Page 24 of Original Sin

‘Perhaps we should make a start,’ said Liz officiously, once everyone was in the room.

William, nominally the head of company, seemed distracted, fiddling with his laptop at the head of the table, the prestigious slot that Meredith – as company chairman – had occupied during board meetings until about six months ago. Now she sat to his right, Liz opposite her. Finally William looked up and nodded deferentially to Liz before addressing the room.

‘I know you’ve all prepared your report for the individual divisions,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I think today we just need to concentrate on the first quarters results and look at where we’re heading in the light of those.’

There were unsettled grumblings around the room as William introduced Quentin, their chief financial officer, and asked him to run through the figures. Liz could tell within a minute that they were the worst results the company had ever posted.

Liz watched William closely, waiting to see what spin her brother would attempt to put on the latest downwards turn, which had been caused by the recent launch of Vital Radiance, a low–priced organics range that – in theory – dispensed fresh beauty products from pumps placed in stores.

‘As you can see, we’re quite a way off from where we’d like to be at this point,’ said William. ‘The launch costs of Vital Radiance have obviously been fairly heavy, ditto the forthcoming Skin Plus.’

‘Presumably we’re going to have to reforecast the end–of–year results?’ asked Meredith. William shook his head.

‘We should wait until the second quarter for that. Obviously we’re all hoping that Vital Radiance is going to be a big hit.’

Liz watched as the rest of the board followed William’s cue and started smiling and nodding at this slim chance of rescue. Clearly nobody else had detected the slight waver in her brother’s voice that betrayed panic.

‘Quentin, have we got a breakdown of the Vital Radiance sales figures?’ she asked, interrupting William’s flow. Quentin nodded and handed out his First Quarter Financial Report. Liz didn’t miss the uncomfortable glance he directed at Eleanor Cohen, general manager of the Vital Radiance line, as he passed her a copy. Eleanor was an experienced cosmetics industry executive who’d been recently drafted in for her knowledge of marketing in department stores.

‘The first few weeks after the November launch were admittedly slow,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘But retail conditions for everyone this Christmas were difficult.’

‘Not for everyone,’ said Liz.

Eleanor tried to avoid Liz’s stare, instead directing her comments to William and Meredith.

‘However, the press coverage we’ve had is excellent. Allure gave us half a page for the avocado cleansing oil, which is showing all the signs of becoming a cult classic.’

Liz almost laughed. Already there had been rumours that the drugstores were going to cut back on the retail space they had allocated for Vital Radiance because of poor initial sales. If that happened, it was a certain death warrant for the brand.

‘Eleanor, let’s face facts,’ said Liz irritably. ‘We are dead in the water if we don’t do something radical immediately to start shifting units.’

‘Liz, now is not the time for scaremongering,’ said Eleanor.

‘Scaremongering? Vital radiance is haemorrhaging money. It won’t last until fall at this rate.’

Liz looked over at her brother. Only eighteen months older than her, William looked at least a decade her senior: old and tired, worn out by the responsibility. He had none of Liz’s flair and none of the natural authority of their father; he was just a worker bee, a drone reluctantly forced into the queen’s seat. Liz, on the other hand, had been profiled in the Wall Street Journal as ‘that rare executive, one who combines creative brilliance with astute business sense.’ They both knew who should be sitting in William’s chair.

William cleared his throat. ‘Let’s not forget that the product we have here is good.’

Liz laughed. ‘Of course it’s good.’

Before Eleanor Cohen had been brought in to launch Vital Radiance, the product had been Liz’s baby. The fresh organics concept had been her idea, and she had spent fifteen hours a day working with industrial designers to perfect the dispensing pumps that mixed the fresh ingredients in store.

‘The problem is not the product,’ said Liz, looking pointedly at Eleanor, ‘the problem is the marketing.’

‘Well, it would have been nice to have received this insight before we launched,’ replied Eleanor tartly.

‘I assumed marketing was your area of expertise,’ retorted Liz. ‘Wasn’t that why we hired you?’

‘Okay, everyone, let’s keep things constructive,’ said William. ‘Liz, you clearly have some ideas.’

A faint smile played on Liz’s lips. She had been anticipating another difficult board meeting and relished the opportunity to place herself in the sun.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘First of all, we’re not using our core brand effectively. Nobody knows that Vital Radiance is part of the Asgill family.’

‘You are quite happy for Skin Plus not to have brand association to the company,’ scoffed Eleanor.

Liz shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s different. Skin Plus is being positioned as a premium, luxury product, so we need to distance ourselves from Asgill’s. Vital Radiance, on the other hand, is very mass market. When you’ve only got fifty dollars disposable income a week and you’re spending a chunk of that on a face cream, the customers want the reassurance that it’s good. They like the validation that a major cosmetics player is behind it, so we should have branded it Vital Radiance by Asgill on all the retail units.’