Olaplex Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 7, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Olaplex Holdings Incorporated Third Quarter 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Patrick Flannery, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Operator

Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me today are Amanda Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer and Catherine Dunlavy, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I would like to remind you that management will make certain statements today, which are forward looking, including statements about the outlook of Oelprax's business and other matters referenced in the company's earnings release issued today. Each forward looking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in or implied by such statements. Additional information regarding these factors appears under the heading Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements in the company's earnings release and the filings the company makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission that are available at www.sec.gov and on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at ir.olaplex.com.

Speaker 1

The forward looking statements on this call speak only as of the original date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Also during this call, management will discuss certain non GAAP financial measures, which management believes can be useful in evaluating the company's performance. The presentation of non GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. You will find additional information regarding these non GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the company's earnings release. A live broadcast of this call is also available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at ir.olaplex.com.

Speaker 1

Additionally, during this call, management will refer to certain data points, estimates and forecasts that are based on industry publications or other publicly available information as well as our internal sources. The company has not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of the data contained in these industry publications and other publicly available information. Furthermore, this information involves assumptions and limitations and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to these estimates. With that, I will now turn the call over to Amanda.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This morning, we reported 3rd quarter net sales of $119,100,000 which declined 3.6% compared to a year ago. While this represented sequential improvement from Q2, we did underperform our expectations primarily due to weaker than expected results in our international business as we continue in our efforts to build the right foundation for the future. Adjusted EBITDA was $44,600,000 for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37.5 percent.

Speaker 2

Coupling our Q3 results with our updated learnings, we are revising our guidance for fiscal year 2024 and now expect net sales in the range of $405,000,000 to $415,000,000 and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 29.9 percent to 30.6%. As we have shared on past earnings calls, we plan for 2024 as a year to begin our transformation, taking taking a long term view and prioritizing the strategies and initiatives aimed at building a healthier business. While we now believe it will take longer than originally expected to achieve our goal, We are making great progress and taking the steps we believe are necessary for the long term health of the business. Much of this work has been happening behind the scenes, while at the same time this quarter, we announced 3 new innovative products: our 5 leave in conditioner, Bond Shaper curl rebuilding salon treatment and 10 Bond Shaper curl defining gel. Although we are disappointed with this revised outlook for the remainder of the year, I remain confident that we have the right strategy and are implementing the right actions to achieve a solid foundation for long term growth.

Speaker 2

Olaplex at its core is an innovative, science enabled and pro inspired beauty company with demonstrated global appeal. As a top brand in the prestige hair care category, oloplex had 4 of the 5 best selling prestige hair care products year to date 2024 per SIRCONA's retail tracking data of the U. S. Hair market. Our research indicates that the Olaplex brand remains strong with positive associations to build upon, including innovative, reparative, healthy and effective.

Speaker 2

And we possess a healthy balance sheet and strong cash generation, which provide flexibility and enable us to invest in future growth. Overall, I continue to believe that the best years lie ahead for this company. Let me walk you through 3 key assumptions that drove the revision to our full year outlook. First, we anticipate weaker performance from our international business as we reset for the future. We conducted a market by market review to better understand our business, evaluate our current structure and partnerships and develop the go forward roadmap for our global reach.

Speaker 2

I personally spent time meeting with many of our key partners and traveling the globe to see the brand in this current presentation on the ground and better understand the end consumer and unique market. From this assessment, while the enthusiasm and passion for this brand remain incredibly high, we now believe that the issues within our international business are more complex than we originally anticipated. This requires simplifying fewer distributor partners as well as developing localized direct distribution approaches and brand support that are designed to be appropriate for the unique dynamics across the world. This work will take time, but we believe it will ultimately better position our business for long term success. We have referenced throughout the year that we are consistently executing an international distributor rationalization program.

Speaker 2

This effort has primarily impacted our international pro business, where we have closed certain accounts that we believe were the source of diverted product, as well as our international DTC channel, where we have deprioritized certain international e commerce customers that we believe do not build equity in our brand. As the year has progressed, we now believe it is appropriate to further realign our distributor network to fewer, stronger partners with clear accountabilities for market and brand development. While this activity will reduce net sales in the near term, we believe we're selecting the right partners who are excited with where we are taking the brand and will prioritize Olaplex, better support our transformation and be more integrated into our own internal processes. Additionally, while we are redefining our international go to market strategy, we have felt it prudent to wait to align our new marketing efforts to coincide with deeper partnerships and our new brand vision in order to position ourselves to maximize the return on the investment. As such, we believe the slower investment in international sales and marketing in the near term has contributed to a moderation in demand.

