DING-DONG, Avon calling. For many of us, that advertising slogan conjures up images of the white-gloved Avon lady and mum sitting at the kitchen table, cooing over a catalogue, and lipstick samples that more often than not ended up smeared across tin
y faces than decorating grown-up lips.
But times have changed since the iconic Avon reps rang doorbells, presented the company's skin-care products to the Lady of the House, and offered the Sixties housewife her own taste of commercial empowerment and financial independence, all from the comfort of her own home.
Women have moved on, however, and no matter how iconic the Avon beauty brand, it too has had to change with the times. As women's lives have increasingly shifted from the domestic environment to the workplace, Avon has adapted its products and its sales strategies and followed its customers there.
Nine years ago, Elaine Fulton started work with Avon with the aim of supplementing her family's income.
Her mother had been an Avon lady so she thought she knew what to expect, but the world of cosy afternoons trying out make-up samples were a thing of the past and the buzz of the fax machine, and working to accommodate the schedules of working women had long-since replaced the ring on the doorbell. It was other people's perceptions, however, that Fulton found hardest to deal with though.
"Many people still thought then that Avon was an old-fashioned thing to do," she recalls, "that the brand was something uncool, that it still had that old-fashioned image and I suppose I could understand that. But, I trusted the products, and to be honest, they sell themselves. The progression over the last nine years has been amazing."
But how has a brand that was recognised for its old-fashioned, homely image and which suffered a commercially turbulent period in the 1980s when it found itself directionless and at the mercy of several takeover bids, managed to reassert itself as a global voice in the beauty industry with a turnover of billions each year?
"I think using lots of well-known models, and getting Reese Witherspoon as global ambassador have helped change the way people look at Avon, absolutely," says Fulton. Witherspoon not only adorned the billboards and magazine spreads for Avon, but her role as a global ambassador, working for the Avon Foundation and its support of women and families, was a smart move by a company trying to re-calibrate itself in the minds of today's women. Witherspoon is a divorced mother of two who has maintained a successful career as one of Hollywood's highest earning actresses and producers.
But can it all be down to Reese?
This year, Avon Products Inc – to give the US beauty company its full name – celebrates 50 years of operations in the UK. It is estimated that over 40 million women have benefited from the earnings opportunity that Avon provides. Gone are the days when the company sold lipstick and bubble bath for children. Today, the cosmetics giant offers everything from high-tech, age-defying skin creams to collectibles and jewellery.
The realisation that women can earn some extra cash while indulging in the most 'girlie' of pursuits, chatting about make-up, has been a temptation impossible to avoid throughout the generations. From the customer's perspective it's a way of retaining a sense of community – given that the reps are most likely to be neighbours, colleagues or family – and receiving the personal service that's hard to come by these days in department stores.
From the moment the Avon brochure drops through a letterbox, the Avon machine is in full-flow. But it's not a complicated beast, in fact simplicity is at the heart of the company's success.
You browse through the brochure, write down your order, give it to your Avon rep, she sends it off. A week or so later, your products arrive. And if you don't like them, you can send them back and get your money back, no questions asked.
I can remember the days in the 1980s, waiting anxiously for our local Avon lady, June, to arrive with her bag of potions and lotions that would feed my teenage craving for make-up.
My love of beauty products had begun much earlier, however, when my mum became a Vanda rep. Vanda, another American beauty company – still in existence – never quite took off in the same way. It was because they had no brochure, my mum believes. In the 1970s, she had to lug her demonstration kit around our village, and was mostly turned away. Probably just as well, as a little girl who loved lipsticks had plundered most of her kit.
"I do think the fact that we can just pop a brochure through a door, and people can order comfortably in their own home, is a big factor in the company's success," says Fulton. "It's such a simple concept, for the rep and for the customer. I can't imagine that I will stop doing Avon in the near future. I see no reason why I would.
"I don't do it for the money to be honest, I just like the products, the company and the social side of it," she says.
There are currently 5.8 million Avon ladies, or representatives, around the globe, in more than 100 countries. Top-earning sales leaders in the UK – the level above reps – turn over in the region of £2 million per annum and earn approximately £250,000 in commission, and the company appears to be recession-proof, with annual revenues of around 10 billion (£6.2bn). The Avon effect has also moved in new directions into China, Russia and eastern European markets, where it has symbolised there what it did for western women in the 1960s. Four lipsticks and two mascaras are sold by Avon every second around the world. Not bad for an operation started by a 28-year-old Californian door-to-door bookseller in 1886.
David McConnell gave away rose oil perfumes as an added incentive to the women buying his books, but soon realised it was the perfumes they really wanted.
He launched the California Perfume Company, selling five fragrances and a range of beauty essentials with an all-important unconditional, money-back offer. McConnell, who always had global aspirations, initially chose the name Avon for a range of products, but in 1939 adopted the moniker for the company itself.
