. Omobolaji Mogaji is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rubellite Beauty Global, a holistic beauty holding company established in 2018. With its Headquarter base situated in Lagos , Nigeria, the beauty conglomerate houses multiple range of brands spanning cosmetics, luxury hair, botanical skincare, with an immersive experience centers located in Victoria Island in Lagos. News-Mart Editor, Clifford Amuzuo captured views of this exquisite beauty expert during a recent interactive media meet. She takes an overview of global sphere, submitting that Nigeria’s beauty and Cosmetics industry is fast evolving . Excerpts : –
How would you assess Nigeria’s Cosmetic and Beauty industry, is it remarkably growing or just evolving
My name is Dr Omobolaji Mogaji and I am the Founder and CEO of Rubellite Beauty Global .Rubellite Beauty Global is Africa’s lifestyle and beauty company that is focused on creating high quality products, we started up as two….creating two beauty products and then we expanded into hair, beauty education and then creating experiences among women and we also launched recently a beauty experience Center in Victoria Island, with one goal in mind, ensuring that we build all this around, not just women but men as well because we believe that spreading self care , every beauty story , every beauty journey starts with our own stories at first, so that’s basically what we do. Now talking about the industry, it has actually grown , it is emerging and definitely it will continue to emerge. What we had a decade ago and what we have now is miles apart and this is where am coming from, being an import focused country, we are so dependent on ensuring hat all our cosmetic products from skincare , from hair and everything come in from other parts of the woworld.However in the past ten years, we have more emerging Nigerian brands who are not just creating products for our skin type but also solving skin problems, products that respond to our own unique skin problems, because our humidity is different our skin color, our under tone is different and so with all of these problems and the available solutions from among the Nigerian beauty entrepreneurs, it is growing and I can foresee that by the next ten years, the scale of preference in terms of consumption will be to Nigerian brands compared to foreign brands , with Nigerian brands providing the sosolutions.Now the next level of work would be how the Nigerian brands can conquer Africa and also export globally in order to stand a chance of being the global giant in the beauty industry. Skincare is one of the fastest growing category and this is because it chooses no gender, it chooses no age and we have skincare products from an infant stage, that first bath , till your last day, you will need to have a bath as well , so skincare cuts across from babies , it’s a family product and then men also need to take their bath as well, now men are beginning to indulge in ensuring that their skin is at the very best as well , so that category I will say is the fastest growing and then the next one would be hair, because Nigerian women love exploring, they love different looks, I want a blond hair today, I want a short hair tomorrow, and the hair category has actually grown as well, from our brades which is actually ethnically we’ve extended it to everything, we love beatification generally as Africans, so from skincare, we moved to hair and then we have the makeup because it’s not a necessity or luxury process, you have a choice to look the way you are but you can look better, its quite a nitch and so iwill categories them like that skincare, hair and then makeup.
You talked about babies and also about men earlier, do you think cosmetic industry is now more inclusive in Nigeria or it just cater for females .
As at ten years ago I would say skincare would be for mothers and babies and as we can see the early days commercials are targeted at pageants as well, they used them to advertise skincare, and you have the one for mother and child as well but nowadays the category has actually expanded, it’s now more inclusive , you have barbers doing the facials while they are barbing your hair, like I said earlier men are beginning to realize that it’s not a feminine thing to give your yourself facial treatments, its your skin and it is the largest organ of your body and so it is expanding from what it used to be and it will continue to expand, everybody wants to look good and that is the real thing.
From your perspective, how important is marketing in Cosmetics business looking at the competitive environment.
