Founded in 2013, DECIEM – the parent firm behind skin care brands The Ordinary and NIOD – was acquired in full this year by The Estée Lauder Companies, following accumulative stake investments totaling US$1.7 billion between 2017 and 2024. From small Canadian startup to global beauty behemoth, DECIEM was now on a mission to become the number-one skin care brand in the world. Premium Beauty News sat down with Nicola Kilner, CEO and co-founder of DECIEM, to talk about the company’s rise and its global strategy that aimed to propel skin care brand The Ordinary even further into cult status.
“I’m incredibly proud that we’re still an organization that is science-led in all of our decisions,” Kilner said. “Product concepts and brand campaigns originate out of our science team and then are handed to the marketing team. I feel we have done, and continue to, prioritize what’s right in terms of science innovation, consumer needs and transparency.”
And this, she said, was crucial to succeeding in today’s competitive beauty world, particularly as growth plans scaled up.
Still “over-indexed online”
Asked how DECIEM wanted to balance online versus in-store moving forward, Kilner said The Ordinary, for example, still “over-indexed online” with all retail partners and e-commerce or pure play retail remained bigger for the brand in Europe and North America. In France, for example, sales for The Ordinary sat at 80% online versus 20% in-store. Pushing online channels, therefore, would remain key to The Ordinary’s growth plan, she said.
“There’s definitely a lot we are doing with our existing pure play partners, and they are very strong partners for us. There’s a lot of online activation planned (…) meaningful activations that we’re trying to push whilst keeping that education angle,” she said.
DECIEM had also just launched on TikTok Shop in the US, the CEO said, which had proven to be “a significant success” thus far. “We weren’t sure, originally, when we were launching, as it’s a new channel, but it turns out consumers do want to shop on TikTok.” The company planned to spark further conversations on wider TikTok Shop expansion soon, notably in the UK where the platform was also up and running, she said.
In-store, however, remained an important growth avenue for DECIEM and The Ordinary moving forward, she said. “We definitely want to keep playing strong on both sides,” Kilner said, because there were plenty of consumers who still valued trialling products in-store and getting expert guidance.
Pharmacies and flagship stores
Astrid de la Noue, EMEA regional director at DECIEM, added targeting entirely new retail spaces was also on the cards.
“There are still a lot of spaces where we haven’t played – pharmacy is one of them where we see big opportunity for us, and down the line,” de la Noue said.
The Ordinary had already started to roll out products into pharmacies across France, but she said further roll-outs across the EMEA region would continue strategically, acknowledging how “very different” these retail spaces were versus specialty beauty stores. “We do want to make it happen; we want to make it right. There is a lot to do with what the visual merchandising system is going to look like and the support we can get from the pharmacists themselves. Ultimately, our goal is to be the number-one skin care brand in the EMEA.”
Within the next two to three years, she said The Ordinary also wanted to open its own store in Paris and other key European cities, offering a space where consumers could “get a strong sense of the brand” and “deep dive” into the products and wider brand purpose. “…Since COVID, there has been a ’return to retail’ trend and this thirst for verbal guidance.”
Kilner reiterated, though, that both online and in-store remained important for the brand. “For us at The Ordinary, we very much believe in accessibility and also choice.”
And this latter point, choice, she said, was even more important today, given how much power today’s beauty consumers held over brands.
More transparent than ever
Consumers today, she said, continued to challenge brands “more than ever” on the science behind formulas, overall environmental impact and wider social values. And so, beauty brands today were expected to be more transparent than ever – across all aspect of business – as consumers scrupulously checked all these layers of a business.
“Consumers have more power, I believe, than the brands,” she said.
Asked how this influenced DECIEM’s growth and innovation plans, Kilner said: “The area I would like to continue doing more in, is the ’doing good’ piece. So, sustainability; how we donate; how we have social impact; how we use our voice, because the world over the last however many years just seems to be getting more difficult to navigate (…) It’s good that brands and bigger companies are using their size, profits and voice to do more good.”
Mental health and advocating for marginalised communities, she said, were other areas DECIEM and its brands wanted to do more in.
