September 11, 2007
Body Shop Founder Dies, Her Legacy Remains
An article headline on The Independent’s website described Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop chain, as a “capitalist with a conscience.” Dame Anita passed away yesterday from a brain hemorrhage leaving others to reflect on her legacy in the retailing and consumer products world.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described her in a BBC report as one of that “country’s true pioneers” and someone who “campaigned for green issues for many years before it became fashionable to do so and inspired millions to the cause by bringing sustainable products to a mass market.”
Dame Anita spoke of her start in business as a means “to create a livelihood for myself and my daughters, while Gordon (her husband), was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience … 30 years on, The Body Shop is a multi local business with over 2045 stores serving more than 77 million customers in 51 different markets in 25 different languages and across 12 time zones.”
Some saw Dame Anita’s decision to sell the Body Shop chain to L’Oreal last year as an abandonment of the principles on which she founded the business.
While she understood the criticism, she refused to accept its premise. She wrote in March of 2006, “I do not believe that L’Oreal will compromise the ethics of The Body Shop. That is after all what they are paying for and they are too intelligent to mess with our DNA. ??But it is also the way the world is going. And if it is going that way, with customers and staff alike demanding more than the misery of the bottom line, it is doing so partly because of what we – founder, staff and customers old and new – have been doing at The Body Shop all these years.”
Dame Anita was 64.
Discussion Question: What do you see as Anita Roddick’s retailing and consumer products legacy?
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I think it’s too soon to determine her true legacy. Her efforts are to be admired and probably represent a nice long chapter in the Retailing 101 textbook.
However, the Body Shop has also suffered from over expansion and competition from more companies entering the “natural” part of the business. L’Oreal made a good buy, but has some trimming to do.
There are far too few good retailers creating and serving the market today so the loss of Ms. Roddick will be felt in our industry.
What I find odd is that all of the comments posted are from consultants and others affiliated with our community and not from retailers. What is this a reflection of: the readership, the market, the knowledge and interest–or lack thereof–in today’s retail community, or what?
Just my impression.
Without Anita, where would Bath & Body Works be?
Without Anita, who would’ve blazed the trail for John Mackey and Howard Schultz?
Without Anita, could Ralph Nader have run for President?
Without Anita, where would Aveda be?
I’m sure there’s plenty of logical answers for all of the above questions and more, but you have to wonder, without someone like her putting the “better for you” flywheel into motion 25 years ago, where would that impetus have come from??
As Anita proved and Les Wexner says, “bigger isn’t better, better is better”…words to live by. We’ll miss her.
I met her as an undergraduate retail marketing student at California State in the early 1990s and she had a profound influence on me. She will be remembered as one of the first pioneers of making retail sustainability and green initiatives something more than a PR stunt…green can truly equal cash register green when the supplier and retailer collaborate with strategic plans that make an impact while not eroding margins.
Not sure why some of you think it’s too soon to think about Anita Roddick’s legacy–tell it to Mssrs Bush and Blair. What she did was to BELIEVE and to help others see that it is possible to start and build a business that carries conviction. She sincerely practiced what she preached, walked the walk and all of the other management cliches you can think of except that in her case, they came across as absolutely genuine rather than what they have been turned into by others. Dame Anita’s belief in what she and others could do was spread worldwide and convinced many people that they can do whatever they believe in without being corrupted. I just hope that she was right about l’Oreal’s intentions to carry on her business in the way that she intended.
Dame Anita set an admirable example for the rest of us by promoting her Earth-friendly values through her business. I am most definitely not her target consumer, but her principles of social responsibility, environmental awareness and local relevance are worthy of emulation. Pity that such traits could not ensure for her a longer time on this planet.
We work with retail start ups. We have long recommended Anita’s book about the extreme obstacles she faced in starting her business to many of our clients to get them to understand that generally the best ideas get the least support at the outset… and also that money people are not risk takers, and that making a retail business work is not easy and that even the best are surronded by “naysayers” (look back at the industry’s initial reaction to the Apple store). But because of her passion and relentlessness she “proved them wrong.” She made tons of mistakes and carried bringing personal and political beliefs into her business to an extreme. But she also had a store that projected honesty, and brought interesting, quality products produced with the highest of standards. She also was an innovator in sharing product-related information and operating her store with transparency in relation to her people, her customers, and her products.
Sad that she is gone so soon, really.
Anita Roddick combined her personal charisma with her personal passion and innate sense of timing. Ultimately, she surrounded herself with the right team to get the job done business-wise, as well. That in itself is an accomplishment for an unrepentant entrepreneur.
She deserves a round of applause. Not all visionaries are as financially successful as she was. And she lived to see her vision become “popular.”
Really, gone too soon.
Len’s right, it’s a little too early for legacy discussions but she did prove that either any movement can be co-opted by capitalism or vice versa.
The Body Shop story is so inspiring. I became an ardent fan during countless layovers in the Pittsburgh airport long ago. The DNA was built on relationship development in a very warm ‘woman to woman’ manner. I don’t mean that to exclude the male gender, I mean that to be a very specific style of communication–sort of a “girlfriend” dialogue that is steeped in honesty, sharing and relevant information. If L’Oreal can maintain that simple dynamic, they will be successful in more ways than just preserving Dame Anita’s legacy.
