P&G To Roll Out Wella Professional in North America

All’s well with Wella, as Procter & Gamble gets set to launch Wella Professionals hair care and styling products in North America, with the idea of building the No. 1 hair care brand in the market. P&G may have an uphill battle, since it has been seven years since the acquisition and folks here in the States still link Wella with professional hair color.


“At last, the giant awakes in US Professional, which will inevitably put more pressure on Kao’s KPSS. Looks like Henkel’s Schwarzkopf has missed the American boat…. and CVC’s chances of exiting Colomer just took another step back,” observed Colin Hession, managing director, Colin Hession Consulting and Happi columnist.

Despite the lack of a Wella retail line, Wella, one of P&G’s 23 brands that do at least $1 billion each, did contribute some growth here. There was the introduction of Magma, the first bleach-and-color-in-one, in 2003, as well as restages on Koleston Perfect in 2008 and ColorTouch in 2009. Last year, Blondor Blonde was launched. P&G’s Salon Professional business has been profitable in North America with help from other brands, including fashion-forward, tech-advanced Sebastian, the first Wella business to benefit from the mother company’s innovation, which resulted in a brand restage in 2009.

In professional color, industry sources said Wella has an 18.8% market share (not including Clairol) in North America. But when hair care is factored in, that number drops to 7%. Wella’s total share on a global basis is about 17%, the company said. Globally, salon-industry growth has been fairly small, with 2% for salon professional and 3-4% for retail.