The Secret Behind Elida Beauty's Resurgence in the Competitive Beauty Market

The beauty industry currently holds the largest share of the 1.7 trillion dollar global wellness market. And like so many fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries, beauty has built success on the ability to react quickly to emerging trends and sometimes fleeting fads. But times are changing, and what generated growth in the past may not be enough to sustain growth going forward. Not without embracing technologies—digital and bio—shifting narratives from aesthetics-only to holistic wellbeing, and demonstrating science-backed value.

The landscape is also more crowded than ever, with low barriers to entry for startups and opportunities to target niche segments. However, as long as scaling remains a challenge for many beauty startups, legacy brands maintain an advantageous position thanks to established market presence, customer loyalty, and greater financial resources. But it’s not a given; these incumbents risk forfeiting their advantage if they fail to innovate. Take, for instance, Revlon, which—despite its iconic status and broad recognition—filed for bankruptcy in 2022 following difficulties keeping pace with more agile and innovative competitors.

Committed to maintaining not only relevance in the market but also leadership, Elida Beauty, a subsidiary of Unilever, set out to redefine its trajectory. The company manages a portfolio of 22 brands, including Q-Tips, Brut, Caress, VO5, and others. Each brand is rich in heritage, but at the time of Elida Beauty’s founding in 2021, each was in need of some revitalization. And so, Elida Beauty got to work reimagining these brands for today’s consumers.

The imperative for innovation led-growth

Ivaylo Schurliev, Global Marketing Innovation Lead and one of the first employees at Elida Beauty, describes the early challenges the company faced. Having just spun out as an independent entity from FMCG giant Unilever, Elida Beauty’s portfolio was in decline with a negative 4% growth. It had to turn this around while, at the same time, building capabilities and getting a new, lean business up and running. A real case of building the plane as you fly it.

“In the beauty industry, 50%, sometimes more, of growth is driven by innovation, and so companies must stay organized and proactive.”

To address the first goal, the mandate to innovate—and to do so systematically and continuously—was clear. According to Schurliev, “In the beauty industry, 50%, sometimes more, of growth is driven by innovation, and so companies must stay organized and proactive. This means having a clear plan for the coming years’ launches, understanding regional trade windows, and ensuring the innovation pipeline has sufficient, impactful initiatives.”

With this understanding, Elida Beauty set out to embed innovation as a core value and scale it throughout the company and across all brands. That’s where the second goal came in: developing the structures, systems, processes, and culture to support continuous innovation.

No silos, one team

It’s no coincidence that Schurliev’s team is named Marketing Innovation. Elida Beauty is a marketing-driven company, and much of its innovation centers around shaping brand narratives, engagement, and experiences. This innovation most often starts with a customer insight, which then evolves into product development involving new ingredients, fragrances, or packaging formats.

Therefore, Elida Beauty initially focused on finding a solution that would primarily serve the project leaders in the Innovation Marketing team. But, as the company grew, the requirements went from needing an easy-to-use project management tool for marketers to a comprehensive innovation management system. One capable of standardizing and unifying information across departments—not just Marketing Innovation but also Sales, R&D, and Supply Chain.

With a self-described “no silos, one team” approach, Elida Beauty needed a system capable of coordinating innovation efforts across multiple departments, not to mention its 22 brands. The leadership team at Elida Beauty was particularly focused on ensuring that the innovation pipeline was robust and well-structured to deliver new products year after year. 

"You need to be very well organized about what you are going to deliver next year, what you are going to launch, and when are the trade windows for certain clients."

"You need to be very well organized about what you are going to deliver next year, what you are going to launch, and when are the trade windows for certain clients," Schurliev explains. This need for organization was not just about maintaining a schedule but also about adapting to varying market demands across different countries and regions.

An innovation system makeover

Focusing on a unified, company-wide innovation strategy is crucial in an industry where trends and consumer preferences can shift rapidly. To facilitate this, Elida Beauty introduced an end-to-end innovation management system that:

• Provides a centralized view of the company’s global portfolio to ensure a sufficient and balanced pipeline. 
• Standardizes processes for repeatable workflows that reduce manual effort and speed up time-to-market.
• Allows for flexibility in structures and use cases to adapt to individual brand’s needs and scale with the business.
• Integrates seamlessly across all levels of the company to boost employee participation in innovation.  
• Enables real-time collaboration and data sharing to never miss an insight, opportunity, or risk. 

Implementing this solution also meant training staff across departments, ensuring that everyone from marketing to supply chain was aligned with the company's innovation goals. With over 60% adoption across the entire company—now around 350 people—engagement has been one of the biggest achievements.

From the individual to the departmental and regional levels at Elida Beauty, there is a great sense of accountability in contributing to innovation. At the management level, decision-makers are empowered to execute the right projects at the right time, thanks to the system’s transparency and automated reporting.

​​Elida Beauty’s innovation system is designed to be dynamic, allowing for flexibility in how projects are managed while maintaining a rigorous structure that ensures all potential initiatives are thoroughly vetted and aligned with the company’s strategic goals. This approach has led to a resurgence in growth—up six percentage points in just three years—and a “refounding” of its iconic brands. 

"Our rapid turnaround from a negative to a positive growth trajectory showcases the power of integrated innovation management."

The company's ability to quickly adapt and innovate is now its defining strength, setting it apart in the fiercely competitive beauty industry. "Our rapid turnaround from a negative to a positive growth trajectory showcases the power of integrated innovation management," says Schurliev. 

Redefining industry standards with bold moves

Elida Beauty's success story is about more than just internal changes; it's about redefining industry standards. With a centralized innovation management system, teams can easily integrate customer feedback directly into the product development cycle, closing the loop between consumer insights and product innovation. This approach enhances product relevance and deepens customer engagement, which is crucial in the process of refounding Elida Beauty’s brands. For instance, the company’s focus on sustainability and ethical practices within its innovation process has resonated well with modern consumers, who increasingly seek brands that align with their values.

Elida Beauty's journey from a newly-formed subsidiary to a trendsetting leader in the beauty industry illustrates the transformative power of innovation when combined with strategic vision and robust execution. It stands as a testament to the fact that even the most established companies can reinvent themselves and lead the charge in redefining industry paradigms.