Dame Anita was a pioneer with a brave heart. She ventured out on a limb to pursue a passion that was orchestrated beautifully. This is certainly a great loss but Dame Anita has left a legacy that others will follow; a job well done.
Anita Roddick’s success was based on having the guts to be different. When she started the Body Shop the beauty industry certainly wasn’t known for the values she espoused. Often great retailers are started by those who think differently, such as eBay, Whole Foods, and Netflix. All of these companies could’ve been started earlier by experienced retailers in similar businesses.
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I think it’s too soon to determine her true legacy. Her efforts are to be admired and probably represent a nice long chapter in the Retailing 101 textbook.
However, the Body Shop has also suffered from over expansion and competition from more companies entering the “natural” part of the business. L’Oreal made a good buy, but has some trimming to do.
There are far too few good retailers creating and serving the market today so the loss of Ms. Roddick will be felt in our industry.
What I find odd is that all of the comments posted are from consultants and others affiliated with our community and not from retailers. What is this a reflection of: the readership, the market, the knowledge and interest–or lack thereof–in today’s retail community, or what?
Just my impression.
Without Anita, where would Bath & Body Works be?
Without Anita, who would’ve blazed the trail for John Mackey and Howard Schultz?
Without Anita, could Ralph Nader have run for President?
Without Anita, where would Aveda be?
I’m sure there’s plenty of logical answers for all of the above questions and more, but you have to wonder, without someone like her putting the “better for you” flywheel into motion 25 years ago, where would that impetus have come from??
As Anita proved and Les Wexner says, “bigger isn’t better, better is better”…words to live by. We’ll miss her.
I met her as an undergraduate retail marketing student at California State in the early 1990s and she had a profound influence on me. She will be remembered as one of the first pioneers of making retail sustainability and green initiatives something more than a PR stunt…green can truly equal cash register green when the supplier and retailer collaborate with strategic plans that make an impact while not eroding margins.
Not sure why some of you think it’s too soon to think about Anita Roddick’s legacy–tell it to Mssrs Bush and Blair. What she did was to BELIEVE and to help others see that it is possible to start and build a business that carries conviction. She sincerely practiced what she preached, walked the walk and all of the other management cliches you can think of except that in her case, they came across as absolutely genuine rather than what they have been turned into by others. Dame Anita’s belief in what she and others could do was spread worldwide and convinced many people that they can do whatever they believe in without being corrupted. I just hope that she was right about l’Oreal’s intentions to carry on her business in the way that she intended.
Dame Anita set an admirable example for the rest of us by promoting her Earth-friendly values through her business. I am most definitely not her target consumer, but her principles of social responsibility, environmental awareness and local relevance are worthy of emulation. Pity that such traits could not ensure for her a longer time on this planet.
We work with retail start ups. We have long recommended Anita’s book about the extreme obstacles she faced in starting her business to many of our clients to get them to understand that generally the best ideas get the least support at the outset… and also that money people are not risk takers, and that making a retail business work is not easy and that even the best are surronded by “naysayers” (look back at the industry’s initial reaction to the Apple store). But because of her passion and relentlessness she “proved them wrong.” She made tons of mistakes and carried bringing personal and political beliefs into her business to an extreme. But she also had a store that projected honesty, and brought interesting, quality products produced with the highest of standards. She also was an innovator in sharing product-related information and operating her store with transparency in relation to her people, her customers, and her products.
Sad that she is gone so soon, really.
Anita Roddick combined her personal charisma with her personal passion and innate sense of timing. Ultimately, she surrounded herself with the right team to get the job done business-wise, as well. That in itself is an accomplishment for an unrepentant entrepreneur.
She deserves a round of applause. Not all visionaries are as financially successful as she was. And she lived to see her vision become “popular.”
Really, gone too soon.
Len’s right, it’s a little too early for legacy discussions but she did prove that either any movement can be co-opted by capitalism or vice versa.
The Body Shop story is so inspiring. I became an ardent fan during countless layovers in the Pittsburgh airport long ago. The DNA was built on relationship development in a very warm ‘woman to woman’ manner. I don’t mean that to exclude the male gender, I mean that to be a very specific style of communication–sort of a “girlfriend” dialogue that is steeped in honesty, sharing and relevant information. If L’Oreal can maintain that simple dynamic, they will be successful in more ways than just preserving Dame Anita’s legacy.
Dame Anita was a pioneer with a brave heart. She ventured out on a limb to pursue a passion that was orchestrated beautifully. This is certainly a great loss but Dame Anita has left a legacy that others will follow; a job well done.
Anita Roddick’s success was based on having the guts to be different. When she started the Body Shop the beauty industry certainly wasn’t known for the values she espoused. Often great retailers are started by those who think differently, such as eBay, Whole Foods, and Netflix. All of these companies could’ve been started earlier by experienced retailers in similar businesses.