How Avon’s new CMO plans to modernize the 137-year-old beauty brand

To make this happen, Avon promoted its chief marketing officer, Kristof Neirynck, to chief executive officer and replaced him with its head of marketing, Özlem Çitçi. With four years under her belt at Avon, Çitçi is now ushering in new brand positioning, rolling out a fresh media strategy and helping the retailer shift its distribution model.

“For over 137 years, Avon has defined its purpose as empowering women by providing them with earning opportunities, to be financially independent, and to work from the comfort of their homes. It has transformed the lives of countless women,” she tells The Drum.

It is Çitçi’s job to put that brand positioning at the center of its marketing. “Avon is such a purposeful and iconic brand, with amazing quality products at such affordable prices, that I want the whole world to know about this.”

Last year, Avon debuted fresh branding with a new “modern and contemporary” logo and is gearing up to release rebranded packaging across all of its products. “It is a stronger statement of the brand; when you look at the angles and curves, the logo is now all about being soft and strong.”

According to Çitçi, Avon is a well-known brand and is regarded as high-quality among its customers, but among “non-Avon shoppers,” the brand isn’t known for quality. Over 94% of the UK population is aware of Avon, according to YouGov, but just under half the population (47%) likes the brand. It is also ranked 34th on YouGov’s list of popular health and beauty brands, way behind retailers such as Boots at number three, Superdrug at sixth and The Body Shop at 21st.

Çitçi admits that Avon is thought of as “my mother’s brand,” leading to the perception it is “outdated.” ‘Your mum sells Avon’ has even become a slur and a viral video trend on TikTok.

It’s Çitçi’s ambition to flip that narrative and see daughters introduce Avon products to their mothers instead. The brand is starting to see this happening with viral products. An Avon lip oil organically became a viral hit after the marketing team noticed what was happening, sent samples to beauty influencers and then ran campaigns around the product. “The ratings and reviews of the products by consumers organically are helping the overall business,” says Çitçi.

Avon reps as social media influencers

@avon_uk A natural daytime look for those cold days ❄️ #coldgirlmakeup #icymakeup #blush #highlighterstick #naturalmakeuptutorial #wintermakeuplook #makeup #makeuptutorial #beautytok #avon ♬ Dj Slow with You (Remix) - Diar

Avon’s social strategy is focused on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. “TikTok is for reaching younger consumers and trendsetting, Instagram is for sharing beauty expertise and Facebook is great for connecting with Avon representatives.”

The brand is also helping its representatives to become beauty influencers on social by giving them training and assets. “We are encouraging them to grow their social media network to share the product needs, share with the Avon brand,” Çitçi explains.

To do this, Avon has developed a digitalized shoppable brochure that its representatives can send via WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. It has also created an app called Avon On, which allows reps to process orders, track their business and post on social media.

“The personal relationships customers have with the representatives needs to evolve into a digital one. So, we are enabling our reps to become digital entrepreneurs. We want them to take their businesses online to e-commerce and social media.”

Alongside business-as-usual posts, Avon will drum up support around tentpole marketing campaigns. “We have an approach where we create moments during big launches to excite and engage our reps to enable their sharing on social media.”

Avon won’t be neglecting TV advertising anytime soon, though. In fact, it is over-investing in TV, more than its share of the market, with Çitçi saying: “We see that strategy working well for us.” For TV, the marketing team has tweaked its communications to be more inclusive and inject more emotion into the ads.

Çitçi points to a recent campaign that features the London beatbox artist Hamza talking about how Avon products give her confidence to perform. The launch also included a donation campaign that saw Avon donate 70% of profits from the limited-edition product to the charities Refuge and Women’s Aid. “Bringing more of the brand into the product communications is the strategy,” says Çitçi.

Avon opens its first stores

In November, Avon announced it would be opening its first shops in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and Italy. The openings follow a successful pilot in Turkey, where the retailer now has 75 outlets run through a franchise model.

In the UK, Avon also has partnerships with Amazon and Superdrug to stock its best sellers range. Since the launch into Superdrug stores in 2023, Avon has noticed that sales representatives within a five-mile radius of the Superdrug stores have higher sales. “Having the best sellers in retail is helping with the consumer trials and sort of helping with our representative business.”

The aim is to get to one seamless customer journey where Avon products are available online, in-store and directly through its representatives. “The omnichannel transformation is going to be a critical enabler for Avon.”

Citci will consider her strategy a success when “consumers start looking at the brand in a new way, when there is a big increase in brand consideration and daughters introduce the brand to their mothers.”