When Procter & Gamble Co. paid $57 billion for Gillette back in 2005, little question company executives thought it was a certainty. In any case, P&G was the highest consumer products giant within the realm of girls’s products, Gillette the leader in men’s. It was a wedding made in mass-market heaven.

Then got here the recession, followed by the digital revolution, and an entire latest rise of competitor was born: The Disruptor.

Gillette still commands a reported 60 percent of the retail market. But that market is contracting, replaced by digital-first brands like DollarShaveClub.com, which has been capable of grab near 16 percent of the $3 billion blades market. And though Gillette filed suit against Dollar Shave Club in December alleging patent violation, the rival upstart—and its estimated three million subscribers—shows no signs of going anywhere.

After all, the razor category shouldn’t be alone. Business models across all industries are being upended. “Over the past five years we’ve seen disruption in every industry and category you may imagine,” says Dana Cho, partner of Ideo. “The competitive landscape and ease with which a start-up can put something available on the market are all contributing to corporations asking what they must be doing next.”

Nowhere is that this more true than in the wonder industry. After recovering from the Great Recession of 2008, a lot of essentially the most esteemed brands in beauty have struggled to retain relevance as the standard demographic and psychographic drivers of their business evolve on the speed of sunshine, driven by the technological revolution. It begs the query—what does brand longevity seem like today? Can a heritage brand, one which is 60, 70 or 80 years old, and even 100, maintain its relevance in a rapidly changing market?

“That is the query everyone seems to be asking,” says Carol Hamilton, group president of L’Oréal Luxe USA, who oversees brands including Lancôme, Kiehl’s and Urban Decay. “But it surely’s not only heritage brands. On this fast-moving market, how do all brands maintain and retain their relevance?”

On this brave latest world, where the Millennial is the brand new Boomer, big is not any longer necessarily a profit with regards to brand relevance, and the best way brands respond to vary is vital to future longevity. “There may be a number of emphasis, particularly with publicly traded corporations, to have a short-termist approach to their brand image, their products and the way they execute and adapt their language,” says Lucie Greene, worldwide director of the Innovation Group at J. Walter Thompson.

“That might be dangerous, because if you happen to stick to the short term and what’s working, it’s working now,” continues Greene. “But successful brands are continuously reevaluating and pivoting. They aren’t afraid to pivot.”

In other words, as Darwin taught us, the important thing to evolution is adaptation. “A brand doesn’t have a life cycle,” says Hamilton, “however it is tougher for a heritage brand to reinvent itself. You may have to know what to maintain and what to evolve.”

The important thing to doing that lies, in fact, in a deep knowledge of the buyer you’re targeting. “When it appears like there’s a number of uncertainty,” says Cho, we all the time return to the buyer, because that’s our foundation. That anchors our strategic pondering. For those who are serving the buyer, you add value and are capable of understand emerging behaviors and insights.”

It sounds really easy, but in fact how brands engage and interact with, understand and involve consumers is changing practically day-after-day. For instance, how a lot of you not only have a Snapchat account, but know post a message in under a minute? Such rapid-fire and ephemeral communication methods could seem counterintuitive to an industry built on emotion and human touch, but that’s just the purpose. “For those who might be more adaptive while establishing a key brand behavior, you may future-proof yourself,” says Greene. “When you consider youth, they’re continuously adapting. And if you happen to have a look at a 50-plus consumer, they’re loyal—but also they are increasingly behaving like Millennials. Millennial behavior is becoming mass behavior.”

So which brands are doing job of maintaining their relevance? To seek out out, we combed through sales data, brand equity evaluation, digital market insights and our own reporting to compile a listing of the 25 brands in beauty which can be maintaining their mojo in increasingly complex times. Though their names are familiar, the landscape they’re operating in is anything but.

1 L’Oréal Paris
L’Oréal Paris is a cross-category, cross-generational powerhouse. In accordance with data from IRI, it has top 10 sellers in 13 categories; it’s primary on Millward Brown’s 2015 list of top personal-care brands. Dominant in hair color and makeup, L’Oréal is increasing its presence in skin and hair care with modern launches and a large forged of celebrity spokesmodels. L’Oréal’s digital presence can also be impressive (it pioneered try-on apps with Makeup Genius)and it ranks third on L2’s digital index. L’Oréal is a success with editors, consumers and the industry, earning
85 awards (essentially the most of any brand) within the last
five years.