The browse, order and deliver concept he came up with was simple.
This straightforward response has stood the company in good stead. But crucial, too, is the "friendly neighbour" approach promoted by that early 1960s advert – unlike many door-to-door salespeople, the Avon lady works by forging a relationship with her customers.
Karen Coats sold Avon cosmetics to the villagers of Chapelhall, in Lanarkshire for a couple of years in the 1990s. She still swears by the products, and believes Avon's continued success is down to its regeneration and willingness to evolve.
"I sold Avon when I bought my first flat and needed a bit of extra cash," says Karen. "It was such a simple way to earn some money, and the products were really good. That's the key to the brand – to me they are recession-proof because they are known, trusted and offer quality and affordability, but couple that with the touch of glam they now have, with the likes of Reese Witherspoon working for them, and you can see how they succeed."
Witherspoon isn't the first celebrity tie-in with the brand – Loretta Young was associated with Avon back in the 1950s when she was a darling of Hollywood. But the concentrated TV advertising campaigns – Avon went back on screen last year in the UK for the first time since the 1960s – and the company's willingness to embrace modern technology, including the internet, has brought them to a whole new audience.
They've moved from a "ding dong" to a "click click", with an interactive section on their website, called iAvon, where you can download podcasts, watch ad campaigns and browse their ebrochure.
"Avon introduced me to the internet," says Fulton. "When I first started doing my orders online I was really nervous, I hadn't used a computer, but once I got going I realised how easy it was. And Avon are there on the end of the e-mails all the time – you get a reply almost instantly if you ever have a problem."
Sue Glancy, a Scottish area sales manager for Avon, has definitely seen the benefit of the TV advertising campaigns. Glancy recruits Avon reps for the Stirling area, and currently has 400 under her care, with more wanting to sign up every day.
"The TV campaigns have had a massive effect," she says. "We've been inundated. But word of mouth helps too. We've had people sell Avon just to keep their mortgage payments up when interest rates have affected them adversely. I think the fact you can sell as much or as little as you like is the beauty of Avon. You can sell to family and friends, you can sell to your work colleagues, or you can ask to be allocated a 'territory', which is usually a street or streets that you will work. You don't have to sell every three-week cycle, and you never get pressure from anyone to sell more."
Glancy has further evidence of Avon's global recognition as a brand, with a few Avon reps from Eastern Europe now working under her. "I have a few girls in my team who sold in Poland, and when they came here, they decided to sell here," she explains. "It was something they knew and were familiar with. "I had never sold Avon before I took this job, but of course I was aware of it. There are so many reasons why Avon is a success and why I am sure it will continue for at least another 50 years in the UK.
"It's affordable for a start, but I honestly believe that the main success of Avon comes through word of mouth – being handed down through families. My mum sold Avon, and many of my reps have someone in their family who did."
So Hollywood stars help, and TV ads work. The fact you can shop online at the Avon shop adds another layer to their selling power. The money back, no questions asked guarantee is surely a big plus point. But the true power of Avon lies, it seems, with your mum, your granny, your aunt or your sister.
"My mum sold Avon for a long time," says Fulton. "I suppose that's really why I did it. I can remember her grey case with all her products in it."
Says Coats, "I had always used Avon as my mum had always used it, so I wasn't so much selling as passing on information on products I believed in.
"I really enjoyed speaking to customers about the products and new ranges coming out and making recommendations, as all good Avon ladies do. I believed in, and still do believe in, the brand I think Avon have got the balance just right and haven't tried to grow to big for it's comfy slippers but hasn't stagnated either." r
Avon (0845 601 404,
www.avonshop.co.uk)
avon's famous facesl In 2007 Reese Witherspoon became Avon's global ambassador and honorary chairperson of the Avon Foundation for Women.
l In 1952 Hollywood star Loretta Young appeared in Avon advertising, telling the US market "choosing gifts is so convenient, the Avon way". Young appeared in various Avon campaigns in the 1950s.
l In 2001 Avon signed up tennis star sisters Serena and Venus Williams on a three-year deal – the first sports stars they had used to endorse their brand.
l Famous faces to appear in the Avon brochure include Sadie Frost, Sophie Anderton, Leslie Ash, Marie Helvin, Pamela Stevenson, Jerry Hall and Yasmin Le Bon.
l Famous UK celebrity models have included Denise Van Outen, Tess Daly, Louise Redknapp, Tamzin Outhwaite, Olympic gold medallist Sally Gunnell and Gemma Arterton (inset), the face of the brand's Bond Girl 007 fragrance.
l Salma Hayek is an Avon spokesperson.
l Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey is the original Avon man, with his own fragrance for the brand, Unscripted, launched this spring in the UK.
l Friends star Courteney Cox is the face of new Avon scent Spotlight, which will be available here from November 2009.
