Britney Signs With Arden
By Julie Naughton
NEW YORK — The bar has been raised in the celebrity beauty sweepstakes: Pop princess Britney Spears has signed a deal with Elizabeth Arden to develop Spears-branded fragrance, color cosmetics and skin care. This news confirms a report that ran in these columns last Friday.
The first item to be released under the Spears nameplate will be a fragrance, intended to roll out in Arden’s U.S. prestige department store lineup — about 2,000 doors — this fall, with a global release planned for spring 2005. Color cosmetics and skin care will follow, although they are not expected for at least two years. Spears joins two other famous faces working with Arden: Academy-Award winning actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Taylor’s scents are branded with her name and Zeta-Jones is the face of the company’s flagship brand.
“I love perfume and cosmetics and am so excited to develop my own line with Elizabeth Arden,” Spears told WWD Thursday.
Spears isn’t just licensing her name to the beauty giant. In an exclusive interview with WWD Thursday afternoon, Arden president Paul West noted that the songstress is personally involved with all aspects of the fragrance’s creative process, including the development of the juice, packaging and marketing. Spears has already suggested possible bottle designs and olfactory notes for her scent, which is expected to be one in a line of many Spears-branded scents, he added. Despite rampant speculation at last week’s Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association meeting in Boca Raton, Fla., West emphasized that no oil house has yet won the contract for Spears’ first scent.
West was upbeat about Spears’ prospects with the company. “Britney is an ideal partner on many counts,” he said. “She is an incredibly talented young woman whose career is still very much on the upswing — witness the fact that she’s selling out upcoming concert dates in hours, and has a number-one single right now. Britney has huge appeal both in the U.S. and abroad. She’s very ambitious — and she’s applying her considerable drive into making this the best brand it can be. We’re very excited to be working with her.”
West said that Arden plans TV advertising at launch and around the holidays for the new brand. While he noted that it has not yet been developed, Spears’ prowess as a singer and dancer “would make showing those incredible talents in a commercial likely.” Plans are also in play for Spears to do personal appearances to promote the brand.
West declined repeatedly to comment on the length of Spears’ contract with Arden or on any of its monetary details. However, several industry sources speculated that the contract is royalty-based, and it is thought that the contract will run initially for about five years, with Spears possibly making a $10 million minimum over the initial five-year period. Several sources speculated that she could make as much as $25 million to $30 million from the brand during that time. It is thought that Spears will receive a 5 percent royalty.
Arden’s target age group for the Spears brand is 17 to 35 year olds, making it a younger demographic than those for its Arden and Elizabeth Taylor brands; both the Taylor and Arden lineups are said to draw their largest customer bases from women 35-plus. “We think that Britney will draw in a whole new group of consumers for us,” added West.
Spears’ deal is the latest in what has become an unusually heavy rush by celebrities to join forces with beauty brands. Since January, Scarlett Johansson has signed with Calvin Klein Cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger Toiletries has picked up Beyoncé Knowles for a development gig (tentatively titled True Star) and Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp has signed a spokesperson deal with Almay. And it doesn’t look like the flood of celebrities heading into beauty deals will slow down anytime soon; as reported, the Estée Lauder Cos. is said to be working with Ashley Judd on a spokeswoman deal for its new BeautyBank division, and market rumors are circulating that Sarah Jessica Parker is looking for a scent deal, possibly with Coty Inc.
The Spears deal was brokered through Brand Sense Marketing, the Los-Angeles-based integrated marketing and licensing firm. “We are thrilled to have Elizabeth Arden on board as a premier licensing partner for our client Britney Spears,” said Robert Hollander, president of Brand Sense. “They have already demonstrated superb creativity and exceptional commitment to building this key category of Britney’s licensing program into a huge retail success.”
The Spears contract wasn’t the only news Arden had Thursday. The company also released its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2004 numbers. Onetime costs for debt reduction and restructuring caused Elizabeth Arden to report a wider fourth quarter loss attributable to shareholders of $11.6 million, or 48 cents, for the three months ended Jan. 31. That compared with a loss of $431,000, or 2 cents, in the like period last year. When excluding the charges, the beauty firm reported net income of $11.3 million, or 39 cents a diluted share. Sales for the quarter rose 26 percent to $213.9 million compared with $169.8 million. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, net sales increased 20.5 percent.
In addition, the company said it expects earnings per share to grow 22 percent to 24 percent for the year ending Jan. 31, 2005, excluding any onetime costs, and said it anticipates sales for the year to increase 8 to 10 percent.
For the year, Arden reported a loss of $20.1 million, or $1.02 a diluted share, including the noncash charge related to conversion of the Series D convertible preferred stock owned by Unilever. Excluding the charges, income was $24.5 million, or 97 cents. Last year, Arden reported income of $14.5 million, or 78 cents. Sales in 2003 increased 8.3 percent to $814.4 million, compared with $752 million. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, sales increased 4.3 percent.
— With contributions from Jennifer Weitzman
I don't like the idea, because I don't like britney
