IT WAS a visual stunt to promote L’Oréal’s new skin care product for men. Like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, the youthful face of a male model appeared to sag and wrinkle as he aged rapidly from a vigorous 25 to a mature 65.
Lindsay Owen-Jones has yet to celebrate his 59th birthday but the L’Oréal chairman pretended to cringe at the sight of advancing years on the screen. “It’s horrible, I can feel my wrinkles growing,” he joked to yesterday’s audience of stock market analysts.
Mr Owen-Jones has earned every crease and line on his highly expressive face. The boy from the Wirral who daydreamed of faraway places as he walked along Penny Lane to school went further than he could ever have imagined.
In his 17 years as chairman of L’Oréal, he has transformed a French hair products maker into an international brands colossus with an unequalled profits record. It was enough to earn him France’s highest honour, the Légion d’honneur. He transformed himself, acquiring not only a deftness in the French language but mannerisms and a personal style that completely disguise his nationality, even to the French.
Age, nonetheless, seemed to preoccupy him yesterday as he described an unusually difficult year for L’Oréal in which his European customers kept a tight grip on their purses. Men are the holy grail for cosmetics firms but the elderly are also a target, he said, noting that women are now using anti-ageing creams into their 70s.
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Why does L’Oréal continue to use younger models? Owen-Jones suggests that they only look younger as you get older but he points to a problem in recruiting famous faces to sell to seniors. “I’m not sure Miss Catherine Deneuve would like to be associated with that market segment.” But he points out that Andie MacDowell is the face for Revitalift: “She is no spring chicken. She has been with us for 30 years.”
Sales are growing even faster at the other end of the age spectrum where Lancôme’s fruit-flavoured lip gloss has become a favourite of “tweenies” and a mounting concern for those who worry about the sexualisation of pre-adolescents.
Mr Owen-Jones seeks to reassure; L’Oréal has a “sensible mum” policy that guides its marketing. “Most sensible mums don’t think you should wear make-up until you are teenage,” he says. “But the definition of what is a teenager changes,” he adds.