MAC Cosmetics may be celebrating its 40th anniversary, but beauty’s OG indie has no intentions of entering middle age quietly.
Just take the Macy’s Herald Square counter on a recent Saturday, buzzing with activity. Four of six makeover chairs were occupied in the center of the brand’s space, music blaring in the background. Sales associates were busy restocking inventory or replacing testers the artists were using while at two of the four interactive play stations, which enable users to virtually try on any product. Next to the monitors was a display of mini Macximal lipsticks in hero colors like Ruby Woo and Diva.
Macximal, an update on the brand’s signature matte lip, is more than just a winner at retail. It’s emblematic of the resurgence of beauty’s original Indie.
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“More is more and less is a bore,” said Aïda Moudachirou-Rébois, MAC’s senior vice president and global general manager. “We are not seeing makeup slow down at all, and at MAC, we are certainly not slowing down. There is so much more innovation coming down the pipeline, embracing different subcategories, incorporating more skin care, clean formulas and sustainability actions. This launch crystalizes how we are thinking about the makeup category.”
Lipstick has always been a powerhouse category for the brand, which was founded by Frank Angelo, who owned hair salons in Toronto, and his partner, budding makeup artist Frank Toscan and Toscan’s brother in law, Vic Casale. In those early days, one of the products that bubbled up was a matte red lipstick used on a shoot with Madonna, who was later photographed by a magazine wearing a MAC Cruelty-Free Beauty T-shirt. As WWD wrote 20 years ago, “The revolution was on,” and the shade, Russian Red, remains a staple in the line today.
By that time, the brand was part of the Estée Lauder Cos., which acquired 51 percent of MAC in 1995, before snapping up the remainder three years later. It was the company’s first acquisition, and today is one of four $1 billion brands in the Lauder portfolio.
“MAC is today. And if you ask me, ‘what is tomorrow, I would say, MAC is tomorrow,” said Leonard A. Lauder, the chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Cos., who spearhead the acquisition during his time as chairman. “MAC was the original,” he continued. “Everything that has come after it is just a copy.”
In those early days, Leonard Lauder tapped a rising star in the company, John Demsey, to run the brand, famously telling him, “Make MAC more MAC.”
It’s a message that continues to resonate today.
“MAC was the original indie, a true trailblazer,” said Jane Hertzmark Hudis, executive group president at the Estée Lauder Cos. whose purview includes the brand. “Its ethos was all ages, all races, all genders, at a time when that kind of inclusivity was a breakthrough concept. MAC has always been about culture, about courage,” she continued. “It was truly the original indie brand that pushed against every norm there was. The team today stands on the shoulders of some extraordinary people who built this brand over decades. And they are there today because they have a point of view.”
In addition to Moudachirou-Rébois, the brand’s senior leaders include global creative director Drew Elliott (who, in his former role as creative director of Paper magazine, famously “broke” the internet with a cover involving Kim Kardashian and copious amounts of Champagne) and global head of product development Teny Kureghian. They follow in the footsteps of executives like James Gager, creative director for 17 years, and Jennifer Balbier, a product development savant whose creations included Studio Fix Foundation, Retro Matte Lipstick, Mineralize Skin Finish and Powder Kiss.
The pillars today — a deep connection to culture, an abiding commitment to purpose, an unwavering focus on artistry and a deliberate fostering of creativity — haven’t changed very much over the last four decades. But the way they are expressed and executed has. Viva Glam, its purpose platform that was founded 30 years ago to raise money for HIV-AIDS, is expanding its purview to drive equal opportunity on a global basis, for example, but the passion for the mission remains.
“From its founding, MAC set the standard for creativity, experimentation and inclusivity for all, and those values continue to distinguish MAC as the trailblazer it is today,” said Fabrizio Freda, president and chief executive officer of the Estée Lauder Cos. “It revolutionized the industry 40 years ago, and today, the brand continues to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of beauty as the number-one prestige makeup brand globally.”
While today MAC is the number-one global prestige makeup brand, it lost momentum for a period around 2015, particularly in the North American market, where it was hurt by its exposure to department stores. But post-pandemic, MAC has regained its mojo with a renewed focus on product, experience and artistry. “The biggest opportunity we see is to maintain our blueprint and evolve it for the next generation of artists and consumers,” said Moudachirou-Rébois. “MAC is a creative brand and we lead with ideas first. In the last 40 years, we’ve been through a lot, but our resilience speaks to our enduring strength.”
Retailers report that MAC’s core values combined with an understanding of pop culture have extended and broadened the appeal of the brand.
“MAC was the first brand to create disruptive collaborations and highly coveted limited collections, and the first brand to champion diversity and inclusion with their assortment, people and education,” said Monica Arnaudo, chief merchandising officer of Ulta Beauty. “Today, all of those same tenets of the brand remain and they continue to disrupt and engage beauty lovers through their amazing products, content and education where the consumer engages.”
Products have been key to the revitalization of MAC, with Moudachirou-Rébois and her team updating the heroes of yesteryear to better appeal to today’s consumers. Macximal, for example, takes the brand’s heritage in matte lipsticks but updates it with a mix of oils and butters to make it moisturizing and long-wearing. MAC Studio Radiance Serum Powered Foundation is formulated with 33 skin care ingredients, including 10 percent hyaluronic acid, while its original foundation Studio Fix has been restaged with 87 percent skin care ingredients, 24-hour transfer proof wear and an extended shade range from the original 40 to 71.
