A through-line of Alex Keith’s 34-year career with P&G Beauty is the company’s involvement with Look Good Feel Better.
“For as long as I can remember, Look Good Feel Better has been a part of this industry,” said Keith, who is now the chief executive officer of the division and was presented with the 2023 Corporate Champion Award at the BeautyCares DreamBall last week. “I joined P&G in 1989, one year after Google was founded.”
“The efforts Look Good Feel Better have undertaken across these 30-plus years have made a real difference in how they’ve supported literally millions of people facing cancer,” she continued. “Thirty years ago, P&G Beauty support helped fund Look Good Feel Better’s first website. Honestly, when I started at P&G, I didn’t even have my own desktop computer.”
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P&G hasn’t just given money and products. Among its many contributions, P&G employees have also volunteered to operate the initiative’s 1-800 call centers and train volunteers on how to give personal consultations to patients in the program.
“I remember attending a Look Good Feel Better event when I was much younger and being so moved by the personal stories of the lives impacted. This is what corporate championship means to me and to everyone at P&G Beauty,” Keith said, nodding to the company’s brand leaders in attendance.
“I have been with P&G Beauty for 34 years. At that time, P&G Beauty and the leaders that were there were part of the founding effort of Look Good Feel Better,” she said in a follow-up interview with Beauty Inc. “I’m representing people over the course of 30 years. It happens to coincide with my career. I’ve probably been directly involved with Look Good Feel Better and PCPC for at least the last 10 to 15 years.”
Since Look Good Feel Better was created to deliver makeup and skin care services to people going through cancer treatment, deaths from the disease have dropped 40 percent. Keith said it was a natural cause to champion, given beauty’s emotional resonance with consumers.
“The role of beauty brands and beauty products and technologies, as they’ve gotten better over the last 30 years, is still meaningfully important,” Keith said. “Cancer care still has meaningful impacts on people’s physical well-being.
“Hair care products, skin care and body all help people who are going through cancer look good and feel better,” she continued. “We look at what our brands stand for, what our products do, and how they can play a meaningful role as we think about purpose. We also are committed to communities where our employees live and work.”
Keith pointed to Olay as an example of a brand that found purpose within its own DNA. “We try to match our brands with programs that fit. For instance, Olay is a skin care brand that is rooted in technology and science. That’s what the brand has been about for its entire lifetime,” she said. “We also have a lot of female scientists working on Olay, and we realized there’s a real gap in STEM education for women. We’ve been looking at that globally for the Olay brand because it’s about women in science.”
Over the course of Keith’s career, she hasn’t just seen scientific advancements in the field of cancer research — she’s also watched the beauty industry evolve.
“It’s very dynamic, it’s never boring,” she said. “P&G is invested in three beauty categories: skin care, hair care and personal care. We see those categories continue to grow meaningfully and explode with new offerings, but the one of the three that has changed the most is personal care.”
That category, which includes commodities such as deodorant, has also been given a luxurious reboot, Keith said. “I was leading our deodorant category, and we launched Secret Clinical Strength. At that point, the beauty industry did not consider deodorants to be a part of beauty. Personal care items like soap and deodorant were not considered items that would be in your beauty routine.
“I remember having discussions as we were launching Secret Clinical and saying to the beauty media that you can have great hair and great skin, but if you smell, the game is over. It is not only a beauty product, but the most critical of beauty products. And if you look today at that personal care category, between the amount of offerings both in mass and specialty and all kinds of exciting jobs to be done, the explosion of body lotions and the role of skin care benefits on the body — there’s just so many exciting things going on,” she continued.
As for where the opportunities lie, she’s looking to her consumer for the white space. “We spend a lot of time looking at their frustration points, their compensating behaviors, and the products that aren’t working the way they want and need,” she said. “What are the areas, in the categories where we are, that can better meet their needs? We need to do that not only with great technologies and great product solutions, but with brands that are resonant and relevant for them. That’s where our brands show up.”