Speaker 2

2nd, from a sales and marketing perspective, we now believe it will take longer to experience a lift in the overall demand from our brand investments. Earlier this year, it kicked off the beginning of our marketing evolution, building a stronger go to market engine, which includes elevated content creation and a creator led approach, focused investments on launches and our core products, deeper coordination with our stylists and retail partners, and more efficient ROI driven media spend. We recently started to deploy this new strategy in the U. S. We have observed positive early indicators that our new marketing activations are resonating with pros and consumers with improvements in brand engagement and momentum in earned media value metrics.

Speaker 2

In this region, we continue to observe sell through trends at our key accounts that are largely consistent on an absolute dollar basis with what we have seen throughout the year, demonstrating continued progress towards stabilization. However, coming into the year, we did anticipate that these investments would begin to yield growth across the entire business, but we have not yet experienced the overall lift in demand that we were expecting. We are encouraged by the sell through trends of our new products launched during the Q3, supporting our belief that powerful innovation, clear messaging and stronger execution can drive better results. We plan to apply these learnings next year across our entire portfolio, but as mentioned, we now believe it will take longer for this new strategy to yield improved top line performance across the assortment. 3rd, the beauty market remains healthy, but also highly competitive.

Speaker 2

We previously believed that we would be able to pull back on promotional levels during the quarter, but now expect that the overall promotional environment will intensify during the holiday period that we will need to participate effectively to win over the consumer. We continue to prioritize strategic promotions that maintain brand health and new customer acquisition, but we anticipate our promotional activity across geographies during Q4 will be higher than originally expected. At this stage in our transformation, we continue to believe marketing investment is essential for the long term as we engage with our community and broaden the knowledge of our competitive strength, making a clear statement that Oleflex delivers results and stands apart from other brands. Therefore, we will continue to make such investments in the Q4 in an effort to maximize our performance during the important holiday season and build for the future. I am proud of the progress we have made so far on our transformation journey as we continue to execute against our 3 key strategic initiatives for 2024.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, these include maximizing the impact of our sales, marketing and education investments to generate demand, strengthening our capabilities and culture to support our future, and developing the long term roadmap and future vision for Olaplex. As it relates to our first initiative to maximizing the impact of our sales, marketing and education investments to drive demand. One of the most important priorities of our new sales and marketing strategy has been to return to our stylist roots and nurture our connection to the pro community. By showing up in salons and listening to stylist feedback, elevating our presence at industry shows, investing in additional educational tools, we aim to increase our visibility, demonstrate our commitment and deepen our engagement with this key audience. As an industry leader, we also recognize the significant role we play in delivering innovation and new services that can help stylists make their business even more successful.

Speaker 2

To that end, among our new launches launched during the Q3 were 2 products for curly hair consumers, which were developed with the Pro in mind. First, our bond shaper curl rebuilding treatment, which is a 3 step professional curl treatment to repair, redefine and lock in the shape of natural waves, curls and coils created with new patented technology. And second, our number 10 Bond shaper curl defining gel, which is at home reparative curl styling gel that revives natural curl pattern. To support these launches, our education team in partnership with our pro ambassadors and members of the Olaplex Pro Collective influencer team, educated at more than 50 national and regional trade events and hosted virtual training sessions to educate stylus and our distributor partners about our new technology. We are pleased with the early performance as early adopter salons across the globe are offering the BondShaper Curl Rebuilding treatment to their clients and our number 10 BondShaper curl defining gel ranked in the top 3 within Ulta Beauty's curl subcategory.

Speaker 2

Another important initiative for our marketing team during the Q3 was generating excitement and buzz of our consumer focused new product launch, number 5, leave in conditioner. Supported

Operator

by

Speaker 2

a holistic marketing plan with social media and experiential pop up during New York Fashion Week and trade activation, powerful support from our influencers and pro ambassadors, the campaign generated strong response with more than 2,000,000 social media impressions, people testing the product and touting its efficacy. Exceeding initial forecast, number 5 leave in conditioner became a top 2 SKU on oleplex.com and a top 5 SKU in Sephora's U. S. Leave in conditioner subcategory. As I mentioned earlier, we believe these successful launches are signs of a stronger innovation engine and improved marketing strategy, delivering enhanced creative partnerships and improved content creation.

