Word: bergerac
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nose" (perfume tester) who, he insists, has hardly any sense of smell at all, and he is wryly amused by the copycat nature of the industry. Any new shade or fragrance that looks salable will almost instantly spur development of three or four nearly identical competing products. Says Bergerac: "Maybe that is one definition of creativity." He denies that Revlon stoops to any industrial espionage, though he believes competitors do and suspects that such shenanigans are inefficient anyway. More than once he has floated false rumors of what products Revlon would introduce next?and then sat back to laugh while...
...cosmetics industry, of course, is not all paint and puffery. It has a hard technical side, as Bergerac points out. For example, a fragrance may exude an alluring aroma when first sprayed on but then change or lose its scent altogether in an hour, unless manufacturers observe the strictest quality control. Product testing can be as grueling as in a factory making any other kind of goods. To be sure that makeup will withstand long wear, Revlon sometimes requires a woman to sit for hours in a room where the temperature is 90° F. and the humidity 100%; windshield wipers...
...application of a special base to the relatively lighter lower lip if a lipstick is not to come out two different shades. To tap this market, Revlon three years ago brought out a line of Polished Ambers cosmetics?under the Revlon name rather than some specially invented one, as Bergerac proudly notes. He explains: "In doing it that way you do not discriminate. What we are saying is that black ladies are important enough for us to use our own name in appealing to them." (The courtly Bergerac still uses the word "ladies" quite as often as "women...
...original entrepreneurial managers, who relied on high profit margins to cover up sloppiness. Under Charles Revson, Revlon ground out products in huge volumes, took long risks with new lines and often wound up getting piles of merchandise returned from stores. Many other cosmetics makers still do, but at Revlon, Bergerac has put in tight inventory controls and persuaded customers to pay bills more promptly. He figures that if the company were still being run the way it was when he arrived, it would have...
Some analysts and even company insiders wonder whether Revlon can maintain creativity in an atmosphere of tight control. Bergerac insists that it can. To him, creativity is not a matter of sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike, but of striving against deadlines to design products, packages and ads for carefully targeted markets...