“Rather than trying to win countries, we target cities”: Brand’s winning recipe

Gender-neutral skincare, fragrance, and lifestyle brand Malin + Goetz is known for its minimalist packaging and unique array of scents from a spicy version of strawberries to a refined take on cannabis. 

The brand marked its 20th year anniversary this year after reaching a reported US$50 million in revenue in 2023. 

It’s a far cry from the US$150,000 in savings with which life and business partners Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz started the brand.

Brad Horowitz, Malin + Goetz’ CEO, the first executive to be appointed to the role in the company’s history, attributed its success to its gender-neutral branding, which allows it to speak to all consumers, regardless of gender or trends. 

“They never thought of a product as being for specific genders,” Horowitz told Inside Retail about the founders. “They thought instead about skin and scent… When we look at what to launch, our product architecture, we never think about whether it’s for a specific gender or age demographic. We instead think about skincare needs and scent portfolios.”

Horowitz pointed to the brand’s strawberry eau de parfum as an example of a scent that many beauty brands would assume to be of interest primarily to their female customers, but in actually, the product has a 50-50 gender split.

“Ultimately, we make great products that we think our consumers, regardless of gender, will enjoy,” the CEO noted.

While unisex and gender-neutral scents are discussed with increasing popularity and regularity today, this was not always the case. 

German research and analytics platform Statista confirmed that over 50 per cent of new fragrances launched in 2018 were marketed as unisex. To give a point of comparison, this number barely reached 17 per cent in 2010.  

Connecting with customers at all touchpoints 

Another key factor in the brand’s success is its unique omnichannel presence, especially in spaces outside of retail venues such as e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar. 

Horowitz explained that “thirty per cent of our customers come to our brand via amenities partnerships, which can be a beautiful boutique hotel, an airline, a gym or more. That is part of the magic of the brand, that we show up in places outside of traditional retail.”

That is not to say the brand has a diminutive bricks-and-mortar presence. 

Malin + Goetz does about 50 per cent of its business outside of the US, and its approach is focused on cities, according to Horowitz. 

“Rather than trying to win countries, we target cities,” he said, “identifying specific places where we try to create a flywheel on multiple channels, including a freestanding store, wholesale account, online presence, and so on. London is a great example of this, we have freestanding stores and are also in Space NK and Liberty. If someone is coming to London, and if we’re doing our job perfectly, there are many different touchpoints as to how they can interact with Malin + Goetz.”

As of 2024, Malin & Goetz has 18 bricks-and-mortar locations spread across 44 countries and over 1200 hotel and amenity partners globally. 

In the past six months alone, the company opened several locations spread across the US and the UK. 

For the rest of 2024, moving into 2025, the brand plans to sustain its growth in a steady manner.

“At least for the balance of this year, we’ve expanded a lot,” stated Horowitz. “We recently opened apothecaries in Silver Lake in LA, Abbot Kinney in LA, and Madison Avenue in New York, all within the past six months. We also opened in SoHo and Battersea Power Station in London. At this moment, we are looking to build those apothecaries.”

Creating a lifestyle out of a brand 

Ultimately, the secret to the brand’s journey to success is in its wide reach as a lifestyle brand. 

Even with over 25 years of experience in the beauty industry, having worked with big names like Clarins, L’Oréal, and Amorepacific, Horowitz said that he doesn’t see many beauty brands that truly sell across five categories. Meanwhile, Malin + Goetz has products from all five categories within its top 20 best-selling items. 

“If you walk into someone’s apartment in NYC, and they have a Malin + Goetz peppermint shampoo and cilantro conditioner in their shower, alongside a handwash at their sink, a candle in their living room, and are grabbing a lip balm on their way out the door, that is a lifestyle,” he said. 

To illustrate this point, the company’s most recently launched campaign shows individuals living the Malin + Goetz lifestyle, from the beginning of the day with the brand’s facewash to the end of an evening with a candle lit to set a pleasing mood. 

“It’s really about the emotional connection with our consumer,” Horowitz said. “We have had consistent growth over the years by teaching our teams how to navigate a lifestyle brand, and how to move consumers through different categories. Within key neighbourhoods of our apothecaries, we also have subway advertising, wild postings, paid social and more, allowing consumers to feel the emotional connection of our brand, and wanting to be a part of it.”

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