2 MAC
In an era when makeup reigns supreme, MAC is the undisputed emperor. It’s the top-ranked prestige color brand within the U.S., based on the NPD Group, and the fourth-biggest brand overall when bearing in mind all categories—despite the fact that it’s in just a fraction of the doors of the large three. Digital dominance? Check. It rules the social media indexes of Tribe Dynamics and L2, and is essentially the most mentioned brand in vlogger videos, based on L2. It has also set the gold standard for corporate social responsibility with the MAC AIDS fund, which has raised greater than $400 million so far for research.

3 Chanel
If there was ever any query of whether a heritage brand can remain fresh with a broad cross section of consumers, Chanel has laid the argument to rest. It’s the number-one fragrance player within the U.S. prestige market, number nine in makeup and number five overall, and has perfected the art (and science) of keeping a brand concurrently hip and iconic. While it has yet to attain a big social media presence, L2 cites Chanel for successfully keeping gray market products at bay on Amazon.com. But its products are a transparent winner with consumers, racking up 54 awards over the past five years.

4 Neutrogena
Neutrogena is winning the mass skin-care market-share skirmishes in the mean time, with bestsellers in every key category, based on IRI. Be it pimples, antiaging, cleansers or moisturizers, Neutrogena has been adroit at creating—somewhat than following—market momentum, as with the 2015 top-selling Hydro Boost Water Gel. Editors love the
brand—its award count over the past five years reached 60, and digitally it’s upping its game. L2 reports that Neutrogena is the highest skin-care brand in category search visibility.

5 Urban Decay
Be it product trends or the digital dominion, where Urban Decay goes, others follow. The brand has excelled at marrying innovation and execution. Its Naked series of palettes can have spawned countless imitators, but the unique and its subsequent iterations proceed to drive Urban Decay’s sales. Digitally, the brand is equally as dominant, rating primary on L2’s Digital IQ Index Rating, which singled out the brand not just for its social media performance, but for also having the highest mobile experience in beauty bar none.

6 Maybelline Latest York
Maybelline’s strength lies in its modernity. The brand’s age—101 years old this yr—belies its youth-oriented approach to marketing and product development. Maybelline has successfully capitalized on its historic strengths in mascara to dominate the general eye category. While the brand isn’t the strongest social media performer, its strength in SEO and its effective use of shoppable user-generated content by itself Website propelled it to the number-two spot on L2’s digital rating index.

7 Profit Cosmetics
Profit’s tag line is “Laughter is the perfect cosmetic!” and little question it’s smiling all of the strategy to the bank. Its problem-solution approach to product creation coupled with an emphasis on in-store brow services have made it a first-to-market player that other brands emulate. Profit is a social media standout (it’s the sixth-most mentioned brand on sephora.com and Roller Lash was the preferred product of 2015 on Birchbox), and it eagerly experiments across platforms. The strategy works: Profit ranks seventh in prestige makeup.

8 Estée Lauder
The naysayers were many. Estée Lauder is probably the most venerable names in beauty, but could it find its mojo with Millennials? The reply appears to be a powerful yes. In accordance with The NPD Group, Lauder is the third-largest prestige beauty brand within the U.S. It has also effectively leveraged its spokesmodel Kendall Jenner to drive awareness amongst younger consumers and ranks number nine within the “gifted” segment, in L2’s Digital IQ Index. Search for the brand to capitalize on the strength of all of this because it gears up for the launch of The Estée Edit collection of makeup and skincare in Sephora.

9 Dove
From bar soap to beauty: Dove has effectively transcended its roots as a moisturizing soap to change into a multifaceted brand with probably the most resonant points of view within the industry. Dove was an early adopter in championing a better purpose with its Campaign for Real Beauty, whose content—from curly-haired emojis to self-esteem-increasing videos—has helped the brand increase its value 10 percent within the last yr based on Millward Brown, which ranks it number eight in its top 15 personal-care brands.

