Estee Lauder, domain dependence, & moats

Up until then, every cosmetic ad was designed to sell a product. I decided that rather than selling only a product, our ads would sell the brand. The brand would be timeless and would translate across languages and countries. All our advertising would be oriented toward the brand. Focusing on the brand would hone our identity and be our North Star:

A multi-brand model for Estée Lauder had always been in my mind. I thought, “I know just what I’d do if I were competing with Estée Lauder. Why let a competitor do it? I’ll do it!”

The Navy also taught me about strategy. The aircraft carrier was always accompanied by several destroyers, which served as a screen for the larger ship. I would use that analogy in business: The small brands would protect the main brand. Clinique was the first screen for the Estée Lauder aircraft carrier, followed by Origins and Prescriptives. Late

The fact is, star brands take time to grow. Take some of the small makeup companies we have acquired recently, like Bliss and Urban Decay. When we bought them, they were little start-ups run by their founders—very simple businesses, but with a lot of originality in the products. So now we know we must nurture them until they have some history. But

I had often worried about being too successful. Success invited competition. The ongoing hand-to-hand combat with Revlon was bad enough. How could I prevent us from becoming everyone’s target—or, if we managed to become the front-runner, protect our position from another innovative upstart? I was inspired by the wonderful movie starring Cary Grant