A couple of months ago, L’Or?al introduced its “Men’s Expert” series of products targeted exclusively at men, taking into account the typical issues with men’s facial skin. I don’t want to focus on the products themselves (which I like quite a bit), but rather on the marketing and branding used. The packaging’s technoid, mechanistic appearance with cool metallic grey and bright orange conveys an image of functionality and no-nonsense efficiency. The very clean and clear iconography reminds us rather of technical devices than of beauty products, and the instructions avoid the usual jargon to be found on women’s cosmetics products. And the products are cheaper than comparable products for the fairer half of the population.

On the (German) website people can download not only screen savers and wallpapers, but also an icon set ? which stresses the artwork’s importance for the success of this product line. (Funnily enough, the product has been introduced as “Men Expert” in Germany, but “Men’s Expert” in the US.) All in all, quite a nice example of creating a new marketing by addressing a so-far “underdeveloped”, non-saturated target group.

Obviously, this product line and its marketing success have found quite some acclaim ? if you google it, you’ll find a Datamonitor report on “effective cross-generational marketing”, some articles announcing the product line launch, and an interesting New York Times article (requires registration).