Marketing is the lifeline of the beauty business because beauty categories is highly visual, it’s an experimental category and so in a sense you will need to educate your customers, they need to know the shades, they need to buy colour , you are buying a lipstick for example, you are buying the red color or the pink color so if you go to your website what is it going to look like, if you are merketing to your core audience , there are so many loyalists like our mothers who would use a certain type of product for a very long time , so how do you convince them or otherwise, how do you also introduce the new entrants to try that new product, so its basically the lifeline , beauty is an intimate product in the sense that if I do my skincare for example in the room you are not going to know what it is but if I wear my outfit I wear it out,, if I do my hair I wear it out for you to then ask where did you get it from, all you are going to see is the finished product of oh…you look nice, that’s why it’s very important for brands to always educate, so as little as eye lashes might be, they come in many variants. They come in different styles, they come in different quality, so when we are marketing brands 80 percent of the time we educate, we are telling you how to wear it we are telling you different types of hair that is been used in creating it, that is why my frequent visits to my manufacturer country which is China is very important for the lifeline of my organization, letting my customers and my consumers know I am ethically producing this thing in a very good environment, its science backed, its Science driven, we are trying to see how we can make every ingredient better, so in my own case, I am integrating skincare in makeup which actually started this whole thing at the end of the day, so what’s my Marketing strategy when I am telling and educating my customers and letting them know that this product is an hybrid product, am also Marketing the ingredients, like Cinamide will help reduce your acnes, spots and things like that in this bottle, so its not just a makeup spray, it is a spray that can be used with or without makeup, so there is no way they are going to know all that functions without Marketing it, so it plays a very huge impact in the beauty industry.
A lo t of Cosmetics companies are using influencers. In the beauty industry does it require so much of influencer Marketing, Story telling, and campaigns for consumers to embrace a product.
I will say as at five years ago it required all of that, it still requires all of that, the beauty influencers have actually done a lot, they’ve contributed a huge deal in the beauty industry, we do have beauty influencers different from general influencers, the beauty influencers focus everything on beauty and lifestyle, they want to know the latest skincare , hair care, we even have hair care influencers, we have makeup influencers, so we’ve created a ditch so small to let you know that its beyond this small product, if you speak to any beauty influencer now they can tell you about twenty Nigerian brands on top of their heads, so they have played a huge role and mainstream influencers not so much, they will give you the visibility but they are not going to convert the unknown consumers to your customers, and here’s why, they are Marketing your product, its like you are buying a billboard space, I know about you but am not going to buy from you, and that’s because I don’t trust this mainstream influencer enough because if he’s influencing for a car, if he’s influencing for a night life and so many other things, I am not going to trust you with the largest organ in my skin because its very intimate, its very private, and very personal, I would say the mainstream influencers will give you visibility .but nothing beyond that, while the nitch influencers, the skincare influencers, the makeup influencers, even the family influencers can help move it a step further, however in recent times we’ve realized that the new day …..influencers are actually doing more work because we are in the era of building the community ….gone are the days when people buy and sell, but now people build communities, but for us at Rubellite beauty circle these are our people, its our job, before community became a thing , before when I used to be at forefront of the brand , now it has grown into a full beauty circle, they are our people, when we have our monthly events they are there , they are ready, because we didn’t see them as a customer, we saw them as part of us, when we develop our products they are part of the process, when we want to do the next step they are part of the process, so our UGC creators are fantastic, even our customers are UGC creators as well, so that’s what Marketing has become now, it has now come back to where it started, it’s now a door to door conversation and the only difference is that it’s now done on a platform and once you have one customer that one person can bring in as many People as possible and that’s the way its been.
As the founder and CEO of a beauty brand , how do you identify a beauty influencer that fits in for instance in your business.
Yes, with my background in Marketing, that’s one thing, I think I have about a decade background in Marketing, I think that has also helped my brand as well, in understanding the right kind of brand strategy to utilize with little or no Marketing budget, so influencing is one thing but you can’t say a car will move just because it’s a car, if you require a car you will still need to put fuel, you still need to pump the tyres to make it move, there are so many parts, influencing is just one part. If I want to run a campaign, I will develop a product , I will have to develop a concept, am not just going to give the product to an influencer and say market it for me, no, they will be part of my campaign, create this video based on this guideline , I can give you the creative freedom to create but I can have an idea of what the theme is, that being said I would then use that content and then focus on my ads, knowing the right places to disseminate that ad, as a marketing professional am not going to say my job begins and ends with one influencer, they are just a part of the car in other to get us to that destination., anybody thinks that, you are just wasting your money and you need to find influencers that works for you, that’s why I said become they are popular doesn’t mean they are the right person for you, and now that more than ever when budgets are very like this tiny, you need to know how to strategically work with people who align with your vision and then monitor them as well, not because they are viral on mainstream blogs, monitor their growth, you will even be surprised they are using your product even before you found them, you might even realize that if you have soft skin for example and they are using a particular soft skin in their visuals naturally and you create a soft skin then that’s the right person for you, the moment it skips, you know that beyond that one video that is one product you’ll be using for a very long time.
