Elemis: Truth in beauty

Delivering highly active ingredients with cutting-edge treatments, luxury British skincare brand Elemis has built a world-class reputation not only for product and treatment innovation, but also for spa training and retailing.

Elemis currently works with more than 900 UK spas and salons as well as a growing portfolio worldwide, all of which benefit from its in-spa heritage and mission to innovate in beauty.

According to global president and co-founder Noella Gabriel, the brand’s success is due to its passion for spa business. “Spa is a channel that engages our customers in an extraordinary way,” she says. “Our highly transparent formulations are matched by our extraordinary training, retail and treatment delivery – all of which have been developed without compromise for spas.”

Having co-founded Elemis with CEO Séan Harrington and Oriele Frank, who is now focused on CSR, product and sustainability, Noella Gabriel joins us to explain how the brand is helping spas to reopen successfully.

Tell us about Elemis’s vision for 2021.

We have always put the customer and their skin health at the heart of what we do. Our vision now is to emphasise our commitment to sustainability from concept to counter. We want to promote innovative products and differentiated services, and accelerate our global digital community by engaging in conversations with our customers. We also want to own key categories, such as by making our iconic cleansing balm a global number-one bestseller.

How can Elemis boost spas’ success?

Lockdown enabled us to realign our priorities and pivot into the digital space to strengthen relationships with our spa partners. We have supported the reopening of spas with the rollout of our Welcome Back to Wellness campaign. This gave partners access to a suite of assets for recent product launches as well as promotional offers and activations to entice customers. We also provided guidance on how to engage with clients in the virtual eventing space.

We executed a consumer-inspired product roll-out throughout the year. Most notable was the launch of our Pro-Collagen Renewal Serum, an effective skin-kind alternative to retinol. We leaned into consumer insights to drive the positioning of this product, backed by clinically proven* results and user trials that found 97% of consumers agreeing that the
Pro-Collagen Renewal Serum provided the anti-ageing benefits of retinol without over drying or irritation.**

(* Independent clinical trials 2020. Results based on 37 people over four weeks. ** Independent user trials 2020. Results based on 37 people over four weeks.)

What’s new for the spa menu?

We’ve launched the No-Touch Facial, delivering the same transformative results as our other facials while providing customers with peace of mind that they are being treated with the highest hygiene and safety standards. We’re constantly listening to our customers and evolving into Safe-Touch treatments in order to meet their needs.

In addition, we were very excited to introduce our rejuvenating 7-in-1 Light Energy Face Mask, combining seven light therapies with infra-red to offer a new customised solution for a range of skincare needs.

We are also delighted to announce the evolution and launch of the exclusive Elemis BIOTEC 2.0 system, featuring new technology additions to accelerate the transformational power of Elemis facials, which will be introduced in the autumn.

Tell us about your latest spa training and support services.

We’ve invested in and launched our Global E-Learning Platform, offering access to interactive, educational courses and a product information library, as well as product and campaign-focused webinars.

Immersing the learner in the world of Elemis, the E-Learning hub also offers a space to connect with other therapists and nurture professional development, which is crucial for success.

We always strive to communicate effectively with our partners and are in the early stages of developing a new and improved online B2B hub for marketing activations.

What key opportunities can you help spas to access?

We embrace a collaborative working style with our partners, underpinned by a shared customer-centric philosophy.

Our Recharge & Refresh Body collection exclusively enables our spa and salon partners to offer a treatment incentive to customers to drive footfall and customer conversion.

With our support, spas now have greater digital opportunities thanks to bespoke programmes and resources, such as our Spa Affiliate Programme, to drive incremental revenue through partnering with elemis.com.

Our Virtual Eventing Programme also offers informative, trend-based content that is not only educational but also entertaining – we refer to this as EDUtainment.