A Decade of Success: Cocoa Brown Expands Its Presence in the Swedish Market

More than 12 years after entering the Swedish market, Irish beauty brand Cocoa Brown is going from strength to strength there, and new products and distribution deals are helping them to continue to grow in the region. 

When Cocoa Brown launched in the Swedish market in 2013, such was the pent-up demand for self-tanning products that the company became enormously successful almost overnight, and since then they have been working to consolidate and grow their presence there. 

Created by Marissa Carter, the company has since grown into a skincare and cosmetics powerhouse serving markets in Ireland, the UK and Europe, and together with her husband and COO Ronan O’Flaherty, they continue to go from strength to strength. 

“Working with Enterprise Ireland and our local partners in Sweden, we’re identifying new opportunities all the time, so it’s a very exciting time for us,” Ronan says. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the sparse amount of sunlight they receive on an annual basis, the biggest users of tanning products in the world are to be found in Ireland, Britain and Sweden; and the Swedes took to Cocoa Brown’s offering instantly. However, every market has its own characteristics, and while other markets can be very price-sensitive, quality is often the primary driver in Scandinavia. 

“They're very highly educated, ingredient-conscious customers and there's no spoofing numbers - it doesn't matter how much you put into your marketing spend or influencers, unless it's a good product, it's not going to work,” Ronan explains. “We've been very lucky, and we've worked very hard with our distribution partner and with selected influencers as well over the 12 years or so. I would say we're doing quite well and it’s a market we love, but there’s still a huge amount of work to do and it’s very much an ongoing project.”

When Cocoa Brown launched into the market, self-tanning products were virtually unheard of in Sweden, with the odd supermarket shelf given over to stocking them at certain times of the year. Just over a decade later, the situation has changed completely. Cocoa Brown has sold more than three million units in the region, and plenty of competitors have attempted to jump on the self-tanning bandwagon they created. 

“It's now a 365-days-a-year category, a full category - self tanning has even got some buyers at the big retailers, so we've had to learn how to deal with them,” Ronan says. “When we first launched, it was like a very trendy kind of category. Now that it’s a proper full category for the supermarkets, we've become a lot more ingredient-led, especially for Swedish customer. They don't want spoofing or drama, they want to know what they're putting on their skin, and if it will work for them.”

Together with their partners, Cocoa Brown developed a special range of products specifically for the Swedish market that Ronan describes as “self-tanning meets skincare”, and it has proved very successful. 

“Our Swedish customers want a very natural look – in other markets, customers go for a very dark look but in Sweden our lighter shades are the ones that perform best, and when we packaged them with Swedish text and a design created for that market, it went well, moving us from a niche category to a more everyday one with a sophisticated, ingredient led customer.”

Ronan says that Enterprise Ireland has played a key role in opening doors for the company in Scandinavia. 

“We did a trade mission there last summer which was very successful, and the team there is forever trying to come up with people to introduce us to or connect us to – people on the ground who can make a material difference to what we are trying to do, so it’s great having people there that really support us,” he says. 

“We’re a small team at Cocoa Brown, so it’s all hands on deck, but I’d advise others looking to do things similar to what we have done to engage with Enterprise Ireland as soon as possible in the process”.

As well as getting the right assistance, Ronan stresses the need for companies active in the beauty space to keep investing in order to repay the faith shown to them by retailers.

“A lot of businesses put resources into a new market for the first 12 to 24 months and then the focus shifts elsewhere, but if the market is important to you – and Sweden is very important to us – you have to keep putting the effort and the money in.”

With the help of sales and distribution partner Retailsbros, Cocoa Brown products are now available in the likes of Lyko, Apotea, Ica, Kronans Apotek and Nordic Feel, and recently a three-year deal was announced with the Viking Line ferry company that will see their products stocked on the boats that traverse the Baltic Sea.

For Cocoa Brown, the lessons learned during their time on the ground in the market has allowed them to broaden their palette, developing a new range of hair-care products that will hopefully soon hit the shelves in Sweden and beyond.

“Our competitors don’t have hair-care so that’s a bonus for us – there’s only so much you can do with self-tanning in Sweden before you run out, so we are doing our best to keep our customers and our retailers engaged,” Ronan says. “Our retailers know us, and they know our competition so they can be a valuable source of information about what might work and what might not. 

The might involve a lot of leg-work on the ground, but it’s something Cocoa Brown are more than happy to do.  

“Retailers do reward brands when it's very obvious they're engaged. They're investing into it in Sweden,” he says. “To anyone looking to enter Sweden, I say go for it, and give it a really good bash - be committed to it, give it the time it needs, and you'll get it back in spades.”