Dive Brief:
- Ulta Beauty will begin offering the Proactiv acne treatment system starting Sept. 1 in select retail locations and at Ulta.com, under a new partnership between the two brands.
- In addition to individual Proactiv items and three-step kits available in Ulta stores, Ulta’s website will also carry X Out, a one-step wash-in treatment designed specifically for busy teens and young adults.
- Ulta is Proactiv’s first national beauty retailer partner.
Dive Insight:
On the surface, this partnership sounds like a bigger win for Proactiv, which gets another retail outlet to sell its acne treatment system through. The press release is careful about stating that Ulta will be Proactiv’s exclusive beauty retail partner at the time of the launch; that could mean that Proactiv is working on similar retail deals yet to be announced.
However, it also seems clear that Ulta is looking to use Proactiv as a vehicle to grow its appeal throughout the younger part of the beauty market, and certainly with the intention of capturing their attention once they’re in store, and selling them more than an acne treatment system.
Ulta has been having a lot of success lately pulling in revenue, clearing profit and expanding its retail presence — three things that not a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers can claim right now. Still, to keep it all going Ulta needs to keep reaching into new markets and going deeper into existing ones. It has to come up with new ways to fight to keep what it has gained in recent years. The Proactiv partnership gives it one of the hooks it needs to do that in one particular market segment.
Ulta says it’s just giving customers what it knows they want. "We've listened to our guest and know she wants the most sought-after brands and we deliver them to her time and time again,” Tara Simon, senior vice president of prestige merchandising at Ulta Beauty, said in the press release. “Offering Proactiv at Ulta Beauty is a huge win for us and more importantly our guests who have been requesting the brand for years."
