Burt's Bees Case Study: Retaining Brand Values in Natural Personal Care following Acquisition

Content

• Catalyst
• Summary
• Analysis
• Introduction
  • The natural personal care market is a key growth segment
  • Large companies are looking to capitalize on the growing natural and ethical segment by purchasing successful natural personal care players
  • Colgate-Palmolive and L'Oreal have recently purchased natural personal care companies
  • Clorox follows their lead by purchasing Burt's Bees, in order to improve its 'natural' focus
  • The purchase price far exceeds Burt's sales, showing how much the company believes in Burt's future sales potential
  • The company also produces a 'green' Clorox line, which has caused criticism that it is jumping on the bandwagon
  • The sale of Burt's caused criticism from Burt's core enthusiasts
  • Critics fear the sale will dilute Burt's ethical focus
  • but Burt's plans to operate as a separate entity in order to retain original ethical philosophy
  • The company continues to self-regulate its products to assure consumers that their naturalness is authentic, which could reassure critics of the sale
  • Burt's markets its ethical business through novel initiatives
  • The company relied on grass roots level marketing prior to its acquisition, including touring the US with the 'Bee-utify Your World' tour
  • Post acquisition, the company has utilized Clorox's extensive marketing budget by forming a national campaign, clamping down on 'natural' products that aren't natural
  • The company forms a national print campaign to promote 'real' natural products
  • Burt's chaired a meeting with the NPA to attempt to form industry standards on natural products
  • Burts new product introductions are well aligned with consumer and product trends in the industry as a whole
  • The popular pomegranate ingredient is used in some of Burt's' products
  • The company has added an anti-aging range with on-trend antioxidant ingredients
  • Burt's has also developed a men's range to capture this growing market
• Appendix
  • Case study series
  • Methodology
  • Secondary sources
  • Further reading
  • Ask the analyst
  • Datamonitor consulting
  • Disclaimer
• List of Figures
  • Figure 1: Natural personal care is best analyzed from the perspective of 'broad', 'narrow' and 'organic' definitions
  • Figure 2: Clorox highlighted its interest in green products with the introduction of an environmentally-friendly household product range at the beginning of 2008
  • Figure 3: Burt's Bees The Greater Good Business Model, highlighting its main areas of focus
  • Figure 4: Burt's Bees US tour tent at the Earth Day event in New York, 2007
  • Figure 5: Burt's Bees' campaign aimed to educate consumers on the ingredients they should look for in natural products