COSMETICS Lauder's 'gift with purchase' became an industry staple

Cosmetics queen Estee Lauder pioneered the innovative promotion.
BALTIMORE SUN
A skin-care product's promise of radiant, rejuvenated skin is tempting enough. Throw in a gift with a purchase, and who can resist?
Estee Lauder, who died a week ago at age 97, will be as remembered for her marketing prescience as her self-named beauty empire. Just say the magic words, "This special gift is yours at no extra charge," and wallets automatically opened, Lauder discovered early in her career.
A gift is a gift, she realized, no matter how much you pay for it.
Lauder, who started her business by selling four homemade skin-care products in 1930, "absolutely, superbly understood the counter and how to engage the customer," said Adelaide Farah, group editorial director for Beauty Fashion Magazine, a monthly trade publication. "The gift with purchase was a brilliant idea, is still a brilliant idea."
As Lauder promoted creams, lotions and bath oils, her "gift with purchase" offers, as well as product demonstrations and free samples, lured department-store customers to her brand.
Competitors snickered, but profits skyrocketed for Lauder. The strategy ultimately transformed the cosmetics industry for both prestige lines such as Clinique, which is part of Lauder, and more populist direct sales companies, such as Avon.
Pumps, gels and lipstick shades may come and go, but "gift with purchase" remains an industry staple for new products, said Jenny B. Fine, editor of Beauty Biz, a monthly magazine published by Women's Wear Daily.
Idea grew
Just about every department store cosmetics counter offers a freebie such as a lipstick with a minimum purchase. "It became an amazing promotional vehicle for Lauder and every other beauty company."
Lauder's marketing breakthroughs spawned further innovations. "Purchase with purchase," the conceptual offspring of gift with purchase, is another way to snag cosmetic customers who gladly buy a certain elixir if it means getting a second product at a reduced price.
Just who gets the gift with purchase, or who benefits from a "purchase with purchase," is open to question. "Ask any salesperson at an Estee Lauder counter when she gets her biggest paycheck. It's the month of the [gift with purchase] promotion," said Paula Begoun, author of "Don't go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me."
For the consumer, though, a gift with purchase is not a real gift, Begoun says. "It's not necessarily your lipstick color, not necessarily a product your skin needs. You are being lured in to buy the full sizes and to buy other lipsticks and to buy other products and these are not anything you can return."
One drawback
Still, women willingly fall under the spell. "We fall for it every time," said Begoun, who nevertheless admires the Lauder conglomerate's trail-blazing work in cosmetic technology.
At times when customers get wise to the seasonal rhythms of the bonus cosmetics, the strategy can lose its marketing punch.
"From the point of view of the company, what's bad about it, consumers have been trained to only buy when there's a gift with purchase," Fine said. "You might wait to buy the fragrance until a particular store has a gift with purchase promotion going on."
Still, customers are always willing to spend more money to get something for free. "The gift with purchase is a great marketing tool," said Beth Ratrie, a Mary Kay beauty consultant who lives in north Baltimore.
"You set a certain dollar amount and as people get close to it, you just say, 'Well, you know, you can get one of these if you just spend five more dollars.' It's amazing. It really works."