Stirling Murray, CEO & Founder, The Red Tree

Deep Roots

Stirling’s roots are deep in the beauty industry, having worked for copious companies, including Unilever, Estee Lauder, and Chanel globally. Red Tree is one of the top action-oriented consultancy groups that provides strategic advisement to a mix of large and startup brands, and the group also manages certain brands in specific regions around the world. He calls it “country managers” managing brands internationally, a new gig-economy type service that I think most startups and many large companies, across sectors will be considering in the 20’s.

“This crisis has taught us – if we didn’t know this before – that we have no control over most of what happens. Yet the things we can control – our reaction to events – need to step up big time.” – SM

Pandemic Pivot

Since the beginning of the pandemic, retailers and brands have had to maneuver in the “new world” of the beauty industry. A lot has changed, from the shift online to store closings, making it essential to engage with consumers now and overcome adversity actively. Stirling mentions UK retailer, SPACE NK with 73 store locations. They had to close down all of their stores, but haven’t let the pandemic stop them. They started an e-commerce site to entice consumers while at home and emerged stronger. These are the types of rebooted companies that will succeed and more need to follow in their footsteps or they may disappear.

2021 Trends

Stirling has written articles to addressing post-COVID trends that will significantly impact the industry and how retailers must reboot enjoyable shopping experiences. Some key points he thinks are important are transparency, ethical beauty, CBD, and anti-pollution. Although COVID has been detrimental to some categories, like cosmetics and luxury, they too are highly resilient and have abundant white space opportunities for grow, both for the indie-startups and established brands.

Everything has changed and to achieve success, so you must think differently, adapt, and overcome digital noise and the ever-changing industry, trade aggressively digitally, and out-reach (not just reach out) to your consumer base. The brands that do this will be the ones to succeed while the rest will fall behind. “This crisis has taught us – if we didn’t know this before – that we have no control over most of what happens. Yet the things we can control – our reaction to events – need to step up big time.” – Stirling Murray