New Cosmetic Promotions sampling program to tap ethnic buying power

Cosmetic Promotions has announced a new sampling program for manufacturers targeting Hispanic and African-American consumers.

Citing a recent study by the Selig Center, Cosmetic Promotions stated that the African-American buying power topped $1.04 trillion last year and is growing faster than all other population segments combined since 2000. And Nielsen reported that Hispanic buying power, likewise, has topped $1 trillion annually and is expected to grow another 50% by 2017.

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Mustela is already known for their gentle products for babies in the United States, and now they’re developing sun care products for babies! Two of their products have already been awarded the Melanoma International Foundation Seal of Approval, and their formulations are 100% minerals. The product launch will begin in February, and will be widely available by May.

Cosmetic Promotions helps this amazing European line get more awareness in the United States with demos at Ulta. The next set of demos will be in April at select Ultas nationwide!

Los Angeles, CA – As Taylor Swift fans exited the Staples Center after the sold-out April 15^th Fearless Tour concert; RITE AID was on hand distributing their Teen Glam Camp bags. The brand ambassadors gave away nearly 2000 bags to lucky teen girls. The FREE “Glam Camp” tote bag was filled with beauty products and bounce-back coupons from brands such as Jergens, Jesse’s Girl, Clearasil, Veet, Colgate, John Frieda, Hawaiian Tropic, Maybelline, Wet n Wild, Ban, Yes to Carrots, L’Oreal, Playtex, and Got2Be. Taylor Swift, widely hailed as the first bonafide country music star of the MySpace generation, currently has singles climbing both the country and pop radio charts. She currently holds the Billboard all-genre record for most Top 20 debuts in a calendar year.

That same week, RITE AID was on hand at the Miss Teen Ohio-World pageant to reward the participants with the Glam Camp bag. More than 300 contestants eagerly accepted the tote bag and many began using the products right away. This is the first full year for this new pageant, which is the official preliminary event to the Miss Teen United States-World and Miss Teen World Pageants.

Teens (ages 12-17) comprise more than 11% of the U.S. population, and spending by American teenage consumers is expected to reach $208.7 billion by the year 2011. The RITE AID Glam Camp program consists of sampling events that are held in the five strongest RITE AID markets that match up with a high teen population 10,000 bags are distributed each year. The program is coordinated and executed by Cosmetic Promotions Inc, a national marketing company specializing in the beauty industry. The company secures the vendors, the bags and all the venues for distribution.

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For more information on Cosmetic Promotions, contact Joann Tyson at 888-644-9916 or visit our website: www.cosproagency.com.

Cosmetic Promotions Donates Money and Time to Different Charities

Winter Park, FL – Cosmetic Promotions Inc, a national marketing company specializing in the beauty industry, is celebrating 20 years in business. As part of the celebration, they are offering quarterly specials and also giving back to the community by donating money to their clients’ favorite charities. The special for August includes a 5% charity “rebate” to the charity of their choice on any 100 (or more) store event the client books. The offer expires July 6^th. During Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, they donated 5% of all demo revenue to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, raising almost $4,000. They are encouraging their clients to let them know which charities they would like considered for a donation by asking them to fill out a short survey at http://www.cosproagency.com/survey.

                Cosmetic Promotions CEO and founder Joann Tyson believes strongly in volunteering. She gives at least 5 hours weekly to her charities in addition to the cash donations. “If every person who COULD volunteer did, charities in this country would need less federal aid and arts organizations would be able to survive,” says Ms. Tyson who is on two city boards, volunteers at the Florida Film Festival, and served as president of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Associate Board for 2 years. She also chaired the Winter Park Library’s 2010 annual fundraiser and was the community liaison for Toys for Tots for 5 years. Her employees are also big on volunteering. Agency Director Kristin Bocox has been delivering Meals on Wheels to local Dallas shut-ins for more than 2 years. Sunny Wilmot, Contest Administrator, went to Africa for 2 weeks last August to help develop a well and a housing project in a village near Naivasha, Kenya. Diane Burge, Teen Event Coordinator, served on the Orlando Shakespeare Theater Associate Board as well. Kate Crockett, Regional Manager, donates time to political campaigns and Ted Bondhus, Art Director, donated many graphic design hours to the Winter Park Library and Orlando Shakespeare Theater projects.

