Four years later, Stefano Focolari, at the helm of Mktg Industry, the Italian company created from scratch in 2014, can be proud of the road he’s taken. His company will most likely close the year posting a turnover of around +55% vs. 2018 but, most of all, he will have succeeded in sharing his vision and signature with dozens of cosmetics brands, using a simple concept, but one yet often difficult to implement: a complete 360° full-service for cosmetics and makeup. In the showroom located in its Crema headquarters, the number of references currently offered by the company is simply impressive. Stefano Focolari gives us an update...
 
Jean-Yves Bourgeois: After ten years as Marketing Director of Lumson, you created and launched your company, Mktg Industry, at the right time! The concept of full service has literally exploded over the last four years, especially in the makeup niche....

Stefano Focolari: I would say at the right time and in the right place! The first signs of this emerging trend were already noticeable around five years ago and it was obvious that the development of the market was going to open avenues for the creation of a real 360° full service offer. We supply Marketing Tools for the cosmetic/makeup market that explains our name Mktg Industry, but for us to offer Marketing Tools means to supply all the necessary ingredients to place a winning product on the market. The mushrooming of new cosmetics brands, the booming of the web, and of new buying influencers, gave an extra boost to an already exciting and positive market and, especially to new makeup brands, or to existing cosmetic brands that need to continuously launch new makeup lines faster than ever before. All these factors created a need for a specialized full-service offer, with a specific expertise and know-how to take care of the entire project development process, opening up to brand new business opportunities. Today Mktg Industry is able to offer all that and, like I was saying before, being located in the heart of the Italian area specialized in the beauty and makeup niche, it was quite easy and fast to build up a highly qualified team and to find the best partners to propose a complete full-service product offer. But Mktg Industry is not only full service; a large part of our turnover is made by primary packaging only.

Jean-Yves Bourgeois: Under your logo, you state “Creating in Beauty” can you explain better?

Stefano Focolari: Our specificity is to combine creativity, design, product development, research and production, to offer in the shortest possible time, packaging solutions and/or a 360° Full Service solution, to develop ready to market, turnkey cosmetic and makeup products. We create innovative, high quality, exclusive, customized beauty solutions, driven by passion and by the commitment of supporting the Beauty brands in developing top selling products.

We offer a wide range of traditional and unconventional packaging for the cosmetic and makeup market. We take care of the manufacturing and supplying to provide high quality, cost-saving, innovative, fast to market packaging solutions.

From the idea to the design, from artwork to PPS sampling, from the formula to the filling stage, from quality control to the delivery of the finished product, we manage the entire process and every single stage in between. And I could never underline it enough, our geographical position (Crema, Italy) and our long-standing and strong experience in the cosmetic and makeup contract manufacturing industry allows us to relentlessly innovate and deliver high-quality products that best serve our clients on the global market.

Jean-Yves Bourgeois: How did your company succeed in making a name for itself?
 
Stefano Focolari: Clearly this type of service offer immediately caught the attention at first of subcontractors in the vicinity of Crema. Then, the first customers arrived, thanks mostly to our presence in trade shows like Cosmoprof and MakeUp in Paris. Our main strength lies in our knowledge of the market, but our responsiveness, our ability to innovate and a constant presence and support to our customers are also key assets.

When we first started in 2015, we won the Cosmoprof Award “The Wall” as best Eco Design packaging and this year we won the Innovation Tree Award for the fourth time in a row at the MakeUp In Paris trade show. After an accurate research of the latest and upcoming trends in beauty and makeup, by mixing natural and trendy concepts our team developed “Roll To Glow,”a brand-new, on-the-go product, proposed as part of a full service offer that changes the makeup game by adding super shimmering shades to your face and body!

It comes in small size premium packaging consisting of a transparent roll-on glass bottle, so users can clearly see color nuances inside, and thanks to the smart application, the intensity of the product can be controlled by simply rolling it directly on the skin area to highlight. It can then be easily slipped in the bag for shimmering touch-ups on the go. 

