拋棄比伯低齡粉絲 伊麗莎白·雅頓移情高端市場

Elizabeth Arden RDEN -3.14% is discovering that chasing the mass market and celebrities can lead to a cul-de-sac rather than to riches.

伊麗莎白o雅頓公司（Elizabeth Arden ）發現，一味追求大衆化市場和名人效應，非但沒能如願盈利，還把公司拖進了死衚衕。

The New York-based beauty company, which makes fragrances for stars such as Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, on Tuesday said it was cutting jobs, and planning to drop some unprofitable businesses and fragrance license agreements as part of a restructuring effort aimed at lowering its overhead costs by $40 million to $50 million annually.

伊麗莎白o雅頓化妝品公司總部位於紐約，前些年曾推出泰勒o斯威夫特和賈斯汀o比伯等名人香水。但這家公司爲了降低每年4,000萬-5,000萬美元的管理費用，計劃重組業務。作爲重組行動的一部分，這家週二宣佈裁撤冗員，放棄某些不盈利的業務和香水授權協議。

A few years ago, Elizabeth Arden got aggressive in the celebrity fragrance market—its roster now includes fragrances by Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber—in an attempt to go toe-to-toe with Coty COTY -1.24% . It also has found itself very exposed to the lower-end market after years of pushing into the mass market channel: a couple of years ago, it got dinged when a mass market retailer dramatically cut back on orders. (It didn’t say which one, but Wall Street analysts surmised it was Wal-Mart Stores WMT 0.24% .)

幾年前，伊麗莎白o雅頓公司開始野心勃勃地進軍名人香水市場——推出小甜甜布蘭妮、泰勒o斯威夫特和賈斯汀o比伯系列香水——試圖與科蒂集團（Coty）競爭。經過幾年努力，伊麗莎白o雅頓公司發現利用大衆化市場渠道營銷的策略使公司很容易受到低端市場影響：幾年前，一家大衆市場零售商大批量減少了訂單，致使伊麗莎白o雅頓公司的銷售業績出現大幅下滑。【雖然它沒有披露這家零售商的名稱，但華爾街分析師猜測是沃爾瑪百貨（Wal-Mart Stores）】。

And so now it is trying to retrench, dropping some celebrity and designer licenses (it didn’t say which), which are typically lower-priced items, and putting more emphasis on reviving its higher-end namesake brand, along with a more concerted effort to push its prestige products, particularly overseas where Arden has been a latecomer. In May, about the time it instructed its Goldman Sachs bankers to potentially look for buyers, Elizabeth Arden announced its “Performance Improvement Plan,” aimed it helping its get back on its feet after a few years of middling sales. (It has repeatedly had to revise forecasts downward in the past year.)

有鑑於此，伊麗莎白o雅頓公司決意削減開支，放棄某些典型的低價名人和設計師授權品牌（目前還沒有確定具體是哪些項目）把營銷重點放在復興高端同名品牌上，同時更加專注在公司新進的海外市場推廣旗下的名品。五月份，它指示高盛銀行家們爲它尋找潛在的買家，還宣佈了一個“業績改進計劃”，希望經歷了業績平平的幾年之後，能夠通過這些努力再次站穩腳跟。（去年，這家公司不得不多次下調業績預期。）

Another big problem for Elizabeth Arden is that it is very exposed to fragrance at a time companies like Estee Lauder EL -0.41% are pumping millions into research to develop better skin care products, the fastest growing area of the beauty industry.

伊麗莎白o雅頓公司仍然需要解決另一個難題。近年來它一直主攻香水市場，而其它化妝品公司【如雅詩o蘭黛（Estee Lauder）等】則不惜花費百萬美元，用於研製品質更好的護膚品，這纔是發展最快的美容行業。

“In fragrance, there’s been a lot of competition, and it tends to be more discretionary. At the same time, skin care has been getting a lot of investment from beauty companies,” said Morningstar analyst Erin Lash, who covers the beauty industry, though not Elizabeth Arden specifically.

晨星公司（Morningstar）分析師艾琳o拉什的研究領域覆蓋整個美容行業，並不是專門研究伊麗莎白o雅頓公司。她評價說：“香水市場的競爭一直非常激烈，而且魚龍混雜。與此同時，護膚品行業一直是化妝品公司的投資重點。”