                In addition, Cosmetic Promotions frequently donates extra products from events to women’s shelters and local silent auctions to help those charities raise more money. According to Tyson, “We have been so fortunate to be successful in business for 20 years; we feel it is our duty to give back. Plus, it feels so good!”

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For more information on Cosmetic Promotions, contact Joann Tyson at 888-644-9916 or visit our website: www.cosproagency.com.

Winter Park, FL – 100 Walgreen’s stores recently hosted a Maybelline makeover event introducing new eye and lip products to their Florida consumers. A professional makeup artist was on hand at each store to apply Studio Pearls Shadow, Lash Stiletto Mascara and Shine Sensational Lip Gloss in mini eye and lip makeovers to delighted customers. In just 2 days, over 800 makeovers were performed resulting in more than 1000 pieces sold. According to a survey consumers took during the event, over one-third had never tried Maybelline products before, 33% purchased something that day and another 62% said they would make a Maybelline purchase in the future because of this event.

While there, the makeup artist personally trained the store’s Beauty Advisor on the brands so that they may assist future customers. Walgreens stores have an average of 3 beauty advisors per store – the only drug chain with beauty help in all stores.

The event was facilitated by Cosmetic Promotions, Inc – a promotional and marketing company headquartered in Central Florida who handles a slate of marketing programs for the #1 drug chain. As budgets get cut and staff is reduced, Retail stores are utilizing more third party companies to assist in building sales. By hiring outside firms to fill out their lean marketing, chains are finding great results with less time investment.

Cosmetic Promotions prides itself on providing totally turnkey programs for retail chains. For their in-store demo’s they create an “event in a box” kit that is sent to each demonstrator to bring into the store, eliminating the chance of items getting lost before the event. A standard kit includes the products, custom made signs and a beauty basket giveaway that customers can enter to win. “Our makeup artists have a minimum 2 years experience applying cosmetics and we do live telephone trainings before each event” says Joann Tyson, the company’s CEO; “We also train them on selling tips and give them the proper tools so each artist can execute the event. This is why a standard rate of sales at one of our events results in selling about one week’s worth of product in just 4 hours”

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For more information on Cosmetic Promotions, contact Joann Tyson at 888-644-9916 or visit our website: www.cosproageny.com.

Winter Park, FL – The prestigious women’s magazine, Vogue Magazine, sponsored Cover Girl makeovers at 14 Florida market Walgreens stores. The professional makeup artists were demonstrating the new Lash Blast Mascara and promoted the Magazine’s latest sweepstakes – a chance to win an Andrew Marc Salina Handbag – by distributing trend sheets to attendees.

The event offered customers a wonderful Cover Girl gift-with-purchase cosmetic bag, which helped sell over 152 pieces during the event – a 62% closure rate. A survey conducted during the event showed that a whopping 81% of customers surveyed had used Cover Girl before and 99% of them wanted more makeover events at Walgreen’s. Over 59% of the customers were within the target age group (25-50) of the brand and magazine.

Cosmetic Promotions, a promotional and marketing company based in Central Florida executed the event. They handle many programs for magazines at retail stores. Their trained makeup artists have a minimum of 2 years experience applying makeup and execute events all over the United States. The magazines offer the makeovers as a bonus to their clients who purchase more pages in the publications.

“Customers were thrilled with the event, these are good results” says Rachael Cohn, Beauty Promotion Director from Vogue Magazine.

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CosPro Agency executed another incredibly successful event!  Our professional makeup artists promoted Maybelline’s Color Sensational Lip Color and the Pulse Perfection Mascara wand in 479 CVS stores nationwide over the last two weekends in September! 44% of the customers that received the demonstration had not tried either of these products – so this provided great product awareness. And the CVS customer appreciated being able to test the products.

The event resulted in over 5,100 sales — averaging 10.5 pieces of product sold at each store in just 4 hours!  For every makeover performed, the makeup artists at least one product and we averaged 125% closure rate!

Retail stores are using more third-party companies to assist in sustaining and building their sales in today’s tough economic climate.  While budgets get cut and staff is reduced, sales can go into a tailspin as marketing efforts are reduced.  By hiring outside firms to bolster their scaled-back marketing teams, chains are finding great results with less investment.