Speaker 2

On our last earnings call, we highlighted a new marketing campaign launched during the Q2 featuring the transformative benefit of a complete routine of Olaplex 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo and 5 Bond Maintenance Conditioner. The campaign drove positive list and brand favorability above our peer benchmarks and Olaplex's brand engagement levels have risen year to date across our competitive set. Also, we believe our strategic participation in our customers' tentpole marketing event indicates strong consumer interest in our brand. For example, our performance during a key customer's promotion in July was very successful, with nearly 70% of customers during that period identifying as new Olaplex users and 5 of our SKUs featured in the event were the number one ranked items in their respective categories. And lastly, according to data tracked by CreatorIQ, we regained our position as the number one U.

Speaker 2

S. Hair care brand in earned media value in the 3rd quarter with momentum building throughout as we earned the number one spot in both August September. Moving to our second priority to strengthen our capabilities and culture to support our future. We recently strengthened our leadership team with several highly talented appointments we believe will position Olaplex for future success. Over the last several months, we've added a new Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Catherine Dunleavy, who is here with me today, as well as a Chief Marketing Officer and a Senior Vice President of International, both of whom will be important leaders of our go to market strategies across the globe.

Speaker 2

With these new senior leaders in place, we are transforming how we work across the organization to strengthen our foundation. We've implemented and continue to deploy enhancements to new integrated business planning approach that will give us a better global view of the business. Also, we launched a new strategic planning process, bringing leadership teams across the organization together more frequently, working in even greater detail to craft the strategic plans for the future. As it relates to our marketing processes, we are streamlining and integrating how the entire marketing organization engages with our agency partners, developing a more disciplined approach that we believe will yield better planning and a higher quality creative content engine. We also expect this to strengthen each new product introduction as our new approach allows us to present marketing messages that are better aligned with how consumers interact with brands.

Speaker 2

We have more to do, but we're deep in this work. Overall, we believe we are creating a corporate culture that is more collaborative and makes informed decisions based on data and business processes that can be applied across the globe. Is rewarding and exciting to see our teams come together to work towards achieving a common goal. Our business leaders and team members are energized, committed and working hard to move our business forward in a positive way. Our 3rd priority is developing the long term roadmap and future vision for Olaplex.

Speaker 2

Imported by an in-depth brand perception study rooted in pro and consumer insights, we've developed a new and clear brand vision for Olaplex that will start to be visible to the pro and consumer in the coming year. At various stages of this work, we have been in active dialogue with our partners. The feedback from these conversations have been overwhelmingly positive, but there is strong support and excitement for this new phase of Olaplex. We also completely redesigned our new product pipeline, development and go to market processes following the creation of our new innovation team to align with our new brand vision. We rolled out a new commercialization strategies for our product launches with additional enhancements planned for the next year.

Speaker 2

Additionally, as we work to inflect the growth, we're continuing to finalize our strategic plan and expect to provide details in early 2025. In conclusion, this is a truly transformational period for Olaplex that requires thinking and acting for the long term. I remain confident in the brand's strong foundation that we can build upon to return to sustainable growth, truly differentiated science that would deliver superior results, a powerful R and D platform, a passionate community of stylists and consumers who love our products and a unique global footprint, and a talented team that is dedicated to position this brand for success. With that, I will now pass it over to Catherine, who has been a tremendous partner already, and the company and myself are incredibly fortunate to have her with us on this journey. Catherine?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to speak with you today at my first earnings call as a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Olaplex. Since I have not met or spoken with many of you since I joined the company, I thought it would be helpful to provide you with a short summary of my background and what I've been focused on during the 1st 12 weeks of my time at Olaplex. For the past 2 decades, I have held senior leadership roles at leading global consumer and media companies including Away, Nike, Comcast, NBC Universal and GE. During this time, I led and executed strategic, operational and financial initiatives that help drive profitable growth.

Speaker 3

The decision to join Olaplex was an easy one. As an everyday user, I'm a loyal fan of Olaplex and have admired how the company disrupted the hair care category with its patented technology. I also thrive in fast paced environments and see significant opportunity to take part in driving the strategy and elevating the company's financial foundation to provide the framework to maximize the power of our brand. Olaplex is an innovative company and one of my strengths is managing core functions with discipline, execution and rigor, while also leaving room for flexibility to enable creativity. Having been in the role for almost 90 days, I am very enthusiastic about the potential ahead.

