Frederic Charles, CEO of Pierre Fabre Hong Kong and Macau, outlines brand perceptions of Pierre Fabre’s dermatological products in Hong Kong, e-commerce, and other emerging skincare trends in Asia.   With the opening of Pierre Fabre Hong Kong affiliate in 2016, what were the main achievements so far? The affiliate opening allowed us to bring all of Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmetic expertise in terms of medicalization, selective distribution and retail marketing “360 degrees”. Concretely, several partnerships have been established with Hong Kong health professionals, significant investments have been made to improve our customers’ experience both off-line with, most notably, recruitment of exclusive beauty advisers on the point-of-sale, and on-line with the latest example being the launch of our “Eau Thermale Avene Club”, a CRM program this year. Results have been quite encouraging so far: Eau Thermale Avene did consolidate its market leadership, its total awareness rose by 40 percent, moreover, the dermo-cosmetics category has been the most dynamic in the industry these last two years, with more than 37 percent growth in value recorded for the first semester of 2018.   What is the brand perception of Pierre Fabre in Hong Kong? First of all, for most of the Hong Kong dermatologists, they already know our brands, especially Eau Thermale Avene, from previous experience with our products, medical publications or major worldwide dermatological congresses, therefore they have a positive response to the company becoming more active locally. Indeed, every year we are now sponsoring a major symposium during the Hong Kong Society of Dermatology and Venereology annual scientific meeting. The first year, we had Professor Christos Zouboulis, a German expert who came to discuss acne. In 2017, we had Professor Antony Young, a key expert in photoprotection. This year we received Dr. Vincent Sibaud, a world-leading expert in onco-dermatology. Every year since 2016, we also bring some Hong Kong dermatologists to discover our facilities and exchange with our medical teams in France. This develops our local credibility by gaining endorsements among local health professionals. It also helps to transfer expertise and to better understand the needs of the local market. Moreover, we involve them in local clinical trials to prove the universal benefits of our products. Finally, we are working with those local medical partners to develop educational programs for both professionals and patients concerning topics such as photoprotection, atopic dermatitis as well as onco-dermatology. Then Hong Kong health professionals perceive Pierre Fabre as one of their reference laboratories when they look for medicated cosmetics, but our relationship is very collaborative and goes way beyond just products. Regarding Hong Kong consumers, they usually come to our brands when they look for naturality, safety, and efficacy, Eau Thermale Avene being the obvious choice when it comes to sensitive skin. Yet we believe we can still convince many more to try and use our products.   What are your most demanded products in Hong Kong? As for the rest of Asia, our iconic Thermal Spring Water spray is our best-selling product in Hong Kong. Today we have a very strong local market for hydration. Concerns rise over air pollution, daily stress and skin damage, driving customers to look for high-concentrate facial care including face masks, anti-agers, moisturizers with a deep-tissue action. If you looked at markets in Europe, you would notice how our best sellers are related to more medicated skin issues such as atopic dermatitis, acne, and sun protection. However, Hong Kong is much more skewed towards beauty segments. We are working hard to develop those medicated categories, for example, photoprotection which is one of our strongest growing segments at the moment.   What is the need for localized strategies to penetrate the market? Mr. Pierre Fabre’s approach, “from health to beauty”, was quite universal and very visionary.

Mr. Pierre Fabre’s approach, “from health to beauty”, was quite universal and very visionary