When I first met Grace Vernon, head of Boots Ignite, Foresight and Trends, she had just returned from a business trip to South Korea where she was scoping out the latest beauty trends for the UK retailer.
Not only did this trip include the typical work-related meetings, but as the red-faced pictures she showed me quickly revealed, it also involved testing out the popular skin booster injections designed to stimulate collagen and create that in-demand glass skin look.
The aesthetic treatment has become so popular in the country, Grace told me, that no one bats an eyelid when you walk into a meeting with a face of red dots post-procedure. Which is exactly what she did.
It is this kind of on the ground research combined with her team’s data platforms and consumer research – which Vernon describes as both “an art and a science” – that has seen Boots ramp up its beauty offering in the past 18 months.
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This has included not only the buzziest brands on social media such as Wonderskin’s viral purple lip stain and Medicube’s Collagen Night Wrapping Mask hitting the retailer’s shelves, but new and up-and-coming brands such as wellness patch brand What Supp Co and gut health specialists We Are Regular getting shelf space too.
Since launching in December 2024, Boots Ignite has seen 43 brands enter hundreds of Boots stores across the country.
The initiative can get a brand onto shelves in as little as eight weeks – which is the fastest Boots has been able to launch brands into physical retail space, says Vernon, who has been a trend forecaster at Boots for 11 years.
Boots' ability to respond fast enough to trends was previously held back by multiple store plannning processes.
“Trends are increasing in pace, and we just did not have the flexibility and the agility to respond. That is where the concept of Ignite came from,” says Vernon.
The addition of a buying team to Vernon’s trends team as part of a trial gave “end-to-end control” over the process, starting with the trend they spotted to how, when and where it activated at 100 stores.
Having brand launches within one team meant they were less restricted by these category rebuilds, or slowed down by handing over to a different team, says Vernon.
The trial is now firmly embedded in Boots’ way of working with Ignitre spaces in 270 Boots stores.
“We talk a lot about URL to IRL,” says Vernon
“That is what we are trying to do… to bring all of that content that people are seeing in a social setting and take it into real life.
“We are in such a sensorial category, you want to feel it, you want to smell it, you want to look at the packaging.
“[Customers want to know in real life] is it worth it? Is it good quality? What is the product like? And they want to do that in a physical store.”
Ignite spaces are focused on discovery and located on the end cap to attract passing traffic, a location typically used as what Boots calls PPS (prime promotional space), and where changes can be made every two weeks.
Brands get full creative control over their trays on the display via a Boots partner agency.
“It gives them the opportunity to really represent the visual identity of their brand on a shelf,” says Vernon.
A Beauty Edits space in Boots' Bristol store
This type of support is one of the unique features of Ignite, which functions not only as a strategy for getting new brands into Boots stores, but as an accelerator to get brands retail ready – something Vernon describes as a “true collaboration”.
“We build amazing relationships with them and support them with that whole process,” she says.
How does Boots support brands through Ignite?
Each new brand gets at least six months in this prime Ignite space, with wide-ranging support in the lead-up to launch.
Boots connects some brands with distributors to take some of the initial pressure off, and has one person on the Ignite team solely setting them up on the retailer’s relevant systems.
Boots and Ignite brands also work together on a forecast and line listing for those with larger ranges, usually focusing on bestsellers, plus marketing and activation strategies.
This takes place in tandem, meaning brands can launch quickly – usually within eight to 16 weeks.
Brands generally have an exclusive agreement with Boots, which is focused on first to channel – brands that currently are only direct-to-consumer (DTC) or in a digital setting and are not yet in physical retail or mass physical retail – or first to market – brands that are huge in another country such as the US, Australia or Korea but it is their first time coming over to the UK.
They receive a gold standard marketing package, which offers support through social and Boots’ upcoming campaigns, such as out–of-home.
“It is all things that you do not generally get as a brand when launching into Boots,” says Vernon.
“But because you come through Ignite, we want to really shout about you as a brand and give you that launchpad on launch within Boots.”
After a successful time in Ignite, the brands then “graduate” to a main category placement in stores, and may even be located in both at the same time, taking learnings from Ignite with them.
While Vernon initially envisioned Ignite as responding to virality, which would mean taking brands out as well as introducing them, just two brands that have gone through Ignite failed to graduate into the category.
“I think it is incredible odds, considering the virality of products,” says Vernon.
“I expected we would find some gems, and [would] just make sure we had those viral products in.
“But I think it really shows that having that physical presence and having the partnership with us is helping those brands to really maintain that momentum. That has been one of my biggest surprises.”
