The product line currently known simply as Olay began back in 1949. Originally started in South Africa as Oil of Olay a chemist named Graham Wulff chose the name Oil of Olay as a spin on the word lanolin which was a key ingredient.
His marketing strategy was brilliant because he never used words such as moisturizer or even a beauty product. Instead he and his marketing partner, Jack Lowe, decided to package it as a pink fluid rather than a cream. They put this pink fluid into a heavy glass bottle and tested it on their wives and their wives’ friends. Due to their testing success they knew they had found the perfect ingredients.
Jack Lowe’s marketing strategy went even away further from conventional advertising and marketing techniques of the times when he refused to sell the product to standard trade companies. Instead they opted to wait for pharmacies to ask them for the product based on consumer requests.
The name was modified as it began to become an internationally sought after product. For example in the UK and Ireland it was called Oil of Ulay, in Australia it was called Oil of Ulan and Oil of Olaz in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The reason they gave was to make the name sound pleasing and realistic to the consumers in each country.
After a couple of incarnations and change of company hands in 1985 when Procter & Gamble purchased the company owning the brand, they chose to greatly expand and popularize the brand. By 1999 the company decided to rename the brand and all of its subsequent products under one banner. With the exception of the Netherlands and Belgium where it is called “Olaz” the name Olay is now known worldwide.
Today Olay is the market leader in the USA, UK and China. It 1999 P&G launched their Total Effects product line which placed them squarely in the anti-aging category. When the Total Effects product line launched it was nearly twice the price of any other mass market moisturizer on the market at the time and yet was one of the most sought after beauty and anti-aging products available.
In 2006 the Olay Regenerist line was the top performing anti-aging cream by a consumer association marketing group.
For years the Olay slogan was “Love the skin you’re in” and recently was changed to “Challenge what’s possible.”
In today’s market there are products that far exceed the cost of the Olay product lines, however, Olay has never reduced its price of the product in order to compete with less expensive brands. Of course you can always find them on sale in various places but even their sale prices are normally higher than the average off the shelf anti-aging products available.
For now it appears that women will continue to pay the prices that P&G has set for the Olay product. It certainly is not hurting the consumer’s willingness to buy.
