This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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What if new product development didn’t have to be so complicated and expensive?
NIOD, the second brand from Estée Lauder-owned Deciem, entered Sephora in August with an NPD tactic borrowed from tech companies like Apple.
“NIOD is all about high science and high tech, and then bringing it to the consumer in as simple of a way as possible,” Amy Bi, vp of global brand at Deceim, told Glossy. “It’s very similar to an iPhone. As technology within skin care evolves, as research evolves, we simply upgrade our products.”
For example, NIOD’s best-selling Copper Amino Isolate 3 1:1 (CAIS) serum is on its third iteration, which is noted in the name as “3.” Similar to an iPhone, which is on its 18th iteration, NIOD can constantly innovate without having to reinvent the wheel.
“We’re just upgrading them similar to how your iOS goes through a software upgrade overnight and then a bug is fixed or something has been simplified for you,” Bi said. “It’s the exact same approach.”
She told Glossy that some consumers stay well-informed about the latest version, which is messaged across traditional marketing channels like email and social media. But most consumers simply appreciate that the brand is always optimizing its formulas. Others never even catch on to the process.
NIOD, pronounced nee-odd, launched in 2015 as the second brand from Deciem, the beauty incubator behind The Ordinary. Deciem was purchased by Estée Lauder Companies in 2017 for a total investment of $1.7 billion.
As previously reported by Glossy, NIOD is positioned as a science-meets-longevity skin-care brand and serves a burgeoning cohort of biohacking wellness enthusiasts. The brand was early to the copper peptide skin-care trend that’s growing today and, like The Ordinary, prices the entire line competitively. NIOD’s products range from $26-$93.
Bi has been with Deciem for five years. Her CV includes nearly seven years at Nike, her last role being global brand director of women’s lifestyle.
NIOD still launches new products; its cadence is simply slower. “We’re not constantly on this new product launch cycle that so much of the industry is on,” Bi said. “ We’re actually just focused on maintaining our key SKUs, our key products, and then upgrading them when we see that there’s exciting technology that serves the same benefit, or there’s a way that we can improve the texture, the efficacy, anything to do with the product itself.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean every consumer loves saying goodbye to older versions, so the company has mastered a slow process of phasing out older iterations, similar to how Apple slowly discontinues older iPhone models.
Bi sat down with Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to walk through the benefits, the challenges, and advantages of an iterative approach to new product development.
On navigating the risks of iterative skin care
“It’s definitely a risk. Certainly, people get very passionate about what they know and love. So, for example, [with] our current [Superoxide Dismutase 3 Enzyme] SDEM3, we actually have the previous version still available on our website, because we know a lot of people still love the old version. We want to give people an opportunity to transition, as well, without completely removing the thing they’ve become attached to and love. And so, sometimes, we will make that decision, depending on customer feedback or the formulation. Do we think it’s too much of a price point change? Do we think it’s too much of a consumer experience change? Sometimes we’ll still have the older version. It’s very similar to what you see at an Apple store. They’ll have the old version and the new version. [If] you’re very educated on what the differences are, the new version is clearly going to be more advanced. But if you want the previous, it’s still available for you, at least for the first little while.”
On honing her marketing skills at Nike
“Nike is a master storyteller. That’s the biggest thing that you’re taught when you work in marketing there. How do you bring inspiration, innovation and romance to, for Nike’s sake, footwear and apparel. So it’s about translating technology into something that’s very applicable to, in Nike’s case, an athlete. So it’s very similar to NIOD where we have something super advanced that the average consumer is probably not going to want to learn all about, but how do you translate that into storytelling and into an approach that’s very digestible and relatable? How can they see how it can fit into their everyday life and how it’ll improve their overall well-being?”
