internally are actually trying to help them get the messaging that they're trying to get over the line across, which is actually so refreshing because we've heard in the past that it's like, "Oh, we can't say this 'cause they won't let us." And now they're actually, the compliance and legal teams are becoming a little bit more creative, a little bit more immersed in the brand as well. And they're like, "Oh, you know, one team, one dream, let's get this line through," which is actually fantastic. - It is nice. Speaking of that, have you seen any particular regulatory challenges when you're launching products or campaigns in the UK? 'Cause I know without naming any names, sometimes we have that kind of disconnect between an R and D team globally who don't understand a UK kind of regulation or why they need to provide certain evidence here. - Yeah, I think it is challenging and I know that it is very common to get pulled up on things and you've got to be very careful 'cause often to a consumer something is unrealistic, it's probably untrue, but often behind that, particularly for quarterly, we do so much testing. We have our own labs, again, everything is done in-house and all of our testing is so legitimate. One of the things that quarterly does is we really try to rival kind of mainstream and trending ingredients and we, because we are everything's natural and we have everything from the grape, the grape wine, the seeds, the flesh. A lot of them have almost better properties and better results than trend-led brand, trend-led ingredient. - Wait, we haven't even covered that. - I know, so we know this, but our listeners might not know this. And gosh, we are really not talking about localisation anymore. (laughing) But tell us, tell us about the grapes. - So yeah, so just a side note here. So quarterly was basically founded on a vineyard and I kind of see it as the beauty's version of farm to fork 'cause essentially the brand was founded because we realized that there was so much benefit in the antioxidants in the byproduct of wine making. So essentially within either the stalk, the stem, the flesh and the seeds is essentially really powerful antioxidants that when stabilized can be utilised within skincare and that was literally where the brand was founded 25 years ago. So you heard it here, first guys, wine is really good for your skin. (laughing) That's literally one of the reasons I work here. (laughing) So yeah, coming back to kind of regulations, it's really challenging because often when we try to rival those retinols and things like that, which we all have legitimate testing for, people are, it kind of makes people stop and think because it almost doesn't, it seems a little bit too good to be true, I guess, what we're trying to say, but it isn't the case that we are being untrue, it's all legitimate and we all have very rigorous testing against all of our ingredients and our products and formulations. So you've always got to have your legalities and your legal terms and small print and things. So they are there, but it does make people question I think a little bit. So when we speak to the legal teams, and again, this is all done in-house and we have our R&D and legal teams sign off all of our claims, we really have to be cautious with what we're saying just because it sometimes doesn't land right or people question it. And often what we can say in one market, we can't say in another as well. So there are-- - That's so true of you. - Yeah, we are, we are a little bit, - I'm a little bit, thank you. (laughing) - So it is a tricky one, though. - Yes, yeah, you've got to, - So yeah, you can back yourself up and you know your treat or everything you say, but sometimes you just have to amend things. For example, you may say improves or reduces instead, it physically does what it says, even though we know it says, but it's just sometimes a bit safer. - So, - We're very familiar with that. - Yeah, particular terminology. (laughing) - It's hard, it's really hard. - So of all these localization efforts, how are you measuring the success of these? KPI-wise, are you tracking community growth or are we looking at conversions? Like what are the KPI's that you're tracking on a regular basis for your localised content? - I think, again, it depends on what channel we're looking at, but particularly for things like media and out of home, there's a few things, again, it is difficult other than looking at your bottom line, but there are ways you can be clever. For example, when we do out of home, we very much do this surrounding our points of sale through retailers, and so again, one of the first things I'll do is look at how, has it been uplifted in those local stores? That's an easy given. The other thing we can do is look at our searching, so have we been more highly searched in those regions on things like Google? It's available and it's accessible to have those insights. So if we've run a campaign, I'll look, say a month later, in Ireland Manchester, where I may have invested slightly more than before, have we had more people searching about us? So again, it's not necessarily like to the wire and super granular, but it's a good way for us to gauge if our interest has been spiked because of what we've been implementing. Do you use a brand tracking platform or anything? Not at this point. It's something that's been in my mind just because we're getting big enough now. to warrant it. I am just going to because it's something I'm so passionate about. And as we spoke touched on earlier on, those media platforms, media types that aren't as easily kind of data driven or don't provide you with exact kind of progress and exact row essence stuff. So important for the long-term brand awareness piece and those brand loyalty pieces and it's something that we kind of bang our heads up together about a lot because more and more so these days we see that we want direct results. We're going to go straight for this you know meta campaign and we're going to see exactly what worked because we're going to see exactly the amount of purchases we got from it. And more and more I think brands especially even in the luxury space if there's if there's budget restraints are forgetting that whole bigger piece which is 10 years from now and these people still going to be in love with you because of all the work you put into the awareness. And we've discussed it on a few of our episodes so far around experiential activations but it's also the same as things like press and out of home as we were talking about. And the best way that you can track the benefits of those and the progress of those is obviously a brand tracker. Those people who are constantly doing doing focus groups and pulling data and things is actually so good. I tell everybody every marks you manage and I'm like get a broad track here because it's actually it helps back you up so much as well. I think as well what you if without things like that or without really looking at those KPIs and not measuring properly you can keep making the same mistakes over and over again and just thinking oh this is where I think we should be but actually you could be totally wrong. So yeah as much as the reporting can be challenging and again some things are so much easier for you to do something that's this trackable and clickable to your website you can easily see click rates and conversion easily but I think again yeah coming to your point without actually looking at things both helistically and granular you could keep going for years