CosmeticOBS announced the following in late January: ‘Avon France, a subsidiary of American cosmetics giant Avon Products, asked the Bobigny commercial court to be put into receivership on the grounds that the company lost money and the group could no longer afford bailing it out. The decision was adjourned for further consultation and should be made this Thursday, January 30. Avon France counts 127 employees and thousands of independent door-to-door saleswomen.’
For those that do not remember it, this cosmetics brand was one of the most prominent in the world at the end of the previous century, if not the greatest. It may sound very old to say things this way, but it only dates back to a few years!
It is difficult to explain how things got here, and it would be even more conceited of me to pretend to have found the very origin of this situation.
It just reminds us all that brands can fail and none is eternal, even if they may have been leaders at some point. Plus, we need to pay close attention to their values to prevent them from disappearing and accelerating the deleterious closing down process.
I actually referred to this situation in my first mood note for CosmeticOBS. Here is what I wrote at the time: ‘Beyond this chaos, at the end of the day, there is always an ultimate time scale to shake the others and give them all their derisory meaning: that of brands’ death. The serious difficulties recently encountered by Sony and Nokia show how difficult time management is.’
Afterwards, a few people had remarked that it was …
