Body+ME: Rossmann and Lilu launch new beauty brand

– What does MPBA Mentoring Kft. do?

– Our main profile is tailor-made business development services. When cooperating with manufacturers, we play an active role in creating new brands or private labels, performing strategic and operative tasks, and we do the brand and trade communication for products made for the B2B or B2C channels. When working with retailers, we deliver measurable market success to partners. We know the main domestic, regional and international actors of the FMCG market and their buyers. Based on this knowledge, we offer direct and indirect sales support services.

Attila Bíró, Lilu, owners of Body+ME and László Flórián, managing director of Rossmann

– How were the concept and products for Body&ME born?

– We created the brand following large-scale research and development work. From the first moment we involved manufacturers and the retailer side in the project. We are really grateful to the manufacturer teams, Herbow Zrt. and Florin Zrt., and their CEOs Ottó Németh and Attila Barta for their support.

–In the first phase you put beauty and household products on the domestic market. Will more products follow later?

– Yes, but we are going to do this step by step. Plan is that the full product range will be available in shops from 2024.

– Do you target the international market as well?

– We dare to dream big, so the answer to this question is yes. However, the local market will always remain important for us. In the medium term we wish to enter the regional and perhaps the global market online, and may be offline too.

– For distribution you have signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Rossmann. Why did you choose them?

– Shoppers are buying consciously, they can only be reached with high quality products with good pricing, at the best points of sale. In addition to the products themselves, it was also important for us to make sure that on a daily basis we can work together with our retailer partner in harmony, at every level of the cooperation. Rossmann was the perfect choice for this – even more so because our manufacturer partners, Herbow and Florin, are long-time suppliers of Rossmann.

– What does Body&ME offer to consumers?

– It is a gateway to the world of conscious skin care. Our goal with these products is to make it possible for consumers to establish a two-step skin care routine by combing the products. In communication we work with simple messages, so that shoppers know what they are about to purchase already when they come across our products for the first time – understanding what the given BODY+ME product is good for and how to use it.

– Body&ME founder Lilu is a popular television presenter and blogger. Why did she create a new brand and why now?

– Besides facial care, international trends focus more and more on body care too. BODY&ME is a body care product range with its own concept, which stands alone in the Hungarian market. Lilu considers it her mission to inform as many people about the basics of conscious skin care as possible.

– How did you develop the brand’s image?

– As both the brands and their usage concept are new and innovative, it was essential to give the products a packaging that is completely different from any other cosmetics. This is why we opted for specially shaped bottles and strong colours, and decided to include lots of information on the labels.

– What are Body&ME products good for?

– They are perfect for taking daily body care to the next level at home, without any major effort or investing extra time. We offer not only the products for this, but the concept as well.

How did the retail side see the process of developing the Body&ME brand? Rossmann’s managing director László Flórián talked to our magazine.

László Flórián
managing director
Rossmann Magyarország

“Our collaboration with Lilu goes back a long time, we did several campaigns and projects together in the past. The appearance of Body&ME in our shops and the Online Drugstore is an exciting challenge from several perspectives. Basically we are adapting an international trend, the body care routine, to the conditions of the Hungarian market. Plus these cosmetics are made locally, as buying Hungarian-made products is increasingly important for shoppers. Rossmann is proud to support a new and promising Hungarian brand, Body&ME” – told the managing director.

Péter Bednarik
purchasing manager
Rossmann

Purchasing manager Péter Bednarik: “One of the main objectives with our sourcing strategy is to have such products in stores that establish a tie between our customers and Rossmann. It represents great value if a trend, a brand and Hungarian innovation work meet; we can use our market position to champion Hungarian ideas and businesses. This is why the new products range by Lilu is a real milestone.”

Hajnalka Horváth-Tokaji, senior category manager: “We monitor the latest beauty care trends on every platform possible, because we wish to set the trends instead of just following them. In the Covid period consumers developed a new kind of need for “routines”, which is gaining ground across beauty care categories. With Lilu’s Body&ME products, we want to give consumers their own body care routine.”

Hajnalka Horváth-Tokaji
Senior category
manager
Rossmann

Orsolya Tokaji
category manager
Rossmann

Orsolya Tokaji, category manager: “Body care product buyers belong to two categories: brand loyal ones who don’t really give new innovations a chance, and those seeking for new products in drusgstores. The latter spend more time in front of the shelves, read product labels carefully and tend to follow influencers. With the Body&ME range we primarily target this latter group of consumers.”

How did the manufacturer side see the process of developing the Body&ME brand? Attila Barta, owner of Florin Zrt. talked to our magazine.

Barta Attila
cégvezető
Florin

“Honestly, when we received the request we got a bit worried, because MPBA Mentoring Group Kft. only had experience in managing brands. After the first negotiations I knew instantly that this would work, as it became clear that everyone will do only what they are best at. Lilu didn’t want to play the chemist, she remained the inspirational force behind the brand.

Our state-of-the art factory and superb development team were a real powerhouse throughout the process of developing the Body&ME product range. Thanks to the fact that recently we have invested billions of forints in increasing our production capacity, we can get behind the brand’s international expansion plans” – said Florin Zrt.’s owner.

We asked Ottó Németh, CEO of Herbow International Zrt. about the household products that will hit the market next year.

Ottó Németh
CEO
Herbow International

“We were happy about the opportunity that Lilu and MPBA Kft. gave us. Luckily R&D work and innovation in general has been the engine of Herbow’s growth since day one. Our plan is that the products will appear on store shelves next spring. The new household and cleaning products will represent better quality than the industry standards: we will deliver natural and certified, sustainable and carbon neutral, probiotic and free-from, animal- and children-friendly products for the brand” – told the CEO. (x)