The breadth of selection was what drew Moudachirou-Rébois to the brand, long before she went to work at MAC. As a young cosmetics executive working for L’Oréal in France, MAC was the only brand that had a foundation shade that matched her skin tone.
She also recalls the significant impact that the Viva Glam campaign, which has raised more than $550 million for AIDS and HIV-related causes in its 30 year history, had on her. Growing up in the West African country of Benin, population 13.4 million, her favorite beauty campaign was Viva Glam and she saved them all in a special file that’s still at her parents’ house. She credits the campaign with instilling in her a desire to pursue marketing professionally.
“Thirty years ago you couldn’t even talk about HIV-AIDS. I remember when Freddie Mercury died and my parents couldn’t tell me what he died of because it was so taboo,” she said.
“MAC said, ‘we don’t care — we have to support our community because that’s what we are about, and we have to use the power of our community to solve problems.’ That’s what makes us a creative brand — we use our creativity to solve problems and that is what makes MAC powerful.”
Post-pandemic, MAC has also sharpened its focus on its community of makeup artists, which numbers about 13,000. While the brand was slow to join the social media game, it has made up for lost time. Today, MAC is the number-one makeup brand globally in terms of earned media value according to Creator IQ, thanks to the brand’s strategy of turning the makeup artists into content creators. “There is so much that’s trending in makeup and we’ve seen an explosion of platforms, which continue to dominate the conversation and category,” said Moudachirou-Rébois. “We took the opportunity of the pandemic to convert our artists into creators, training them on social media savviness. Today, they are our super creators. Content creation is now basic training.”
Key artists are also involved in product creation, with a global feedback process that enables them to weigh in during each stage of the process, while MAC Pro, the artist relation program that Demsey started to keep professional artists interested in the brand, has been relaunched. The program currently has about 110,000 members globally, with the goal of doubling that number in the next three years.
“We need to have artists at the table every step of the way, and continue to have products developed for and approved by artists,” said Moudachirou-Rébois of the product development process. “These products need to be the best — the best on camera, the best in real life, the best on the runway. We need to advance artistry because this brand was created by and for makeup artists and to perform in front of a camera. In a world where people are on social media all of the time, this isn’t going away.”
Makeup artists are also important to keeping MAC on the cutting edge of culture and trend. “The artists are at the center of culture in their individual markets — they’re in Hollywood, in Bollywood, they’re backstage at shows around the world,” said Hertzmark Hudis. “Today, the brand can not only lead global trends, but also deliver on local ones in a superfast, deeply connected way. These teams live to create trends,” she continued, citing pearl skin as a recent one, “and at a time when trends are at the heart of the makeup business, it fuels the whole model.”
The artistry and trend element cascades from the brand to social media to stores, both MAC’s own and via its retail partners. “They’ve been able to engage the consumer base with their authority and artistry and the trends, but also staying true to their roots,” said Nicolette Bosco, title tk of Macy’s. “They’ve always been rooted in artistry and they lead with that, but they also want to be unconventional and a little bit of a rule breaker.”
That ethos enables the brand to appeal to the highly coveted Gen Zs and Alphas, as well as their parents. “We’re seeing a cross-generational consumer coming in, could be a mother introducing her daughter or niece or nephew to the brand,” said Bosco. “MAC has done a great job of balancing who they stay relevant to, through collaborations and ambassadorships with everyone from a TikTok star to a Cher.”
Moudachirou-Rébois prefers to talk about emerging consumers rather than emerging geographies, but it’s clear she is focused on driving growth globally. Recently, about a dozen semipermanent pop-up kiosks launched in Brazil, increasing productivity there 30 percent, with half of the customers new to the brand. India, Turkey and Mexico are also focal points. “The dynamics of these emerging markets is inspiring, because every year, the middle class is expanding,” she said, noting that she just got off a Zoom discussing a store remodel in the Philippines. “MAC recruits from mass and we capture those customers. It’s not about selling product — it’s about showing them how to do makeup in these markets. Our artistry and artists make it easy to connect with those consumers.”
In an age when makeup has become a way to express individual style for people around the world, fostering that connection is a key competitive advantage for the brand — as it has been since its inception. “MAC encourages customers when it comes to the limitless ways of self-expression through art, whether it be makeup minimalist to full-out glam,” said Debbi Hartley-Triesch, executive vice president of Nordstrom, which was the first department store retailer to launch the brand. “MAC is curious, bold and willing to take a risk, pushing boundaries and encouraging creativity. They have continued to keep their pulse on global culture and trends, from being backstage at fashion weeks to amazing collaborations with celebrities, artists, designers and more.”
And rather than play it safe as its grown, as MAC gets bigger, it’s only getting bolder.
“MAC is not afraid to say what’s on its mind. MAC is not afraid to go against the grain. MAC stands up and is counted,” said Hertzmark Hudis. “Today, we have a whole generation of people who love MAC for what it is, and a much younger consumer coming to us because they believe in what we stand for.
“Is the lipstick great? Sure it is,” she continued. “But what keeps people coming back is the attraction to be part of this community and ethos.”