“Roll To Glow” contains metal drops, an illuminating makeup formula designed to combine the “metal” effect, in line with the latest fashion and makeup trends with the emerging need to have a safe, natural, vegan, free of toxic ingredients, with no animal ingredients or derivatives and a totally cruelty-free product. This natural formula guarantees the same top performances as traditional recipes with synthetic ingredients. This lightweight oil emulsion contains a high concentration of pearls that form a reflective film with an extraordinary metal finish. Depending on the number of strokes, you can modulate this super-concentrated liquid highlighter enriched with Vitamin E, which was praised for its antioxidant properties and protecting action against UV radiations. “Roll To Glow” can be used to highlight specific areas, such as the cheekbones, eyes, nose, lips, cupid’s bow, neck and collarbones, brightening up even the darkest skin areas.
 
Jean-Yves Bourgeois: Trade shows are therefore very important for you!
 
Stefano Focolari: Essential, indeed! Just to give you an example, Cosmoprof/Cosmopack has been this year’s most important B2B appointment: It is where we have introduced our latest innovations, ideas, concepts, and it is where we met, all at once, most of our clients and new contacts from all over the world. This was our 4th participation in the event. I remember when we first started in 2015 with a small 12 sqm booth and now, after only 3 years, here we are with a 60 sqm stand, a brand-new image and a new design. The show was a total success beyond our expectations: We already had about 110 appointments scheduled but, at the end of the 4 exhibition days, we had completed almost 450 meetings, some of them even taking place on Sunday morning, and that was a real pleasant surprise!

Jean-Yves Bourgeois: What were the latest novelties showcased?
 
Stefano Focolari: We enriched our range of cardboard packaging with our “Powder Power” a collection of makeup cardboard palettes for pressed powders, hot poured formulas and baked powders. Our palettes are fully customizable in any size, number of positions, insides and decorations and they are available with or without an inside mirror. “Powder Power” palettes all come with a magnetic closure and they are available with or without a magnetic base for refills. Speaking of refills, we must say a word about our Flatty and Paper Case packaging—two solutions that always foster the interest of our clients. These practical and multifunctional packages designed to occupy as little space as possible can be used either to exchange refills or to carry around your favorite makeup powder. These super flat on-the-go “Made in Italy” packages are 100% cardboard and paper made and totally customizable in terms of sizes, shapes, diameters and decorations.

Following the current trends we have just launched the “Collezione Gea” a complete line of makeup packaging that perfectly combines cardboard, paper and plastic. An innovative solution that by reducing, as much as possible, the use of plastic and replacing it with cardboard and paper is more environmentally friendly. A packaging pre-approved by Ecocert/Cosmos, and highly “decoratable” with an endless number of printing effects. Gea Collection includes cardboard compact cases, lip glosses, lipsticks and mascara packaging solutions.
 
Jean-Yves Bourgeois: You have gone one step further today with your packaging offer!
 
Stefano Focolari: That’s correct, we have also enriched our offer of traditional packaging with new lip glosses and cosmetics tubes. We added a new selection of lip glosses in PETG with high thick walls and bases, with different capacities and shapes, ranging from cylindrical to square designs, and with a wide range of applicators to choose from. And last but not least, thanks to a new exclusive partnership agreement, we launched on the market two different lines of tubes for cosmetics and makeup applications: plastic tubes and laminate tubes with fast delivery times, both available in different capacities and with different capsules. At this point our packaging and 360° Full Service offer is quite complete, we cover all product categories with “unconventional” solutions like cardboard, paper, and aluminum primary packaging and with “conventional” solutions for makeup and skincare formulas: lip glosses, mascara, lipsticks, compact cases, tubes, etc. But since our philosophy is to keep on trying to improve and innovate we are already working on new ideas for 2019 so stay tuned!