Article by Yiannis Protopapadakis at marketing-tips.gr
The Italian-born British Anita Roddick (1942-2007), founder of Body Shop, was an unconventional entrepreneur who managed to leave her mark on the business world in a unique way. She founded a business that soon became known for its respect for the environment, while she herself, as an activist who grew up in the 1960s, in those years of controversy, managed to raise awareness of a large part of the population on issues related to the protection of the environment and human rights.
In the 70s, she thought of investing all her fortune in women’s beauty products, since, as she said, “women even when they are going to the guillotine want to have make-up”.
In 1976, the 33-year-old Roddick opened – between two funeral parlors – a store that would sell cosmetics from natural materials that she stored in her garage. As a well-travelled woman, she had noticed that there were no bathroom products for sale in small or medium packages anywhere. She started with 15 different cosmetics in five different packages each, so that, she said, it looked like she had at least 100 different products. In fact, in order to convince the public to enter her store, she “sprayed” the sidewalk in front of the store’s entrance with various scents, while she did not fail to perfume various points inside the store.
Her products were packaged in small plastic, recyclable bottles, urine bottles to be exact. He preferred recyclable packaging, while painting the walls green in order to hide the marks from the humidity. With all of this, she was projecting the image of an environmentally friendly store, although that was not her original goal.
“We recycle everything, not out of respect for the environment, but for reasons of economy, since we don’t have many bottles. Fortunately for us, we struck a chord with a large number of consumers around the world,” said the creator of the Body Shop in 1993, wanting to show that by pure luck she was in the right place at the right time, when the world had begun to raise awareness of issues related to environmental protection.
Soon the Body Shop would be a great success, with many customers showing interest in opening branches and promoting the products with natural ingredients themselves. Within just a decade, The Body Shop had a presence on most of Britain’s high streets.
Roddick, of course, was no ordinary entrepreneur whose entrepreneurial vision would be limited to selling products. He was a philanthropist, an opponent of the practice of animal testing, and he promoted environmental issues long before it became fashionable, convincing millions of people of the importance of mass-market green products.
The fact that she received countless accolades, combined with the fact that she managed to become one of the wealthiest women in England, shows that “the real pioneer”, as she was called, was far ahead of her time.
From the book 100+1 Marketing Geniuses.
