Anheuser-Busch to distribute Borba beverages
In August Anheuser-Busch, the number one brewer in the U.S., said that it reached an agreement to distribute and market the Borba drinkable skincare line domestically and in countries around the world.
Yuk, what’s that? Drinkable skincare? Don’t lotions and potions say on the packaging that they are for external use only? Now we are supposed to drink them? How strange.
Perhaps it is a beauty concept that particularly appeals to the gentlemen from St. Louis. No visits to beauty salons for them. Heavens forbid that some strange metrosexuals should apply gooey stuff to their faces. No way. The good thing about Borba’s products is that they can be administered in the privacy of your office. Open a container, drink the content and attain a youthful, clear and luminous appearance. Works miracles, the stuff, yeah!
Perhaps this is not the story behind the deal. But it might have been.
Borba is a relatively newish line of skincare products. The beverages and powdered drinks called crystallines are a line extension. Borba’s Skin Balance Waters include Clarifying, Age Defying, Firming and Replenishing varieties. The beauty drinks do not come cheap. If you buy them online, Borba’s Clarifying Skin Balance Water, for example, which is designed to combat oily skin, clogged pores and impurities, will set you back USD 30 for a 12 pack (plus postage).
Obviously, the concept was developed in California – where else? – by thirtysomething Scott Borba, whose expertise is in cosmetics, having worked for Hard Candy Cosmetics and Neutrogena (a Johnson & Johnson product) before setting up his own company.
What is most unusual about Borba is that it is sold not through grocery or health-food stores but in the cosmetics department of Nordstrom, in the beauty-products chain Sephora and in Equinox Gyms. Some items are also sold through television and the Internet retailer QVC.
The agreement between Borba and Anheuser-Busch also includes distribution and marketing of Aqua-Less Crystallines, a powder form of the drinkable skin care line, in the United States. As part of the agreement, Borba maintains the right to sell its beverages and crystallines in select accounts and online.
Anheuser-Busch wholesalers will begin distributing the beverages in select markets in November 2007.
Over here in the office, it amuses us no end to imagine one of the burly beer truck drivers walk into the refined world of a cosmetics store delivering the beverage. Hilarious.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
