Katrina Allen Miss De Jour Interview

Katrina Allen Miss De Jour Interview

A woman knows what she wants and needs; and what better person to create and champion a tampon company than… Katrina Allen.

An inspirational business woman, highly creative and the brains behind De Jour; the first Australian sanitary brand by a woman, for women, Ms Allen is launching a sassy new brand, Miss De Jour, to cater to the -Mademoiselle' market of Australian women.
Chic, savvy and stylish, the Miss De Jour range of tampons launches in stores from March 2011.

'Miss De Jour tampons are packed in fashionable boxes to help make women feel a little bit glamorous in a time when they might be feeling a little bit icky. We've also packaged them in handy zip lock bags, which means the tampons don't end up rolling around in the bottom of our handbags, which most of us can relate to," Ms Allen said.

Ms Allen, 43, began her career in advertising, paving an enviable career as Art Director before changing tact some 13 years later to begin De Jour in 1998.

'Like many big breaks in business I recognised a market gap in the sanitary products' space that spoke directly to the female market. Such as - who she is, what she aspires to… and I was confident I could deliver a product that would meet the customer's sanitary requirements as well as fit with her value set," Ms Allen said.
'I looked around at what was on offer and didn't like the options. The available tampon packaging was loud and gaudy, the purse packs unhygienic and the advertising insulting," she said.

Rather than accept the status quo, Ms Allen used her creative nous to design the De Jour brand, which launched to market in 1998.
Miss De Jour, and De Jour, is available in supermarkets across Australia as well as Priceline stores and other usual sanitary product outlets.

Ms Allen has her own David and Goliath story to tell – taking on the male dominated big guns and coming up trumps.

She believes the secrets to her success include knowing the target market, filling a gap in the market, and importantly delivering a quality product that works, is price competitive and appeals to its audience. Ms Allen also goes beyond the standalone product by sharing tips, advice and information on the De Jour website, and Miss De Jour Facebook page related to various women's issues including but not limited to PMT, cystitis and thrush.

'I like to look at myself as a big sister. Perhaps that's why I've launched a new line of De Jour, we've been on the market for over 10 years now – little sister's all grown up and it's her time to shine. Today's women care about their careers but not to the neglect of their femininity. I've kept their values top of mind when designing both De Jour and Miss De Jour. Miss De Jour is part of a sisterhood brand that knows what women want and can deliver a product that delivers on it," Ms Allen said.

'The packaging is also such that the man in a girl's life won't be embarrassed to be seen with Miss De Jour in his shopping basket – in fact, he's likely to feel good about it as other women shopping will be familiar with the brand and think he's a grand boyfriend indeed!"

Interview with Katrina Allen

Question: Can you talk about the Miss De Jour product and how it differs to De Jour?

Katrina Allen: Miss De jour is aimed at a younger market. The reason Miss De jour has come about ties in with the changing fashion around handbags. When I first launched, handbags were all dark and black and was the colour of the day and now as we know, handbags have become a fashion accessory and therefore full of bright colours and so Miss De jour has been designed to fit in with those handbags and how they have changed.

Question: De Jour is great because of the handy zip lock bags, what originally inspired you to create these?

Katrina Allen: Basically I was looking for a piece of packaging that would hold tampons in it that was really secure and hygienic and I was walking around a supermarket trying to get some inspiration when I saw Gladbags and I thought 'wow...if you could have a Gladbag that was opaque in colour and you could zip lock tampons in it, that would be fantastic."


Question: How have you seen your business grow since 1998?

Katrina Allen: De jour has grown every year since I first started the business and now not only do we obviously supply all supermarkets in Australia and pharmacies, but the business has also expanded into other products in the private label sector for completely different commodities and I am also currently in the throes of launching a new range of Back to School products for children.


Question: What originally inspired you to begin De Jour over ten years ago?

Katrina Allen: Basically my father was the inspiration behind De jour. My father was a lawyer and was doing some legal work for a company who owed another company, a tampon company, were owed some money to another company and he just said to me 'that I think that there would be a buck in tampons" – that's honestly what he said and I automatically went 'oh, tampon packaging is so revolting and so gaudy" and let me tell you 12 years ago it was pretty uninspiring and so basically I came up with designing tampons in zip lock bags in charcoal grey and silver.


Question: You have survived through more than 10 years of business, what is your secret to business success?

Katrina Allen: I'm probably one of the most organised and reactive businesses out there. I am able to respond to the needs of the retailers instantaneously and I have always been extremely diligent with my business in terms of responding to emails and responding to requests and I think that is possibly been one of my success indicators. Also constantly changing your business is one of the things of success to keep ahead of what everybody else is doing.


Question: Can you talk about why you think it is important to go beyond the standalone product via the internet?
Katrina Allen: It ties into feeling a bit like a -big sister' to my customers. I think if you have good information to share that can help someone then why not? If a friend asked me and I knew the answer I would tell them. So if girls need to know about health issues or women's issues and I can supply the answer, isn't that the right thing to do? Aren't we meant to lead by example?


Question: How has social networking changed your business and how did you adapt to this change in communication?

Katrina Allen: Obviously Miss De jour is completely and utterly focused on Facebook and we have a committed team that is obviously dedicated to social networking and how we are communicating to them is basically through this type of communication.


Question: How did your previous career as an Ad Agency Creative Director help you begin De Jour and Miss De Jour?

Katrina Allen: Obviously I have training in design and I obviously know the sort of look I am looking for. When it comes to packaging I have the right feel of what I am looking for and being a creative I obviously have alot of ideas as to how I see the product being creatively executed out there in the market place and obviously working in advertising agency I am used to working to ridiculous deadlines and 'pulling rabbits out of your hat" as you call it. I think all those skills taught me how to pull together and be able to put a product together.


Question: What's the hardest business lesson you've learnt and how did you learn it?

Katrina Allen: The hardest business lesson to learn and you never stop learning it is about stock control. It is constant. You always know to carry not very much stock of something and you always have to be on top of your stock, but I don't think there is any way to completely learn the lessons of stock control. It is one thing of what your warehouse says and another is of what your computer says.


Question: Do you regularly set goals for your business? How do you go about achieving them?

Katrina Allen: Yes, I do. Basically I've set goals for my business in terms of wanting to invent new products and basically when I have come up with an idea and it's really been the right idea and have done research and I've found that I've got something that will work, then I just set about achieving it. Miss De jour is one of them and the new product I'm working on for Back to School is another one that I've gone out of my way to do as well as my business that I've done for private clients.

Interview by Brooke Hunter