and years away almost just wasting money more than anything. Yeah you're so right there it's super easy to just kind of keep going through the motions and kind of missing the opportunity to kind of pause take a look at things and you know assess whether the investments worthwhile and kind of carrying on that train of thought what have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced in Cordley's marketing efforts in the UK specifically towards localising it I suppose. I think there's there's a few things again the biggest one again is just the difference in our in our consumer behaviour to France to the UK but also our competition is so much more fierce and there's so many challenges that faces whether it's we need to look at exclusivity and previews to give ourselves more cut through with the retail space we need things a lot more in advance because looking process through media particularly can be a lot more challenging it's more expensive so cost pieces for short always a challenge I need bigger budgets a lot than a lot of the time than other markets and and it's yeah time again because we do everything in house often we don't get things like assets until like beyond close to the wire and my Brad Victoria cordley won't mind me saying that because it's something that I shout about yeah I shout about it probably on a weekly basis but we just don't get the content sometimes within enough time and then you know I'd love to get to the point where we were looking at canoky visuals and things and we were looking at test and trial on a couple and we were maybe trying it and maybe getting some feedback before we go out to mass it's not happening at the moment but you know it's all future proofing a future thinking but I would say time, competition and also expense when it comes to that that competition factor I mean do you find yourself kind of altering the messaging or altering to within the parameters that you're allowed that creative to kind of push through that I suppose I suppose testimonial piece the you know reviews ratings like people have said this great thing about us you yeah because I suppose that's the only thing that will shine through when you've got so many different yeah upcoming upcoming brands I think that's the thing you know it's a lot of brands have amazing products and like you know Trupy told I think I mean I do shop around my routine is very fair we didn't I think that's the way we the UK shopper shopper shops and you know it's it's fickle I believe yeah very fickle word of the day and you know and I think that a lot of brands have great products who do does what this has on the tin and they can you know again say that they are an anti-aging solution for ring core skin or whatever and they will all do a great job not as good as quarterly but you know I've got lovely lovely products but what is that USP what's that catch what's that hook that the consumable just know that you're slightly different again have you got more added value in I always talk about sustainability because it's important you know is there an added added benefit of why you should shop quarterly over another of the brand again we've got natural solutions to some of the trending ingredients so we've got retinal alternatives that are more safe for your skin than retinal so there's loads of things that are unique but it's choosing what we want to play and what will be the most punchy punchy stat and you say that those two those two pieces that you just picked out there which is the sustainability piece and the ingredients you say that those two topics are really kind of core coming out of France as well so you've got all of that data you've got all of that impact so you know that that works and you know that it exists that's that's really helpful when it comes to you kind of representing that repositioning and right to the UK I think as well quarterly make my job so easy because even from the story alone in marketing you know every brand should have a really great story that brand builds and creates community and creates like long lasting longevity obviously then we have a really good rival ingredients and our formulations are so strong and but ultimately any skin care brand needs to be effective first because you're not going to buy a product if it's not going to work for what you need right and that's just a given so that's got to be the first need state and then on top of that is where you start layering what is the what is unique to your brand so it's kind of that again that messaging but for example we have one product it's Salvino Perfect Serum it is literally what we're known for it's a fifth of our business on one skew it's wild and but for example one of the key callouts for that is we sell one bottle every 20 seconds so great that's a great step but also what we can do is easily back that up because it's based on sales data so that's something we can sing and shine about so it's again really utilising this punchy punchy figures that are going to make people stop and kind of take notes okay so on that note are there are there any kind of emerging trends I suppose in and around this this industry especially as you say there's a lot of competition going are there exciting activations or trends in the UK luxury marketing space particularly beauty space that you're hoping to explore in the future yeah I think you know this kind of sounds like a little bit of an obvious one but I think pop ups and experiences as much as they have been developing over the last few years I think we're only scratching the surface of what that means and that is just essentially giving the consumer more than just a product I think you have to be more than just a good product these days to kind of cut through and make people feel that they're part of something and they're buying something that they believe in or that they think is really cool that they've seen on an ambassador or they've seen in a really cool space so I think building community is vital and I think that I've seen it a lot recently particularly I think Rify were one of the brands that started it they did instead of doing like an influencer trip they did it for some of their like loyal fans and I'm thinking this movement it's so important because I'm I there's an absolute space in the industry for influencers that will not stop but we sometimes forget about the consumer who ultimately they're the end purchaser so we there's no reason why we can't be treating them like influencers or you know having the same kind of effort done so I think building community is going to be the next kind of big trend or something that I think brands will be shifting to focus on more totally and yeah I guess this is not like new you know you've seen it with VICs in you know big luxury retailers or department stores it's so nice to see that ethos and kind of way of operating now trickle across the sector in a kind of wider wider space and yeah just rewarding loyalty I think is so important there are certain brands I've used for God a long time I am also fickled don't worry I'm just thinking I've never been invited away one day he wanted to watch this space right well thank you so much Alex in case the listeners can't tell this has been something we've been super excited to talk about because we live in breathe this every day so thanks for joining us to talk about something we love so much thank you so much if you enjoyed this episode follow us at leap into luxury podcast on Instagram to find out who we'll be speaking to next