Speaker 3

Olaplex possesses a strong community of people, partners, stylists and consumers, and I am proud to be in a position to help shape our future. I recognize there are many opportunities to bring operational best practices to life at Olaplex and I look forward to helping the company to continue to build out an infrastructure that will support future growth for this business. Now let me share more details about our Q3 results and our updated outlook. Net sales for the Q3 declined 3.6% year over year to 119,100,000 dollars Although our Q3 net sales performance improved sequentially from the Q2, this result was below our expectation with the underperformance largely driven by our international business. For the quarter, we continue to observe sell through trends at our key accounts in the U.

Speaker 3

S. That are largely consistent with what have been seen throughout the year on an absolute dollar basis. Outside the U. S, sell in was negatively impacted by our ongoing efforts to realign our business as well as a moderation in demand trends due to slower investment in international sales and marketing, as Amanda discussed earlier. We continue to believe that the month on hand of core inventory positions at our major U.

Speaker 3

S. Accounts remain in healthy position. In regards to performance by channel, specialty retail sales were little changed, down 1.3 percent year over year to $42,600,000 weather performance reflective of increased competitive intensity on our core SKUs, partially offset by the addition of product launches. Professional channel net sales decreased 12.6 percent year over year to $42,200,000 driven by our international business, which decreased due to weaker demand and a focus on prioritizing international distributors and partners that build brand equity, which more than offset the slight growth in our North American professional business. Direct to consumer sales were up 6.8% year over year compared to the Q3 of 2023 to $34,300,000 due to strong sell in ahead of a successful major customer promotion in July and growth from oleplex.com, which increased double digits year over year.

Speaker 3

This growth was partially offset by a decline in international DTC. Moving on, adjusted gross profit margin was 70.8%, up 110 basis points from 69.7% in the Q3 of 2023. This expansion was primarily driven by favorability due to lapping higher levels of inventory obsolescence reserves from last year. This increase was partially offset by contraction primarily due to an unfavorable product mix driven by the sell in of holiday kits, which are highly profitable, but lower margin relative to the rest of our assortment as well as slight deleverage on warehouse and distribution costs. Adjusted SG and A increased to $40,400,000 compared to $33,700,000 in the Q3 of 2023, driven primarily by an increase in sales and marketing expense.

Speaker 3

During the Q3 of 2024, we spent approximately $16,000,000 in non payroll related advertising and marketing expenses compared to approximately the same amount in the Q2 of 2024, bringing the year to date total to approximately $43,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA declined 13.4 percent to $44,600,000 versus $51,500,000 in the Q3 of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 37.5 percent compared to 41.7 percent a year ago. Adjusted net income decreased to $28,700,000 or $0.04 per diluted share in the Q3 of 2024 from $33,400,000 or $0.05 per diluted share in the Q3 of 2023. Let me now turn to our balance sheet. Inventory at the end of the Q3 of 2024 was 85,900,000 dollars a decrease of $14,300,000 from $100,200,000 at the end of the Q2 of 2024.

Speaker 3

The sequential decrease was primarily the result of the sell in of our holiday kits and new products during the Q3. Moving to cash flow. During the 1st 9 months of 2024, we generated $93,400,000 of cash from operations. We anticipate that 2024 will be another year of healthy cash flow generation as we continue to drive an asset light model and high profitability. We ended the Q3 with $538,800,000 in cash and cash equivalents, an increase of $30,900,000 from the end of the Q2 of 2024.

Speaker 3

This cash is generating interest income at an annual rate of about 5%. Long term debt net of current position of deferred fees was $645,000,000 Now turning to our financial outlook. As disclosed in the press release issued this morning, we are revising our guidance for fiscal year 2024. Starting with the top line, for fiscal year 2024, we now expect net sales in the range of $405,000,000 to $415,000,000 down from the previous range of $435,000,000 to $463,000,000 As Amanda mentioned earlier in the call, the revision can be broken down into 3 primary buckets. First, we anticipate weaker performance from our international business.

Speaker 3

As Amanda discussed earlier, we have performed a deeper assessment of our international operations and discovered that the issues are more complex than we originally thought. We are now redefining our international go to market strategy. 2nd, while we believe we continue to observe sell through trends in our U. S. Key accounts that are largely consistent on an absolute dollar basis with what we have seen throughout the year and our key accounts remain in healthy core inventory positions, we are not yet experiencing the anticipated lift in demand from the deployment of new sales and marketing investments.

