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Some analysts and even company insiders wonder whether Revlon can maintain creativity in an atmosphere of tight control. Bergerac insists that it can. To him, creativity is not a matter of sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike, but of striving against deadlines to design products, packages and ads for carefully targeted markets.
Unlike Charles Revson, Bergerac does not devise new colors or designs; that is done by Cosmetic and Fragrance President Paul Woolard and executives grouped into seven "houses," which are practically minicompanies, each concentrating on a particular price range and type of customer. But Bergerac must approve all major changes, and he is an exacting judge with an eye for detail. The model in the Jontue ads is pictured leading a white horse; to Outdoorsman Bergerac the first horse that subordinates showed him looked like a sway-backed plow dragger. The boss bought his admen a book on horses and insisted that they study it to pick a more imposing beast. They chose an Arabian stallion that is now pictured in almost every Jontue ad and counter display—a hallmark of Bergerac's approach. He insists that a woman must find at the cosmetics counter the same symbol that may have caught her eye in an ad, so that she can instantly identify the product.
Bergerac has doubled Revlon's advertising budget, to some $135 million this year, and developed a merchandising program called Retail Partners, under which Revlon designs displays and provides promotional materials for stores to encourage them to put on splashy shows. One for Bordeaux lipstick, nail polish and other cosmetics took a whole floor of Manhattan's Bonwit Teller; Revlon supplied books on wine and even old wine barrels to show off. When a Revlon product is a hit, Bergerac quickly follows it with others under the same name. Charlie, for example, has spread since 1974 from a fragrance to a line of cosmetics and soap.
Most of all, Bergerac nags his managers to identify clearly the customer that a particular product is aimed at: her tastes, attitudes, psychology. When he arrived, the Borghese brand of cleansers, moisturizers and fragrances had no particular image beyond high price. Under Bergerac's constant questioning about "Who is the Borghese woman?" aides finally defined her as a person of sophisticated elegance—and, one gathers, refined eroticism. Ads for Borghese perfume ("The Perfume of the Night") feature an obviously nude woman, her head and shoulders bathed in a rosy glow, the rest of her body outlined in deep shadow. Bergerac's favorite ad, which shows a bare-breasted Borghese woman in silhouette, also ran in the Revlon annual report.
Borghese's name, of course, was also chosen (by Revson) to lend a note of elegance; one woman who uses the perfume was let down to discover that it came from Revlon. Says she: "I bought it because I thought it was Italian." Cosmetics names in general are picked to convey some image, but among the thousands of nail polish and lipstick shade names, the images get a bit fuzzy. In