Powerella Powers Up Inside-Out/Outside-In Positioning With Supplement And Skincare Pairing
Powerella’s serum and supplement are the new power couple on the indie scene.
Launched in 2015 by Aimee Gill, a veteran marketer with positions at Shiseido, Nars and Smashbox on her resume, Powerella predates the current inside-out craze and originally targeted fitness fanatics then the prime audience for protein powders. But the brand is moving in a clean beauty direction that fits better with Gill’s professional background and personal battle with autoimmune disorder Hashimoto’s disease.
“I decided last year to undergo a complete rebrand. One of the reasons was that, previously, I had stayed behind the scenes as founder, and I think it affected the credibility of the brand. Especially as a small indie brand, I think people want to know who you are and why your products exist. Also, because of my love of skincare, I knew that I wanted skincare to be a part of how the brand expands,” says Gill. “I went back to the drawing board to come back with a fresh and different story.”
Powerella’s fresh story is centered around two products to start: Super Green Beauty Queen Glow Powder and Super Green Beauty Queen Glow Serum. The powder’s key ingredients are spirulina, hemp, milled chia seed and sacha inchi or the Inca peanut. The serum’s star ingredients are turmeric, aloe, methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) and, similar to the powder, spirulina.
“We are taking a 360-degree approach to whatever we are addressing. The first two products address the loss of collagen as we age, and I wanted to do that in a plant-based way,” says Gill. “The concept is to take an ingredient and address a problem with a supplement and skincare.” In Powerella’s pipeline are items tackling anxiety and hormonal changes.
“Previously, I had stayed behind the scenes as founder, and I think it affected the credibility of the brand. Especially as a small indie brand, I think people want to know who you are and why your products exist.”
Gill depends on plant-based and organic ingredients to maintain her health, and Powerella’s overhauled products resonate with her conscious consumption choices. The brand’s powder, which she says has an all-natural vanilla flavor, uses organic hemp protein, and the serum contains 72% organic contents. The vegan formulas have no genetically-modified organisms, parabens, sulfates, phthalates, or artificial colors, flavors, fragrances, preservatives and sweeteners. The powder includes stevia leaf extract.
“The supplement industry is a separate beast from the beauty and developing supplements is challenging because they are a bit behind the times in realizing the beauty benefits or gearing things toward women,” says Gill. “It just put more on me to come up with the ideas and suggestions whereas, if you go to a skincare manufacturer, they are going to have so much information and knowledge on what ingredients benefit the skin.”
Gill scrapped Powerella’s earlier protein powder, and she scrapped its earlier design. The only carryover on the packaging is a downsized version of the brand’s graphic female logo. Instead of green, blue and white, the updated color palette is black, white and pink. The amount of text on labels has been substantially cut back.
“It used to be that, if a product was sitting on a shelf, you wanted to tell your whole story and explain the ingredients. Now, when you design a product, it’s so much more about how it’s photographed,” says Gill. “It has to be clean, easy to read, and right to the point. The biggest thing we focused on with the new design was to make it simple, clear and photograph well.”
“We are taking a 360-degree approach to whatever we are addressing. The first two products address the loss of collagen as we age, and I wanted to do that in a plant-based way. The concept is to take an ingredient and address a problem with a supplement and skincare.”
At the outset, Powerella sold its protein powder in a 2-lb. container for $60. Today, Glow Powder retails at $39 for a 1-lb. size, and Glow Serum is $39 for a 1-oz. size. The products are aimed at women 28- to 55-years-old with the money to spend on superior products to keep their faces and bodies in tiptop shape, but aren’t the types to plunk down on the most expensive product merely because it’s the most expensive.
“We aren’t trying to be an über aspirational brand. We want it to be very relatable,” says Gill. “I could have easily priced these products in the $40 [range], but $39 seems so much more approachable. I don’t want the price to be a turnoff. I want it to be a no-brainer.”
For distribution, Gill envisions clean beauty shops such as Follain, The Detox Market and Credo as retail homes for Powerella. Sephora is a dream distribution partner, too, but Gill acknowledges the challenge at Sephora and beauty specialty retail generally will be to merchandise Powerella correctly. For some retailers, it might make sense to separate the supplement from the skincare. However, she asserts the products should be presented together to convey Powerella’s topical-meets-ingestible message.
“It’s going to be interesting to see if retailers are going to be open to this business because it’s definitely different,” says Gill, adding, “My goals are grow the business as quickly as possible, and to reach out to as much press and retailers as possible to gain traction. I believe so much in these products, and people who try them really love them. To me, it’s all about awareness.”
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