Erica Pagano talks about the company’s plans, influencer marketing, among others
The cosmetics company Hinode embodies network marketing in the work of 600,000 consultants, who gain support and training to make their dream of being an entrepreneur come true. The company that has the fragrance market as its flagship is preparing actions to celebrate 35 years of a history guided by the mission of transforming lives.
From the consumer, comes the same careful posture of promoting beauty from the inside out, and from the outside in, says Erica Pagano, VP of marketing, product innovation and branding at Hinode Group, in an interview below.
What is the origin of Hinode?
Dona Adelaine, our founder, had a sales team called Sol Nascente. She has always been a fan of Japanese culture, for its focus on achievement, discipline, excellence. In search of a better destiny for the family, she created the company, and asked one of the people of the Japanese culture what is the rising sun in Japanese. Thus was born Hinode, which means the first ray of sunshine on the first day of the year, when families gather to celebrate a new cycle. So it’s all for us sun. Seeing the eyes of the people we are effectively helping to transform is exciting. The Fragrances that connect campaign, for example, was inspired by a perfume that resembled the deceased grandmother of a consumer. We also have the example of a plus size model, a 17-year-old girl, who said she was happy to do her first campaign with Hinode, when many people said she wouldn’t make it. Everything we do has a story.
After rebranding in March 2022, how did you structure the marketing?
I took over the entire marketing area, I was already responsible for branding and product development. We bring all areas together to gain effectiveness. We thought about coherence and convergence to generate relevance, and we made the strategic decision to create a robust area of content, along with branding. We work with branding agencies on strategic planning. The execution, we do indoors. I have a team dedicated to content, storytelling, for all platforms. We work with Marcas com Sal, with a strategic vision and long-term branding. Depending on the need, we hire an agency.
What is the weight of influencer marketing?
Our communication strategy is based on the power of influence. We have over 600,000 people in our community who are micro-influencers. We invest in training and content generation, because we know the importance of word of mouth. We offer training tools to add to the work they already do, and we partner with influencers. We worked with Juliana Rakoza, who helped us create social media and training content, as well as Isabella Santoni and Chris Castro. Sometimes curation is done with agencies. But we haven’t defined any specifics yet. We really want to give tools to our network, so that it can influence. We have consultants who often do not have internet access. This other work, of education and training, is a social point of view, which goes beyond the issue of generosity in our business plan, in terms of bonuses and profit percentages.
Why did you decide to organize marketing internally?
For the energy and change that we have all the time. In January, for example, we anticipated 15 launches that would be announced in March. It was four months in one. We are very dynamic, our market demands it. We also rebranded one of our main categories, Empire. There were five items launched, in addition to a specific hair product, because we had a more basic line, and now we bring treatment, oil, masks, and we also launched products in healthy life, which is another relevant category, with Resveratrol, among others.
What is the purpose of the brand?
Let’s celebrate 35 years in 2023. Hinode is an evolving brand. One of our values is that nothing is so good that it cannot be improved. We honor what we have done so far, and we think of it as our window to the future. We started working on brand positioning last year, and 2023 is the harvest year. Hinode’s purpose is to offer people the opportunity to transform their lives. an accessible brand. People can do business from, where, how and when they want. In network marketing, we have a broad portfolio, with more than 350 products developed internally, and with partners.
How is the theme of beauty treated?
The research and development area is based on our five categories, which take care of beauty from the inside out, and from the outside in, addressing self-esteem. We do not want to rule that the person has a necessarily thin body. We look at health. We launched Shake H-Control, which allows you to control your weight, according to the dose you can buy. It has to do with accessibility. Many people cannot afford a balanced meal. We also relaunch Routine Dermo and offer tools so that people can sell these products. And we started to work on the issue of ageism, paying attention to the chronology of the skin and its needs, and not necessarily age. Self-esteem means feeling good in your own skin. We offer multifunctional products so that people can decide how to take care of their self-esteem. We start with how we are going to deliver sustainable tools to our networks and audiences, considering consumption trends, high performance and personalized routine.
How do you view ESG guidelines?
In female entrepreneurship, we have the Pearls program, we are signatories to the UN Women platform and we have brought environmental impact initiatives, such as the Impacta platform. From business, we have the pillars of products, tools that connect our network. We talk about being phygital because we want more than growth. We want to touch more people’s lives. The greater the geographic expansion, the more we will have this opportunity. We arrived in the United States, Portugal and Uruguay. We are already in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador, in addition to Brazil, the largest market. We launched UH, Hinode University, created to make consultants more experts in our main categories. This e-learning platform presents content adapted to the brand, in addition to the tracks necessary for people to be able to train. In makeup, we have a virtual mirror, which helps consultants and consumers to try out the portfolio without us making a mini lipstick bullet that impacts the environment.
How does the digital environment support brand marketing?
We have websites, e-commerce and WhatsApp. The network marketing market has a lot of prejudice, and we were the first in the sector to have its WhatsApp verifiable. We can use WhatsApp Business to work with CRM and our networks. With business intelligence, we can observe trends. Hinode grew quickly on the entrepreneurial side. Now, we are looking for structures to evolve and deliver the best experience. We increasingly develop data-driven. There are many business opportunities. We like to be challenged to do better.
Read the full story in the May 1 issue