10 Lancôme
Lancôme has proven to be certainly one of prestige beauty’s most consistent players. Ranked number two in sales within the U.S. based on The NPD Group, it’s the highest-ranking prestige brand on Millward Brown’s top 15 list, coming in at number 4 for 2015, a 23 percent increase over 2014. Lancôme can also be probably the most consistent winners of Marie Claire’s Prix d’Excellence, and it occupies the number-three spot on L2’s Digital IQ Index, because of “the strongest desktop site within the Index which excels at content and commerce integration.”

11 Nars
Whether naming a blush Orgasm or creating edgy collaborations, Nars has never believed in playing it protected. The approach resonates with each industry insiders and editors—Nars racked up 72 awards through the last five years, second only to L’Oréal—dominating the blush and eye shadow categories. It also has a big presence digitally, and was certainly one of the primary to capitalize on its community of “Narsissists” with a plethora of launches. Nars is the third most-mentioned brand on sephora.com, based on L2, in addition to the third most-mentioned in vlogger videos.

12 bareMinerals
Call it the primary social media makeup brand. Under the auspices of then-ceo Leslie Blodgett, bareMinerals forged a latest distribution path for the industry, in addition to a latest product category—mineral makeup. While it has since evolved considerably as a brand, adding skincare, liquid foundations and a full makeup line, bareMinerals is not any longer an Indie outsider. It’s the sixth-largest prestige beauty brand within the U.S., based on NPD, and “gifted” within the digital sphere, says L2, which notes the brand’s particular strength in rate and review on its recently revamped
Website.

13 Dior
Dior staged a coup when it landed Johnny Depp to be the face of its 2015 hit men’s scent, Sauvage, however it is removed from the brand’s only win recently. Dior has successfully honed its “cosmetics meets couture” technique to drive each its fragrance business (J’Adore is a perennial bestseller) and its color cosmetics business, which is a standout at Sephora. Strong globally and ranked number nine overall within the U.S. prestige market, the brand also consistently garners quite a few awards for its mascaras, eye shadows and fragrances.

14 Sally Hansen
An emphasis on creating first-to-market technology has propelled Sally Hansen to continued strength in an otherwise sluggish nail category. The brand consistently innovates in product development, quickly translating trends from the skilled market to the mass market, as with its Miracle Gel. It’s also best of sophistication digitally in its category with the launch of its ManiMatch app last May, which enables users to check out over 200 nail colours and helped catapult Sally Hansen to the number 12 rating on L2’s Digital IQ Index, a 24 percent increase in its standing in comparison with 2014.

15 Clinique
The leading prestige beauty brand, occupying the number-one spot in skincare and the number two in makeup, Clinique is a huge within the midst of a reinvention. It excels at creating categories—as with its Even Higher Clinical Dark Spot Corrector and the wildly popular Chubby Sticks, although the pace has slowed somewhat within the last couple of years. But that appears to be changing, as does the brand’s digital presence. While not a robust force on social media, Clinique’s Website is amongst the perfect, with an L2 rating of six, and its awards tally of 45 makes it a winning proposition with editors and industry insiders.

16 Cover Girl
Cover Girl’s ‘Girls Can’ campaign to assist young women overcome boundaries and break through barriers is a successful metaphor for the brand, which despite stormy times with parent company Procter & Gamble has remained a robust mass market contender. It has best-selling items in the highest 10 in every key makeup category, based on IRI data, and is collectively primary in foundation and number two in mascara. Its digital presence is equally strong, with an L2 rating of six because of initiatives like an aggressive YouTube search strategy.

17 Giorgio Armani Beauty
Everyone knows foundation is a loyalty category, and that has definitely proven to be the case for Giorgio Armani Beauty. Though its color cosmetics line is in relatively limited distribution, it’s a consistent award-winner with editors and a transparent leader within the face category. Armani has adeptly launched of-the-moment limited-edition products that capitalize on the brand’s red carpet and runway strengths. That, combined with its number-two rating in U.S. prestige fragrance sales, based on NPD, has made Armani a force within the specialty arena.