Compared with global beauty brands, how would you rate the growth, the competitiveness , the creativity of the Nigerian Cosmetics industry
I will start by saying Nigeria has one of the most creative beauty market, from the vendors side , from the service providers to the manufacturers, we have one of the best and that’s why you see things like the Lagos hairline becoming like a global, how we install our furniture’s , our blush, we create that standard, we don’t follow what the global standard is like, so what am I saying in essence, we’ve gotten to the point where we are not copying and pasting, we are creating and from there where global brands are staying, in the past global brands weren’t launching their products in Nigeria, we have the likes of Plenty Beauty …..coming to have their parties in Nigeria, they are coming because they know there is a market here, few years ago they didn’t care, so what am I saying in essence, our creators, our beauty influencers, our beauty creators, our makeup artists, our hair stylists, our Nigerian skincare manufacturers, our makeup manufacturers are all contributing to an ecosystem that is growing, now what does that ecosystem require in order to compete globally, recognition and the support of government, or large organizations that can recognize that our business is currently a $3 billion sector at the moment, so what do we then do, not just regularize, but then we are impacting and even giving grants and loans, I mean go to the banks and talk about your business , immediately you say it’s a beauty business they look at you like, are you sure, but the minute the other person goes in and say am a real estate developer, oh, hear is the site just sign, that kind of mindset shift, we are not saying we are waiting for money from the government but a bit of sensitization from the financial sector to let them know that this industry is emerging and emerging and how are they going to help and ease it to get to that level where they can compete with the global level, that’s where we are at the moment.
What challenges are the operators in the beauty industry facing presently in Nigeria.
The exchange rate is a thing, I would also say that as a manufacturer there’s been a bit of stability, am not going to turn a blind eye to it, its been stable, 1,300, 1,400 for the past six months. Last year and two years ago it was something else, if you could survive through those periods then you could survive anything, but its been stable and kudos to the government on that, I don’t know how they are doing it but its been quite stable and which has been helping manufacturers, so if you know you are producing at one naira, you are going to sell at five Naira its going to be like that and beyond the exchange rate, the high importation costs, I know they are subsidizing certain things, however we still need to import ingredients, if I want to bring in Share Butter oil for example , I know that Share Butter Oil do not exist here, the packaging doesn’t exist, the labeling doesn’t exist, every other component are required to make the share Oil been processed, the machine needs to be imported as well, so all of those things, the import cost is a lot, and then the increased cost of doing business, if you are manufacturing there is power issues, they are so many you can go on and on, but more importantly in the mist of these challenges, we are making it work but how can we make it better, we can make it better by sensitizing the financial sector to create some line of funding in other to have some kind of a cushioning so that what we are supposed to get in five years we can get it in one.
Beauty products, often represent confidence and identity for many people, so how much do you see this evolution shaping consumer behaviors in Nigeria’s market.
One thing I would say, first of all that’s a misconception, and this is why I say so, beauty has been one thing that has been part of our heritage since the early centuries, , if the Olori’s then will beautify their hairs with bids, we have different hair styles and then from there we upgraded to Tiroo, when Cleopatra had hers there was no globalization or civilization for us to copy and paste what the Egyptians were doing but we took Charcoal and grinded it and then we were able to put it in our tear dots that’s the origin of beauty from Nigeria .