Cosmetic Promotions, Inc. (CPI); a marketing and promotional company based in Winter Park, Florid,a is a prime example of such a company.  Working with the Beauty Category and Marketing Managers at chains such as Walgreens, Rite Aid, Winn Dixie, and Sears, they design and implement programs and specialty events that relieve the overworked marketing staff and bring in new sales for the chains.

At Walgreens, CPI handles their monthly Beauty Box program.  This program involves sending a monthly “red box” to every store’s Beauty Department. Walgreens has between one and six beauty advisors (BAs) in each of their 7000 stores – on average 3.2 BAs in each store.  The monthly box contains kits from the various beauty vendors such as Revlon, L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever. Inside each kit are marketing tools ranging from signs and customer samples to continuing education training. BAs are encouraged to read and use the materials by entering to win prizes if they send in a quiz postcard for each brand.  CPI grades the postcards and sends the prizes direct to the winners.

When Walgreens eliminated its Beauty Supervisor positions, CPI created a Red Book training program for the stores to help fill the gap. The Beauty Supervisors were responsible for arranging training seminars for their stores. Without this layer, training was becoming difficult to achieve.  The Red Book program provides a book on all the brands that are stocked in the department. Each BA who completes the 50-question Red Book Quiz receives a diploma. So far over 2000 diplomas have been sent out for 2009.

In May, CPI teamed with Coty Fragrances for a Mother’s day fragrance sampling event at 200 Walgreens stores.  More than 6,300 customers received a fragrance demo and 40,000 samples were distributed. In addition, over 750 pieces were sold that day.  Some 80% of the customers had never tried one or more of the fragrances, and 72% of the customers surveyed said they would purchase at a later time, which should result in future sales.

To attract more women to its stores this season, Sears launched its upscale cosmetic and fragrance presentations in 13 stores in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.  CPI assisted in their launch of full beauty departments by conducting makeovers for four brands: Yves Rocher, Iman, L’Oreal, and Maybelline.  Almost 800 makeovers were completed during the 2-day event, which resulted in over 1,000 pieces sold – an impressive 127% closure rate. The professional makeup artists helped consumers choose the right colors and products for them.  Some 77% of the customers had never tried Yves Rocher and 69% had never tried Iman before the event, providing massive exposure to these two exlusive brands.  L’Oreal had the highest sales, with almost 15 pieces per store during the event and 400 coupons distributed to stimulate future L’Oreal sales.  Each vendor had 8 hours of demonstration time in each of the 13 stores. Some 98% of those surveyed wanted more such free makeover events at the stores. A short video was produced of the event for Sears to use in their promotional materials. On December 5^th and 12^th, the same 13 stores will host a similar event featuring Iman, Rimmel, Milani and L’Oreal brands.

At Winn Dixie, Cosmetic Buyer Karen Lagarde engaged CPI to execute a special makeover/demonstration event in their top 25 stores – most in South Florida.  The stores had an event every Saturday during September and four vendors – L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble, Wet n’ Wild, and Pacific World – shared a professional makeup artist to entice consumers to sample beauty products while doing their food shopping.  Winn Dixie sent an email blast to their Customer Rewards Card members in these markets and had in-store signs publicizing the event in the weeks leading up to it.  More than 300 pieces were sold during the event.  To add value and excitement, CPI worked with six vendors to prepare a free beauty sample bag that was distributed during the event.  Winn Dixie is pleased with the sales lift and say they intends to replicate the event before the end of the year.

At Rite Aid, CPI assists their marketing team and beauty department with various community sampling programs. Their Glam Camp Teen Program has been very successful for more than 3 years.  Street teams hand out Glam Camp duffle bags filled with beauty samples at teen-oriented events such as concerts, beauty pagaents, cheerleading camps, and college campus events.  In addition, they bring the teens back to Rite Aid via their annual Back to School campaign, which involves a spread in Seventeen Magazine, Gift with Purchase program, Glam Camp web page, and in-store makeover event.  The Back to School makeovers were conducted at 200 top Rite Aid stores and featured professional makeovers or demonstrations on St Ives, Wet n Wild, Black Radiance, Veet and Clearasil products. More than 2200 pieces were sold during the event, over 3300 demonstrations performed and the website had over 32,000 hits during the August – October time period of the event.  Other sampling events target demographics such as African-American, Hispanic, and the new Men’s sampling program.

