Coty expands digital marketing capabilities with acquisition

Beamly is focused on driving social media participation and brand engagement for consumer brands in the digital media arena, an area that has become increasingly important as a means of driving brand awareness and loyalty.

Coty states that it targeted Beamly because of its proven track record and high performance in a variety of digital media applications, but specifically because of the company’s capabilities in online video.

As part of the acquisition contract, Beamly will continue to serve other clients and expand its non-Coty business footprint, but will provide heightened support to promote Coty’s digital marketing capabilities.

Benefitting from digital benchmarking and content enhancement​

Coty will benefit from Beamly’s social data benchmarking capabilities, content creation, content optimization and consumer engagement tools, according to the press release announcing the acquisition.

Beamly will work in conjunction with the Coty international marketing teams with the goal of enhancing the company’s digital marketing campaigns in the company’s various consumer segments.

The Beamly team will work closely across Coty’s in-house marketing organization to provide enhanced digital marketing campaigns across consumer segments.

New business structure​

Although terms, conditions and the cost of the transaction have not been revealed, it has been confirmed that Beamly management structure will remain in place, with CEO Jason Forbes continuing to head up the business under the supervision of Camillo Pane, executive vice president of category development, on behalf of Coty.

Structurally Beamly’s New York office will be integrated into the same office as the Coty marketing team in New York, while the London office will continue to work in its current location.

“The acquisition of Beamly will address the accelerating consumer shift in time spent from traditional media to real time digital and social media channels,”​ said Pane.

“Beamly will help us to accelerate the growth of our e-commerce business, and be a positive contributor as Coty advances toward becoming a highly focused, pure-play leader and challenger in Beauty.”​

Acquisition will support Coty's expanded business​

The acquisition also comes at a crucial development point in the Coty business, after it was announced back in July that it was buying 43 color cosmetic and fragrance brands from Procter & Gamble at an estimated cost of $12.5bn.

The deal includes leading fragrance brands such as Hugo Boss, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci, which will only go to serve Coty’s strongest segment; while color cosmetics brands CoverGirl and Max Factor will certainly boost this business too, joining color cosmetics brands such as Rimmel, OPI, and Sally Hansen.

Clearly the acquisition of Beamly will also serve to support the re-positioning of these new brands and the vastly expanded Coty portfolio as a whole.