How does Boots find the right Ignite brand at the right time?
Trends come and go, but with a grounding in Boots’ forecast team, which covers not just products, but consumer trends, cultural shifts, macro trends and category trends, Ignite is positioned to identify those that resonate most among shoppers at the right moment.
“Spotting the trends is one bit, but knowing when to respond to them is the golden ticket,” says Vernon.
“If you respond too early, there is a chance that the customer is not ready for it and it does not sell, and then you delist it.
“If you respond too late, then you are late coming to the trend and you miss the viral moment.
“Data platforms really helped us to plot where a trend is in its life cycle, or a brand, or an ingredient, or whatever it may be, so it unlocked this new world of being able to respond at the right time.”
The team also has access to the data from 17 million Boots Advantage Card users, the retailer’s loyalty scheme.
Customer research and the retailers’ Boots Beauty Squad in stores are also a source of insight, with shopfloor staff often telling the trends team when shoppers are asking for certain brands, as are trade shows, global visits to different markets, and a strong network in the beauty and wellness industry.
“Having those conversations and that network really helps, because sometimes it is not brands that you can always see through the data,” says Vernon.
The data may, however, be used to quantify what is being heard in stores, and if interest is wider than a few consumers
“It really has been an amazing unlock for us to quantify and prioritise [brands going through the programme],” Vernon adds.
Ignite is managed via a “bible” of a spreadsheet that includes a “watchlist” of the brands that Boots is in conversation with.
There are also trends that Boots will pass on for certain reasons, though may revisit at another time in future.
Boots' Trending on Social space in store
However, for Vernon it is an “art and a science” as well.
“We recently launched Rocco from Laura Jackson [lifestyle entrepreneur and broadcaster], and that brand did not even exist, so there was no data,” says Vernon.
“It was not telling us this is going to be massively viral. But we believe in Laura as a founder.
“We love the trend that it is tapping into around neuroscience, and that is still a trend that we are seeing in the market.
“So it is both using your gut instinct and your buyer’s knowledge and experience alongside the data to decide where we place our bets.”
Ignite has expanded to include wellness with a similar approach which has seen the launch of supplement brands such as Unfabled, We Are Regular, Artah and Free Soul.
“It is about understanding what is the category trend as well as what is the viral trending thing that people are after,” says Vernon.
A self-confessed “shameless DM slider” on Instagram and LinkedIn, Vernon often approaches brands directly, and there are no constraints on size, large or small, for entering Ignite.
“Either the brand will come to us, or we will go to the brand,” Vernon says.
An initial conversation between Boots and potential Ignite brands will focus on their scaling strategy and whether they are retail ready
For those brands that are not ready, Boots will remain interested and also offer support to get there.
“That is the whole premise of Ignite, that we are there to support emerging brands,” Vernon adds.
What has been the impact of Ignite on Boots’ wider business?
For Vernon, Ignite has proven the value of trends commercially: “It has really shown that trends is not looking into a crystal ball.
“Trends create a massive commercial opportunity and an opportunity to get ahead and to spot things that are emerging, that are bubbling up, that are not yet on the surface, and [the opportunity to] be leaders, and thought leaders, in that space.
“It is contributing commercially. We are getting these brands first, and they have been hugely successful through the programme.”
Vernon namechecks brands such as Medicube, Wonderskin, Sacheu, Biodance and Ancient + Brave, noting that while they may have eventually stocked these brands, Ignite meant getting them first and being able to capitalise on the momentum behind them.
“It has really positioned Boots as being the leaders in trends, and really identifying not only trending brands, but now we have a real focus on trends as a business,” Vernon adds.
Boots' K-beauty edit in store
On boots.com, the retailer now has a “Trending on Social” space to showcase a curation of not only Ignitre brands, but those across the business that are gaining traction online, plus educational editorial content on electrolytes.
This is also feeding into store activations, for example with a curated edit of K-beauty and J-beauty skin care and hair care in Boots’ beauty-only Bristol store.
Also rolling out in stores are new flexible “Trending Right Now” and “Global Beauty Must-Haves” spaces.
Ignite is also spurring further initiatives aimed at smaller businesses just starting that offer cash-flow and improved payment term support.
“The senior leadership of the business have been incredible supporters of Ignite and of everything we are looking to do,” Vernon concludes.
“They have really unlocked things so that we can change processes, and we can trial things, and can change the way we do things and see what works.
“It has ultimately really proven the value of trends, which is something I am really proud of.”
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