For more information on these and other events, contact Joann Tyson (joann@cosmeticpromotions.com or 888-644-9916)

Cosmetic Sales at Drug and Discount Stores Rise Due to In-store Demonstrations

Shoppers visiting Shopko stores in June were surprised to find professional makeup artists promoting CoverGirl products such as Simply Ageless Foundation, TRUblend Foundation and Loose Powder, Perfect Point Plus Eyeliner, Eye Enhancer Eye Shadow, and Eyelights Mascara.  Over 560 customers took advantage of the free makeover and that translated in almost 2000 sales in just 4 hours! 38% of the customers who had the makeover had never used CoverGirl cosmetics and were glad to be able to try before they bought. In addition, 3000 coupons were distributed which will bring the customers back, and 51% of customers surveyed intended to make a purchase.

The Saturday event was supported by an ad and the same store sales increased in these 93 stores by 17% in dollars and almost 23% in units. The chain is considering offering more such events combined with super saver ad programs.

Over at Navarro Drugs, a small chain catering to a mainly Hispanic market, professional, bi lingual makeup artists demonstrated TruBlend Liquid Makeup, Simply Ageless Foundation, TruConcealer, Wetslicks, Lash Blast Luxe ,Eye Enhancers, TruCheeks Blush, Perfect Point Eyeliner  and Continuous Lipstick to customers. Over 267 pieces were sold in less than 4 hours in the 10 Miami area stores. Of those who didn’t purchase that day, 30% indicated intent to buy. At both Navarro and Shopko, customers could enter to win a free beauty basket filled with CoverGirl Products – one per store.

Both programs were completely coordinated and executed by Cosmetic Promotions Inc. The company secures the professional makeup artists, trains them and handles all the details to insure a successful event.

In store events and 2 page magazine spread for Back to School

Harrisburg, PA – Teen spending in the U.S. is expected to reach $208.7 billion by 2011, an increase despite an estimated 3% decline in the 12-17 year old population. Currently, Teens make up over 11% of the U.S. population and are an important target market to RITE AID with its various Glam Camp programs including sampling, a gift with purchase and in-store events all geared towards teen girls 13-19.

The September Seventeen magazine issue (on counter August 10th), will feature a 2-page Glam Camp ad announcing this year’s mega Back to School event happening at RITE AID throughout August and September. Teens can receive a free Glam Camp beauty sample bag by mail when they purchase any 3 items featured in the Glam Camp ad. Maybelline, Clearasil, NYC Cosmetics, Sally Hansen Nails, Got2Be hair, Veet, Loves Baby Soft and Phisoderm are the participating brands.  Seventeen is promoting the gift with purchase event via their website and email blasts. In addition, teens can visit www.riteaid.com/GlamCamp for more details. RITE AID will also promote the event in their August-September Circulars and it is part of the August and September Single Check Rebate Catalog.

At store level, the ad is supported with special signs and displays on tables promoting the gift with purchase feature. There will also be Teen Makeovers conducted by a professional makeup artist at 200 top stores on August 15th, 16th, 22nd and 29th. Teens can get a new Back to School look from Wet n Wild or Black Radiance brand cosmetics and enter to win a beauty basket filled with full size products at each store – 200 baskets will be awarded. Other items being demonstrated include Veet hair remover, Clearasil Pimple Pen or Vanishing Treatment and St Ives Apricot Scrub.  Teens can find a store near them by checking the www.riteaid.com/GlamCamp website.

Cosmetic Promotions, Inc – the national promotional company coordinating the entire event – is utilizing Social Networking such as Twitter and Facebook as another way to promote the event to Teens. CPI secures the professional makeup artists and vendors as well as supplying the bags and baskets. They also designed RITE AID’s in-store signage, Single Check Rebate ad, Seventeen magazine spread, riteaid.com/glamcamp landing page, secured the gift bags and handle the collating and redemption of the gift bags.