Speaker 3

And third, we anticipate increased promotional activity during the holiday period across geographies relative to our previous assumption. In the Q4, from the perspective of year over year net sales growth rates in order of magnitude, we expect our professional channel to be the most pressured followed by our direct to consumer and specialty retail. We now anticipate adjusted gross margin in the range of 70.9% to 71.6% compared to our initial assumption in the range of 72.5% to 73.1%. We expect that the primary driver of this decrease will be additional promotional activity during the Q4 and greater deleverage from lower sales volumes on our fixed warehousing costs. Furthermore, we now expect full year 2024 adjusted SG and A expenses in the range of $167,000,000 to $170,000,000 compared to our previous expectation of $172,000,000 to $179,000,000 Specifically, we expect full year non payroll related advertising and marketing expenses in the range of $62,000,000 to $65,000,000 compared to our previous assumption of $66,000,000 to $70,000,000 as we continue to invest through our transformation.

Speaker 3

Given the lower net sales forecast against our expectations for continued investment in operating expenses, we now expect more adjusted EBITDA deleverage than our prior assumption. For 2024, we expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $121,000,000 to $127,000,000 or a margin of 29.9% to 30.6%. This compares to our previous range of $143,000,000 to $159,000,000 or a margin of 32.8 percent to 34.3%. We expect net interest expense to be 34,000,000 dollars and an adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 19.5 percent for the year. In conclusion, Olaplex has significant competitive strengths that we believe we can build upon to deliver consistent and sustained rates of growth.

Speaker 3

We believe that we have identified key issues that have contributed to recent challenges as well as the appropriate actions to correct them. Fundamentally, we are working to build a better Olaplex, strengthening operating discipline, improving our business and financial processes and maintaining strong cash generation. I look forward to sharing our progress along the way. I will now pass it over to Amanda for some closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Catherine. Olaplex remains an incredibly powerful brand, a leader in the attractive high growth prestige care category and an important strategic partner for our customers who are supportive of and excited about the direction we are taking the business. The trajectory of our transformation may have shifted. We are progressing and making the tough decisions that we believe are necessary to create a healthy business set up for long term success. Ultimately, we believe we are still in the early stages of the history of this company and that Olaplex can perform at a higher level.

Speaker 2

I remain optimistic as ever about the future. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer Our first question comes from Jonna Kim with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

Speaker 2

Thank you for taking my question. Just curious on the overall consumer health, what you're seeing at the salon and as well as your DTC and on the retail side overall? And you mentioned higher promotions. Do you think it's more because of consumers are cautious? I would love any color there.

Speaker 2

And I would love to dig a little bit deeper into what you saw in terms of your international business. What are your key assessment there? And how are you thinking about the opportunity going forward and what it could be as a percentage of the mix over time? Thank you so much. Thank you for the question and thank you everyone for being here today.

Speaker 2

First of all, I'll take the first half of that, which is with respect to kind of what we're seeing around the consumer and I believe you're asking about both within the salon channel as well as retail and the consumer more broadly. Within the salon channel, I think we've been talking about earlier on throughout the year about overall trends within the salon category where there certainly over time has been less frequent visits into the salon. That hasn't changed in either direction in particular. I think it is sort of the way that people are thinking about their salon and certainly part of our focus and our strategy in supporting the stylist and rooted behind the launch of something like bond shaper, curl rebonding treatment is really supporting the stylist and making sure there's more reasons to come back to the salon. So we're excited to really support our stylist in that way.

Speaker 2

With respect to the consumer overall, yes, we did make a very conscious decision as we were thinking about going into this quarter and watching what we're seeing out in the marketplace and expecting overall a more promotional environment, making sure we're doing that both through typical promotions, which we do use from a strategic point of view around key tentpole moments, but also in trade marketing and overall support for our retailer partners, both on the pro side as well as to the consumer. So that is something that we're watching carefully, and I think we see a lot of the things that many others have been talking about, as we go into this key holiday season. With respect to international, I have spent a lot of time very recently on this topic. The first thing I would say is that the enthusiasm for this brand is incredibly strong. One of the things and one of the reasons why I joined this brand nearly a year ago was because I think it's very rare to find brands that have such global resonance and that I have now seen on the ground, having been with consumers, having been with our retailer partners, distributor partners, sitting in salons around the world, this product really resonates and really translates.

