Guerrilla Branding: My first independent brand creation
In 1992 I founded Couture Brands in the UK with a mission to create and develop volume-prestige or ‘masstige’ brands. Our first client was london hairdresser Nicky Clarke who had become famous at John Frieda and had just started his own Mayfair salon charging the highest prices in London.
The brand had to be innovative enough to compete against the big L’Oreal and Wella-type brands in supermarkets at a premium price without advertising as well as against John Frieda’s innovative product lines. A unique semi-professional concept was needed.
As the world’s first aromatherapy hair care brand, the first to use aluminium packaging, from a rising star hairdresser with constant media attention, the salon formula brand was an instant success.
It was eventually licensed to Wella and is now a P&G brand but exists in cheaper plastic bottles under a different concept. Under P&G it suffered the same fate as the Vidal Sassoon brand.