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Localisation is crucial for luxury brands but must respect core brand DNA (e.g., effectiveness, naturality, luxury) while adapting levers per market.
  2. UK consumers are trend-led, less loyal, and more influenced by dynamic, creative marketing compared to French consumers who value loyalty, ingredients, and effectiveness.
  3. Specific UK adaptations include using local influencers (e.g., Amelia Olivia) and tailoring media mixes (e.g., digital vs. out-of-home) based on the collection and target audience.
  4. Transcreation (not just translation) is essential to ensure messages resonate; UK marketers often need to select relevant taglines and avoid French-specific claims (e.g., “number one in French pharmacies”).
  5. Challenges include receiving toolkits designed for French pharmacy retail (limited assets) and fighting for local autonomy to meet UK market needs.
  6. Out-of-home advertising is valued for its subconscious impact, though measuring ROI is difficult; UK marketers handle media in-house without a local media partner.

Summary:

In this podcast episode, MJ interviews Alice Langston, head of marketing for Cordley, about localising a French luxury brand for the UK market. Alice emphasises that localisation must respect brand DNA—such as Cordley’s focus on effectiveness, naturality, and sustainability—while adapting levers to resonate locally. UK consumers are trend-led, flippant, and heavily influenced by dynamic marketing, unlike French consumers who are loyal and ingredient-focused.

To address this, Cordley uses a global toolkit but selects local taglines, ambassadors, and media strategies. For instance, they launched their first UK-specific influencer campaign with TikTok star Amelia Olivia, which brought cool points and engaged a younger audience. Alice highlights the importance of transcreation over translation, ensuring one-liners in out-of-home ads connect quickly, and avoiding claims like “number one in French pharmacies” that don’t resonate.

Media mixes are tailored per collection: premium anti-aging products get targeted, premium placements, while blemish ranges go full-force on TikTok. Challenges include receiving assets designed for French pharmacy retail (limited formats) and fighting for local autonomy. Alice manages media in-house, finding out-of-home effective for subconscious brand awareness, though difficult to measure.

Overall, she stresses that understanding local consumer behaviour and fighting for data-backed decisions are key to successful localisation.

FAQs

Localisation is everything but must have boundaries. The brand's DNA must remain consistent, but levers like taglines or ambassadors can be adapted per market to resonate with local consumers.

Cordley launched its first UK-specific influencer campaign featuring Amelia Olivia, a local TikTok star, which went against the grain of the European approach. This resonated well with the target audience and was very successful.

UK shoppers are more trend-led, influenced, and less loyal, while French shoppers focus on effectiveness and ingredients and are loyal to French brands. UK marketing must be more dynamic and creative to compete.

We ensure any brand collaboration or retail activation shares similar DNA points like sustainability or naturality. Messaging always highlights Cordley's effective, clean, and natural identity, tailored to local platforms and channels.

Transcreation ensures a tagline connects quickly with the local audience, especially in media like out-of-home where you have limited time. It preserves brand identity while making the message resonate, avoiding lost meaning from direct translation.

Yes, the UK is more digital, while France relies heavily on out-of-home. In the UK, I tailor the media mix per collection, using premium targeted ads for anti-aging products and social media for younger ranges like blemish care.

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