New Zealand Month

by Bella

I was recently sent to New Zealand on a project. This was overwhelmingly fortuitous, and not just because I’m obsessed with Flight of the Concords and insist that the southern hemisphere is far superior to its northern counterpart. Knowing that this really was a one-off opportunity, I took some time to speak to some very cool, very innovative companies.

The first was Hue.

 

Hue is a hair salon that only do colour. No cuts. No styling. Just, and I quote, ‘pure, gorgeous, fabulous colour’. They are affordable, professional and have broken the convention of how a ‘salon’ should operate.

When I first heard the Hue story, I thought it was a fantastic business model innovation, and it is. It really is. But I was surprised to find out that there was more to it.

But let’s start with the business model innovation.

In the world of hair-dying – there are two options.
1) Pay $10 for a supermarket dye and do it yourself. The result – touch and go. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And the stakes are high.
2) Pay $200 and get it done in a salon. The result – your hair looks great, your bank balance…not so great.

Enter Hue.

Hue identified this huge gap in the middle and created a colour-only salon. As they tell us, ‘they don’t do dos’. This specialisation has allowed them to create great cost efficiencies – savings that they pass directly on to us, the cash-strapped blonde with shameful re-growth.  In addition, Hue wont blowdry your hair at the end. Instead, you do it yourself at the blowdry bar; fully equipped with dryers, styling products and all sorts of brushes. Not only does this make them even more cost efficient, it is also based on an insight so strong, it’s almost a universal truth. More often than not, women don’t like the way their hairdresser styles their hair; they boof it, put too much product in and outrageously over-salon you. So not only is this a huge cost saving, it’s common sense.
 

It’s hard to fault this business model. Founder Jenny Aitken noted that this middle ground exists in many other categories, but not yet in hair. For example, take manicures. You can buy the polish and do it yourself ($4), go to a fancy salon and get a proper nail-job ($30) or go to a quick express manicure shop (most likely in a shopping mall) ($12). Jenny saw there was a tremendous opportunity to apply this thinking to hair dying and created Hue.

But it’s not just the business model that’s remarkable.

A lesson in intimacy.

Jenny took me round to see the three salons in Auckland and I have to say that a Hue salon feels different. While most salons have all their tables and mirrors facing the outer walls, all the tables and mirrors at Hue face inwards. It may sound like a minor detail; but when you sit down, you can feel the difference. It’s much more personal. You can’t help but feel connected to the people sitting alongside and opposite you. Also, the mirrors move; so if you come in with a friend you can just slide the mirrors out of the way and have a good old chat across the table. It’s much more relaxed, intimate and friendly.

  This informal atmosphere is at its zenith at the blowdry bar – when you sit alongside other women who are chattering, laughing and more than willing to offer you tips or even help you with your hair. Amazing for a salon.  Quite often, salons are like gyms. You feel you need to look a certain way before you’re even allowed in the doors. But there’s none of this exclusivity here. You are given a glass of water in a wine glass as soon as you arrive. It’s a minor detail, but adds to the experience and makes the it a little bit special. More special than water in a regular tumbler in any case. Their bathroom is called a ‘powder room’ and there’s a beautiful chandelier in the middle of the room. It’s lots of these little touches that say a lot about Hue.
 

A lesson from the kitchen

For a stroke of inspiration, Jenny turned to the world of food and noticed that, more and more, food and food preparation was coming out into the open.  Today, there’s a plethora of restaurants that have their kitchens and chefs on display. You can see your food being prepared right in front of your eyes. It’s a symbol of honesty, integrity and pride in what’s being created. Jenny applied this thinking to hair-dying. All the mixing at Hue is done before your eyes and the dyes are proudly displayed behind the front desk like a sort of hair-coloured rainbow.  

 

It’s all very well to have a stellar business model. And to start with, that’s often enough. But Hue has built some lovely embellishments around this to make their offer even more robust (and difficult to copy). There is a lesson for us all to learn from Hue’s ability to stretch itself beyond an incredibly sound business model. A unique experience is hard to replicate – a business model is not.