Supreme ambition: Sisley aims to outpace Asia beauty market growth

Asia represents a major market of opportunity for the high-end French brand. The continent is home to markets like China, the firm’s number one market globally, where it has a presence in over 50 cities and across the major e-commerce platforms.

In the wake of COVID-19, the brand grew by 58% in 2020. It continued to experience strong growth in 2021 before going flat in 2022 due to the poor market conditions in China.

“It’s a huge market, a fast-evolving market and we are growing,”​ said Nicolas Chesnier, regional managing director, Asia Pacific, Sisley Paris.

At the same time, Sisley is making moves into emerging markets like Indonesia, where it unveiled its first boutique two years ago.

Chesnier also highlighted opportunities for growth in India, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and even Japan.

“In Japan, we’re not very big, quite far from that. It’s a market with a lot of local brands. But I think Japan still is a very huge opportunity and it’s very important within the region,” ​said Chesnier.

The brand also has a huge significant potential for expansion within the makeup category in Asia.

“While we are a three-axis brand, when people think about us, they think about skin care because we have that recognition. We are still considered quite underdeveloped in makeup. In makeup there’s a challenge because there are the designer brands that are linked closely to fashion, and then there are the specific makeup artist brands,” ​said Chesnier.

However, Sisley's makeup products are infused with skin care benefits, which aligns seamlessly with the prevailing makeup trends.

The company has also identified opportunities in hair care and fine fragrances where it has also launched products. In particular, this year it launched the L'Eau Rêvée collection of fragrances.

Advancing innovation​

Established in 1976, Sisley was founded by the Hubert d’Ornano and Isabelle d'Ornano. The company remains privately-owned and is managed by the family. The couple’s children Philippe d’Ornano and Christine d’Ornano lead the company as president and global vice president respectively.

Chesnier believes that the brand has all the right ingredients for success in Asia. This includes a rich heritage, a strong background in skin research, an expertise in natural ingredients, and high-performing products.

He added that these were all elements that were highly appreciated by the discerning Asian consumer.

Recently, after 15 years of research, Sisley has unveiled the reformulation of the Supremÿa La Nuit The Supreme Anti-ageing Skin Care. The product first debuted in 2009 to address signs of ageing, particularly in the evening when the skin's regenerative processes are most active.

Supremÿa La Nuit’s breakthrough technology was able to impede cell regeneration in case of suboptimal cell conditions and subsequently initiate repairs.

“If you want to copy a page and it has defects, the defects will be replicated. This is the same in cells. We wanted to ensure the process only happens when the cell is in a good state. We identified the activity of certain molecules with the capability to block the regeneration if the state of the cell isn’t good then repair it,” ​Chesnier explained.

“This was a very big discovery, a revolution, a breakthrough in the market. This gave the cells more time to repair before duplication and gave it the tools to repair itself too. The concentration of actives was the highest – over 10%. We tested it on more than 25 actions in anti-ageing and we got very good results.”​

The latest iteration of the product has added two functions: cell resynchronisation and detoxification.

“The repair action has been fined tuned and we added resynchronisation which basically sets off the regeneration process and makes the cells of your skin work together. The detoxifying action is very important at night. The process identifies and treats the oxidised cells and eliminate the waste,” ​explained Chesnier.

Building desire​

Moving forward, the company’s goal is to grow its business in APAC and grow faster than the market by making it a desirable brand consumers can aspire too.

Chesnier emphasised that the company is not too focused on a single area to drive growth. Instead, it is aiming to reinforce every part of the business, be it through new customer acquisition or market expansion.

“Success is made on the sum of many details. Among these, they are two key pillars: ​the quality of the products and the quality of its service,”​ he said.

“The ambition of the brand is to make the products of the highest quality. Recruitment and particularly the training [of beauty advisors] is very important, because they are the ones in contact with the customers. The two very important aspects, then you have to be visible on the right platform and build your brand image.”​