By filling its aisles with new personal care products featuring the latest ingredients, innovative delivery systems and, most important, valid benefit claims, chain drug stores spent the year communicating to their shoppers that they can find suitable mass alternatives that rival pricier department store and salon brands.

Regardless of category, the overwhelming emphasis in personal care centered on the idea that looking good is inextricably tied to feeling good.

As a consumer group, baby boomers delivered the message to manufacturers, marketers and retailers that they would pay premium drug store prices for products across all personal care categories that promote health and youthfulness.

New prestige-quality ingredients and improved product efficacy attracted the attention of more than just boomers. Twenty- and 30-somethings, taking a protectionist approach to their youth, also gravitated toward products featuring benefit claims such as firming, toning, rejuvenating and–the biggest buzzword of them all–anti-age. Olay hitting all of the above trends continued to extend its Total Effects line of anti-age treatments, with Total Effects Night Firming Cream.

Consumers, regardless of age or gender, sought out personal care products in their local drug stores that delivered more than a single promise. With staying young longer top of mind, both men and women have adopted a total body approach to delaying the signs of aging.

Men, taking cues from the expansive beauty routines of their female counterparts, continued to steadily expanded their grooming regimens well beyond razors and after-shave lotion. Their newfound interest in skin health paved the way for the successful launches of men’s grooming lines from the likes of Nivea and Neutrogena. Procter & Gamble re-energized Old Spice by shedding the “older men’s after-shave” image and repositioning the brand to a p peal to young men, who unabashedly embrace a stepped-up grooming regimen. Several personal care companies that traditionally cater to women edged their way into the category by placing one or two men-targeted products under their brand umbrella, such as Nair Hair Removal For Men and Clairol Men’s Choice hair color.

Like players in the men’s grooming arena, ethnic hair care manufacturers also lobbied for more space as they extended their brands well beyond chemical relaxers, deepening their lines with a range of styling products that maintain hair health.

Stellar growth in the styling segment has attracted general market brands, such as John Frieda and Pantene Pro-V, to the ethnic space.

Several ethnic hair care brands, namely ProLine’s TCB, Taking Care of Beauty and Soft Sheen-Carson added excitement to the ethnic set by revamping their packaging and logos in 2002. Throughout last year, Soft Sheen-Carson made a priority of developing a destination center for the African-American consumer. The company’s initiative, which has spilled over into 2003, re-en-forces its belief in maintaining a visible and compelling planogram for ethnic hair and skin care products–one that includes all relevant mass market ethnic brands in the category, not just items in the Soft Sheen-Carson product catalog.

Retailers’ shift in gears from a one-size-fits-all merchandising and marketing effort to a store-by-store approach ultimately will help both chain drug stores and their suppliers better cater to the nation’s demographic mixes.

Several drug stores spent the better part of 2002 experimenting with new data-driven inventory management systems. But even with all the advancements in POS data, as retailers and manufacturers have found, consumers heading to the ethnic set are becoming more difficult to pigeonhole.

“Many consumers have hair care needs that are not race based,” said Roslyn Chapman, founder of The Chapman Edge, a Chicago-based consulting firm specializing in ethnic marketing. The “changing complexion of America,” as Chapman referred to it, may require retailers to re-evaluate how they describe and label the ethnic department. She suggested retailers can entice the multicultural consumer in with signage that reads, “special needs section” and, in the future, to organize products by hair need, such as curly, relaxed or dry.

While consumer interest in holistic health certainly drove trends across personal care categories beyond men’s grooming and ethnic hair care, it did not dampen their interest in looking good. Consumers continued to seek out wallet-friendly alternatives to pricey whitening treatments, once only available at their dentist’s office.

A slew of at-home whiteners with brand new delivery systems joined Crest Whitestrips and Colgate’s Simply White in the oral care aisle. Whitening and fresh breath claims continued to fuel sales of tooth-pastes and portable oral care products, as well.

Consumer press touting the latest cosmetic treatments encouraged consumers to look for affordable alternatives in the skin care aisles of their local drug stores. Advancements in technology and the introduction of new ingredients helped to position drug stores as a destination for healthy skin care. What’s more, the sluggish economy did its part to woo new consumers to drug store aisles in search of affordable personal care items. Continued efforts to educate consumers on the channel’s ability to deliver solutions to all of one’s personal care needs will help keep them there when the economy rebounds