AS Watson, parent company of Superdrug and Savers, has launched a new data-driven brand creation and scaling platform.
Named “AS Watson brand lab”, the platform has been created to identify, develop, and grow brands across its international retail ecosystem.
It leverages the group’s integrated offline and online capabilities, distribution network, and consumer insight from over 180 million loyalty customers.
The group said it “transforms how brands are brought to market” to enable the creation of new propositions and scaling of brands across multiple markets efficiently.
Over two years, AS Watson has onboarded over 4,800 new brands and brand extensions across its network, and the new lab will embed brand development directly within its retail ecosystem.
It said the platform will operate inside the market with real-time customer data, shopping behaviour, and category dynamics rather than incubating brands ahead of market entry.
AS Watson group chief executive Dr Malina Ngai said: “We don’t wait for brands to find the market – we build them where demand already exists, and scale them through our ecosystem.”
At each step, brands will receive individual support across “insight, distribution, marketing activation and investment”, to ensure resources are focused where the “greatest growth potential exists”.
By being set out in steps, it allows the group to systematically build, scale, and prioritise brands.
It will also prioritise product segments such as Korean beauty, Japanese beauty, ingredient-led skincare, health and wellness products, and personal care, as these areas are seeing the most customer demand.
AS Watson said it expects the platform to “strengthen its ability to build proprietary and exclusive brands while improving speed-to-market and capital efficiency”.
Early outcomes from brands such as e.l.f Cosmetics in the US and essence in Germany demonstrate how the AS Watson brand lab has evolved insight into growth, enabling brands to move from targeted market entry to multi-market expansion.
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