You started out in 2018 with just 2 products, how much has the brand expanded since inception
Yes I would say before Rubelite , I built my career in the media with over a decade of experience and that also had helped me., but the business, I won’t say it was a side hustle until I decided to pursue it further. Working in a multinational also made me understand how powerful that storytelling is, and consumer insight , feedback is everything, people connected with my story first before they then connect with my products, so what has that done, it has helped built different part of the business that has now become a beauty ecosystem. We started with two products really but now we have about fifteen beauty make up products, then we expanded to hair because it’s within the same kind of people, they trust the brand and then from there to beauty services, we got started , requests started coming, and that’s basically how the ecosystem has just become an experience and that’s why call it Rebelite Beauty Experience Center. .I checked online and I didn’t see such anywhere, it’s only in Dubai and I can categorically say I created Africa’s first beauty center where we have our own products, our own make up products, our hair line, we also provide brading services, installation services for the hair as well, make up services, when you buy your products , we also included other beauty services like pedicure and manicure , the nails, the lashes and we didn’t end there, one thing from my personal experience would be, as a woman I go to the Salons to make my hair, most of the time I don’t Connect with the women at the Salon , we then said we would create the Rubellite experience ….where once a month we bring our customers together, get to bond together, we’ve had so many bonding moments where people get to meet each other along the line, what am I saying in essence, am not saying I built a product I didn’t build a product , am building an ecosystem to the right women, the right people, through experiences and yes that’s actually how the success has actually been, the brand, has been growing bit by bit in the course of seven years and am very grateful and am proud of my journey.
From just a single outlet in Lekki and now you have an experience Center. How has the reception been.
Well, its different in the sense that we have entirely new outlook, before, like when we were in Lekki, I want to buy my make up product, I want to buy my hair from you, but now it is different because we have different customers coming for different things, I want to make my hair, I want to fix my lashes, we even have other requests of customers who say I want to have my birthday shoot here, and we’ve had that request done before because I love aesthetics, and then from there we created a content room, imagine yourself as a busy person, you just have one day to your birthday, you have your make up done, you don’t even have the hair , we could sort that out for you , you have your hair installed , you get your photographer or a videographer, we have the content room , you could have all of these done for you at once , so all of these came as a result of different people’s problems and different people’s requests and we created the experience and it has been quite receptive, we are at the pointing of letting more people, beyond the people that know us to get to know us, that we are Africa’s first beauty experience Center that provides not just beauty essentials, beauty services , beauty experiences among women and men as well.
You talked about your services, pedicure, manicure and so on. Can you do a breakdown of products by products that you use for your services.
We started with mouth lip stains, mouth lip stains were quite popular about seven years ago , however the only problem then is having some cracks, the non transferable lipsticks and stuffs like that. After I got my diploma in Cosmetics formulation for make ups, I went back to my manufacturer to add one percent of a particular ingredients at that time and he looked at me and said it doesn’t make any sense, he then put it, we tried it, it was almost there but not there yet, at that point we saw the vision and I said we are going to do it in a particular percentage, we tried it and it worked, and that’s the Nigerian product that we launched and everyone was like wao, Nigerian product.? So it really helped the brand and we had lashes as well that could be used over and over again , at that time I was thinking for the purse, the Chinese brands were the ones that, you wear it once and you throw it away. I want to look good over and over and also save cost. So from those two products, now we have hybrid products like the aseptic spray that you can use when you have your makeup on and then use it to lock in your skin care products as well , we have the softest beauty blender for the average everyday woman to know how to apply and the skin doesn’t absorb the foundation, it doesn’t do all of that. Our concealer for example is more like a corrector, you put on your spray to cover up your blemishes and you are good to go, we have a good eyebrow pencil that doesn’t cause any form of irritation, and when people ask me what started this journey, I have been an acne prone individual from my teenage age and anytime I put on my makeup and removed it, I break up, and that made me ask myself the question, what is that ingredient in makeup that makes people to break up, so basically those are the few products that we have , and for the array of our products if you go to rubellitebeaty.com you will see the various products that we have available.
