Pulse: Let’s start with a big question: in a nutshell, why
did Red Door’s leadership feel that it was time for a
rebrand?
Todd Walter: Red Door Spa has been operating under
separate ownership from the Elizabeth Arden product
company since 1992, under an exclusive global license
from Elizabeth Arden. We’ve obviously been growing the
business since then—there were only two locations open
at that time—and we’ve increased the number of
locations to 26.
Part of the challenge we’ve been facing for the past
several years is that, under the terms of that license, we
were required to carry all of the Elizabeth Arden products
and to run all of our marketing, advertising and
messaging through their marketing department
for approval. We were wanting to go in a
different direction. Over the past several
years, we’ve been marketing to a
younger consumer, but we’ve been
somewhat restrained by Elizabeth
Arden and the marketing
direction that they wanted to
go. And we found that among
younger consumers there was a
tremendous brand awareness
about Red Door and Elizabeth
Arden, but there was also a
misperception that the brand
wasn’t for them: that it was their
mother’s brand or even their grand-
mother’s brand. We wanted to be
appealing to that consumer, but it was difficult
to overcome the preconceptions that they had.
first place because they recognized the brand name, but
what brings them back are the quality of the service and
the experience they receive from the individual service
providers. So, we felt that given the strength of the
relationships between our service providers and our
guests, our service providers would continue to take good
care of those guests and reassure them that this is a
positive change, even though there was some risk
associated with our rebrand.
We also felt that a rebrand would free us up to be
more appealing to other prospective customers and allow
us to be more inclusive. As we know from the ISPA
research, men are one of the fastest-growing segments of
spa-goers, but the Elizabeth Arden and Red Door
brands were really thought of first and
foremost as feminine brands. So, we
were missing out on half of the
population.
“There was also a
misperception that the brand
P: So, you decided to
rebrand. What came
next? How did you land
on the core values of
what the new brand
would be?
W: The core values of the
new brand are the same
core values that we had as
the Red Door. Who we are,
what we do and what our
people believe in hasn’t changed.
What we wanted was a brand that
better reflected what our core values and
beliefs are. As an example, Elizabeth Arden is a product
company and first and foremost about beauty. That’s
certainly a big part of our business, but over half of our
business is also about self-care, wellness and wellbeing.
As we were trying to attract prospective customers, they
saw Elizabeth Arden as beauty and not about compre-
hensive self-care.
As for the actual rebranding, we worked with a
branding agency who helped us develop the brand name
“Mynd Spa & Salon.” The spelling of it was very inten-
tional. It was driven by our belief that everybody’s
self-care journey is unique. What you’re trying to accom-
plish or what I’m trying to accomplish are probably
different things. We wanted the name to be reflective of
the fact that our spa is really driven by the consumer; our
expertise comes into play by listening to what they are
looking to accomplish and then helping facilitate that.
wasn’t for them: that it was their
mother’s brand…. We wanted to
be appealing to that [younger]
consumer, but it was difficult to
overcome the preconceptions
that they had.”
P: So, it was driven by a desire to move past those
preconceptions?
W: That was part of the driver. The other big thing is that
we believe that having clean beauty products is essential,
and we weren’t able to bring in those kinds of products
under our license agreement. We’re very focused on
offering cruelty-free products with consciously sourced
ingredients. We reached the conclusion that—despite the
recognition and 109-year heritage—that we would be
better off changing our brand name, and that the oppor-
tunities outweighed the risks.
P: How was Mynd able to minimize those risks?
W: We’ve recognized that our guests are just as loyal—or
even more loyal—to the individual service provider than
the umbrella brand. They may have come to us in the
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