Speaker 2

I think what we've really learned and what we were talking about today was that in order to ensure that we really maximize that opportunity, we need to be much closer. We can't have arms to relationships. We need to be much more involved with our distributor partners. We need to be better with translating our marketing efforts, all the things that we've started working on here in the United States that we are seeing early signs of opportunity around our marketing efforts. We need to be translating those internationally.

Speaker 2

And so in order to do that, that does require making sure And so, in order to do that, that does require making sure that we have fewer, bigger partnerships that we are that was part of the rationale of bringing on to win that part of our business, so that we're just better partners, and we can support this brand globally.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Ashley Helblin with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Speaker 3

Hi. Thanks so much for taking our question. So I know you kind of talked about not yet seeing the marketing efforts provide any sort of lift. Just any more color on when you expect to start to see a lift and any changes you think you need to make to the strategy? Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks for the question. I want to make sure that we really pull apart what we are seeing within our new launches and what we want to see across the entire portfolio and to draw a distinction between those 2. So if we recall, when marketing, sales, education, I really believe that brand is the thing that will along with innovation will drive this business going forward. We've spent a lot of time, as we talked about getting the brand, vision right, getting the future product top pipeline right and what we had this fall was the opportunity to have 2 new launches and to start the process of really building the marketing muscle in this organization.

Speaker 2

We've seen a lot of really good things happen out of that. One of the things that we highlighted in the call was our number 5 leave in conditioner. I think that's really the first time that this brand has had, what I'll call, a full 3 60 approach, a tight partnership with Sephora, the ability to launch an exclusive SKU with them to really put the right experiential marketing, the right influencer marketing, the right kind of assets, the right kind of language. I mean, we've been talking about this, really since the beginning about it's not just the money we spend, but it's how we spend it. And that launch is outperforming our expectations.

Speaker 2

So that's really exciting to see. What we need to see going forward and the thing that is sort of driving our guidance today was we need to make sure that we have that across the entire portfolio. And that's really going to be Phase 2 of this. And as we think about going forward and how we have a brand new CMO, Katie Gohman, who joined us in July, and she's fantastic, and I think really helping us take this to the next level. So these things are a work in progress, but I do feel like we are on the right track that we have, again, a brand vision that I alluded to, and I look forward to sharing more about that, as that becomes out in the world and we have a great product pipeline and so we're going to get better and better at this.

Speaker 3

Thanks so much.

Operator

The next question comes from Susan Anderson with Canaccord. Please proceed.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning, Alec. On for Susan. On the 4th quarter sales, it really does take a big step down with the updated guide. How much of that is from the international realignment and expectations for how the U. S.

Speaker 4

Will perform? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Hi, thanks for the question. Yes, international is the primary driver of what is driving our 4th quarter guidance down. While all three are very important, it really is mainly the international and the impacts of the other 2 on international.

Speaker 1

Thanks. And then just

Speaker 4

a follow-up, I guess, with international being reset and realigned, what are the expectations for sales to start stabilizing? How long do you think it will take to kind of recreate the brand that you're trying to work with the distributors over in Europe? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Well, we're still working through our plans for 2025 and beyond, and we're not really providing guidance today. But I can tell you a couple of things. 1, as Amanda and I mentioned earlier, in our home market, on a week in and week out basis, our sell in answer to our revenue is heavily consistent. So we started in the U. S.

Speaker 3

And put in place our actions, and that is starting to work. So then we just have to take that playbook and put it in international. And as Amanda described, she spent a lot of time market by market creating a very detailed strategic plan of how we're going to go to market. So this is a transformation. It will take some time, but we're and we're confident we've identified the right actions to drive future success.

Speaker 3

And I'll just add that we are very fortunate to have a strong balance sheet and healthy cash flow that allows us to make the tough decisions and continue to invest for long term future profitability.

Operator

The next question comes from Corrine Wolfmeyer with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 5

Thanks for taking the question. I'd like to touch a little bit on the cost structure and how we should be thinking about that for Q4 and heading into 2025. I believe the SG and A guidance implies still a meaningful step up in Q4, even though you're pulling back on some of the marketing and ad spend. So can you touch on what's driving that number? And then as we head into 2025, how should we be thinking about your marketing and advertising budget relative to the rest

Speaker 2

of the SG and A expense? Thanks. So thanks for the question. I think that as Catherine alluded to, we think it's important to continue to invest behind this brand in the Q4. And so we'll continue to make sure that we're building for the future.

