Bringing KOSÉ’s Beauty Legacy to America’s Front Row

Bringing KOSÉ’s Beauty Legacy to America’s Front Row

Summary: Left Off Madison introduced Japan’s premier beauty house, KOSÉ Corporation, to the U.S. cosmetics industry with a striking WWD print spread and a CEO-led video debut, overcoming language and time-zone hurdles to deliver a flawless first impression.

We have been fortunate to have an ongoing stream of opportunities to collaborate with many Japan-based clients over the years including Ajinomoto, Hitachi, Panasonic, and SEIKO among others. In this instance, it’s premium beauty brand creator KOSÉ Corporation– the maker of leading cosmetic brands DECORTÉ, Sekkisei, ADDICTION TOKYO, and Jill Stuart.

KOSÉ Corporation has been quietly making its way into the United States landing onto cosmetic counters at upscale shops including Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Bloomingdales and a handful of e-commerce outlets as well as some direct-to-consumer. But, to be honest, the company never implemented a proper U.S. introduction or launch. The time had come to introduce KOSÉ and its brands to the industry.

Left Off Madison was engaged to collaborate the with KOSÉ teams to create a 5-page print ad that would run in a full-color supplement named BEAUTYINC that is included with a subscription or purchase of industry trade publication Women’s Wear Daily (WWD).

Derivative of that request, the KOSÉ team requested us to create and produce an introductory video featuring Kazutoshi Kobayashi, President & CEO that would play at a WWD event. Some of our challenges included addressing language barriers between the CEO’s comfort speaking Japanese and its intended audience of native English speakers. Also, we only had about one hour of the CEO’s time to record his message while he was in Japan. This meant that we had to collaborate with a local Japan-based production team.