18 Jo Malone
There is simply one area of interest player in NPD’s list of the highest 10 fragrance brands, and it’s Jo Malone, ringing in at number nine. One among the fastest-growing brands of the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc., based on industry evaluation, it has reportedly sustained 30 percent average annual sales growth over 20 years. The brand isn’t a digital powerhouse, but its emphasis on creating memorable in-store experiences—be it through customization, fragrance combining or a strong gifting program—has enabled it to tug away from the pack despite being in a crowded category.

19 Philosophy
Philosophy has successfully recast itself from a shower and body business beloved at gift-giving time right into a serious, well-rounded contender that’s the fourth-largest prestige skin-care brand, the seventh-largest fragrance brand and the eighth-biggest prestige brand overall, based on The NPD Group. Philosophy is in the highest third of digital performers, lauded for its efficacy across platforms. Search for its recently launched philanthropic platform benefiting mental illness to strengthen the brand’s relevance with Millennials.

20 TRESemmé
In 2013, TRESemmé became the official hair sponsor of Latest York Fashion Week, in a bid to ascertain the salon-inspired hair-care brand as a frontrunner in styling. Mission achieved. The brand is a number one player in myriad hair-care categories, based on data from IRI, and, together with sister brands Dove and Axe, is credited with helping to fuel the sales of Unilever’s personal care division. TRESemmé has a good social media presence for its category. Tribe Dynamics ranked it third in hair care, with an earned media value of $12.7 million, and the brand is thought for its strength with how-to videos.

21 Tom Ford
Tom Ford has never shied away from controversy, and the unconventional route has served him well in beauty. First, he launched an ultraexclusive fragrance collection that spawned a category into itself. Next got here color cosmetics, with stratospheric prices, supertight distribution and unabashedly sexy products. The approach has worked: Industry sources estimate the brand will reach retail sales of $500 million for fiscal 2016, making Tom Ford certainly one of the most-watched—and fastest-growing­—brands in prestige beauty.

22 Revlon
Revlon’s owner, Ronald Perelman, may or might not be taking a look at selling, but one thing is definite: ceo Lorenzo Delpani is confidently moving forward. The brand’s recent campaign, “Love Is On,” appears to be garnering results, and the follow-up, “Select Love,” is currently launching. In accordance with IRI, Revlon occupies the highest spots in foundation, lipstick, lip liner and eyeliner. The brand is a beauty editor favorite, with greater than 35 awards, and it ranks 29 in L2, which cites its effective tablet-specific promoting strategy as amongst best in school. Nevertheless, with regards to social media, Revlon still lags.

23 Olay
Olay’s struggles have been well documented. But under Alex Keith, president of world skincare & personal care at Procter & Gamble Co., Olay is now firmly in turnaround mode and beginning to capitalize on its historic market strengths. It ranks one, two and three in mass-market antiaging skincare, based on IRI, and continues to be strong in moisturizers and cleansers. Digitally, Olay has deployed an aggressive search strategy, based on L2, which says it owns 4.7 percent of total skin-care ads, behind only Amazon. And it has maintained its stature with editors, winning greater than 35 awards.

24 OPI
Quick: What do Hello Kitty and Kerry Washington have in common? They’ve each been tapped by OPI as celebrity collaborators. It’s that type of dichotomy that has helped OPI maintain a robust business in each the skilled and retail sectors at a time when the nail business overall has been challenged. The brand’s consistently fresh approach is reflected in its digital engagement and award wins, where perennial bestsellers reminiscent of Lincoln Park After Dark are cited continuously, as are newer shades and coverings.

25 John Frieda
John Frieda has consistently launched innovation within the mass-market category for the reason that debut of its Frizz Ease serum. It has maintained its strength in that category, while continuing to pursue a path to newness in others. For instance, a recent standout launch was Root Blur, a first-to-mass market two-tone concealer for the hair to cover regrowth. The brand can also be a consistent award winner, racking up the wins not only for its tried-and-true stockkeeping units, like Frizz Ease, but for most of the latest products it launches annually.