Speaker 2

We aren't providing guidance for 2025 at this time, but we certainly are learning a lot as we as I alluded to talked about before, we're learning a lot from our marketing efforts that will help drive our planning for next year, spending a lot of time on this international business, so we really understand what it's going to take to set that up for success, as well as really spending a lot of time on the road now with the Future Brand vision and really working with our partners to plan for next year.

Operator

The next question comes from Andrea Teixeira with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Speaker 6

Hi, this is Shavana Choudhary on for Andrea. Thanks for taking our question. Can you give us a little bit more insight on the international competitive landscape and your confidence level in bringing about fruitful results by realigning distribution network and updating the marketing strategy outside the U. S? And additionally, if I can tack another one, understand that the guidance was lowered mainly due to the international space.

Speaker 6

But in quarter 3, the U. S. Market top line also declined by 3.3%. So if you could just tell us a little bit more like what is causing, understand that it has to do with not seeing the lift in demand, but your new launches were doing pretty well as per the commentary? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I can take that first one as we think about the international competitive landscape. I think what you see is similar to a lot of different brands and different categories in beauty, you'll see some global players, who will be very similar across the globe and then you obviously see some more local players and that's when I was speaking earlier about kind of really getting on the ground, understanding the dynamics, understanding the different channels, being in salons, being in the stores, watching what's happening online, really understanding what the consumer is seeing and what they're as well as the stylist and what they're looking for in their respective markets. What I would say is, it's more similar than it is different. There are certainly like anything else, some global nuances to this to be mindful of. And we do have a business that has incredible reach.

Speaker 2

And I think, again, I think there's a lot of appeal for this brand and the fundamental nature of hair health, of hair repair is something that is very consistent. But how you might approach the market and that's actually a big advantage to having a distributor network is that they are on the ground that they do really understand the nuances of their individual markets. So we again, this is about a closer partnership about having much more involvement in how we are going to market in these places and making sure that we are kind of taking advantage of both of our sets of expertise, ours of our own brand and what it can do that we're translating our marketing, our sales and our education across the globe and that we're leveraging those partnerships to be closer to the consumer, to be closer to the stylist and really have our hands arms, legs, ears, eyes on the ground for us. So that's really how we're thinking about that part of the business.

Speaker 3

And then I'll try to address your Q3 question. In Q3, our professional sales were down 12.6% and our retail sales were only down about 1.3% and our DTC was up. And then when I think your question was specifically in the retail channel, what were we seeing there? And it was down 1.3%. We can see some timing with some of our major customers with the selling of holiday kits.

Speaker 3

And so that might be some of the variance that you're seeing.

Speaker 6

Thank you for the color. I'll pass it on.

Operator

The next question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Please proceed.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks. Good morning. And then I missed the beginning of the call, so apologies if you've kind of directly answered this already. But I know you talked about it's taking longer to see the lift on new product launches in the new campaigns, but also spoke about the success of the leave in conditioner.

Speaker 7

So I just wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about, it was like a postmortem on the what's not worked so far

Speaker 2

and

Speaker 7

why, as contrasted to the what has gone well with that leave in conditioner product. And I know you talked about the 360 on the leave in, so maybe it's more about the what wasn't working on the earlier pieces. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, I think the places were and as you can imagine, we certainly have done a lot of our own internal reflections and we have, like I said, a brand new CMO, who joins us with an extraordinary background. She's really dug in on this with her team and it is something that we really think is very important as we go forward to make sure we understand what works and what doesn't and continue to improve over time. That's certainly something I believe strongly in. Again, I think what we really are seeing is that brand resonates, right?

Speaker 2

I think that's been a very important thing to talk about that as we improve our marketing muscle that the pro response or the client response, right? Like that was really what we needed to understand this year, so that we have that information as we go into future brand vision, as we bring on this team, as we build the muscle. I think we feel again, there are some very important signs of success. One of the things that we talked about very early on when I joined was this concept of creator led marketing, the concept and that is something that is certainly at the helm of a lot of how beauty industry operates. It is and it's something that we really believe that we can do very successfully.

Speaker 2

It was also the first time, with the leave in conditioner that we had an experiential event. So a physical pop up, that we did for Fashion Week, here in New York. And certainly I had the fun of getting to go to that and it winds around the block. But I think that what was so interesting and exciting about that was that people really again they wanted to see the brand, they wanted to experience the brand, but they were also curious about our science. And that is something that we are seeing across the board is that people really do see the power of this product.

Speaker 2

They are interested in how it works. They are interested in how to use it. They want to know about that and we are getting better and better at explaining that. I think that was also something that I called out very early on is that, we have this unbelievable technical foundation. We need to get much better at explaining it, and explaining it whether it's to a stylist, to a consumer, in social media and influencers, leveraging the power of that technology and translating it into language that really makes sense for the broader universe is something that I think I look at as a really exciting proof point for what we're seeing today.

Speaker 2

But I'll always be of the mindset we can do better. We can and that's certainly something that Katie and I share and we'll continue to evolve our processes and marketing that we put up.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Operator

The next question comes from Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Speaker 8

Great, thanks. With respect to international, do you have a sense on how much had to come out of it and how long it will take and what the business looks like after you have rightsized it? And more importantly, why do you think now is the right time to make the international changes you're planning? Obviously, you've got quite a bit on your to do list already. So where is the incremental manpower coming from to drive more of a cleanup in international markets right now?

Speaker 8

Thanks.

Speaker 2

I think, yes, we have the good fortune of being able to make hard choices, right, and to make sure that we're building for the future. And so, I really believe that and we've talked about that the power of marketing, sales, education, innovation, those are the things that are going to drive this business forward. We believe that we need to realign that international business in order to take advantage of that. So, I do think it's important, like I said, however, there is a lot of enthusiasm for this brand. So, we are going to do this in the right way.

Speaker 2

So, at this point, I'm not going to be able to give a timeline, but we'll do the same thing that we've done with everything else in this business is that we're going to operate with a sense of urgency that's important in a transformation, but we're also going to take the time to make sure we do the right analysis, that we pick the right partners, that we do this in the right way and those will obviously be a balance and we'll certainly keep people posted as we work through this.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The last question will be from Rob Epstein with Evercore. Please proceed.

Speaker 9

Hi. Thank you. You kind of touched on this a couple of times, but I just maybe want to give it another shot and drill down a little bit. I think all of us who have been involved were incredibly impressed with the product, the technology, the efficacy, right? And then something happened and there were social media issues.

Speaker 9

And I think you're largely behind that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what may have also happened is increased competition that may have confused the consumer with various different kind of bonding products or trying to play off your claims, but in different ways. And so I guess the question is consumer confusion part of the problem? And then to the extent that is, and I know you talked about better communication, but can you be maybe even more specific about how to deal with that confusion and how you can actually get across that you're unique in terms of the science and the efficacy. And again, I know you touched on it, but it's so important.

Speaker 9

I was just wondering if you can kind of address it

Speaker 1

a little bit more. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely. And I think it's a great question. I think when what I was saying before a little bit about the importance of our ability to explain our science, that is the proximate, right? How do you take something that is truly world class patented technology? It's complicated stuff, right?

Speaker 2

And how do you take that and how do you translate that to the consumer? This is the place that we're really focused. And again, I think we're seeing some early signs of success. We've made some very material changes in how we're approaching social media, how we're creating content. Certainly, if you were to go on our Instagram page and you'd look at it 12 months ago and you look at it now, it's going to look different.

Speaker 2

That I think is a good indicator of how we're approaching science in a different way and how are we thinking, how we communicate, because I think you are right that we need to make sure that people are clear on what sets us apart. Just because we know that we are, doesn't mean that the consumer knows that and that the stylist knows that. And those are related, but not 100% the same thing, right? There is overlap in how they consume information, but there is also unique channels about it. So that's something that we are thinking a lot about as we continue to build our marketing muscle.

Speaker 2

And then I think it's also the importance of innovation and the importance of introducing new SKUs that allow us to continue to push the boundaries of innovation. And I would say that I really believe that this brand is certainly harnessing the power of bond building technology, but this is way more than a bond brand. This is a prestige hair care brand. I really believe that that's the category that we compete in, that it's very important to establish the brand in that way and to communicate that way, because that will, I really believe, increase our ability to really be a part of people's daily hair care routines.

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Amanda Baldwin for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, I'll just say thank you for everyone who joined this morning and please do reach out with any further questions.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Olaplex Q3 2024
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