Marvis Protects Cult Status by Refusing Mass Distribution

Marvis built a following most oral care brands never manage: cult status in prestige beauty across the US, Asia and now Europe, in a category otherwise dominated by mass FMCG. Speaking to ClickZ at Shoptalk Europe, Niccolò Francalanci, GM EMEA and Americas at Ludovico Martelli, set out how the Italian toothpaste house protects that position as it crosses borders.

Consistency means the same sensory bet in every market

For Francalanci, the discipline starts with what the brand calls “Marvel your routine”.

“We need to be consistent with what Marvis stands for, which is Marvel your routine, which means disrupting the oral category, which is a sea of same, and with a completely opposite take, let’s give focus to the sensorial experience across the board,” he said.

That means the formulation, the packaging design and the flavours have to hold their ground whether the customer is in the US or in Asia. Messaging follows the same rule, whether it reaches shoppers through mass media or peer-to-peer content. The channel strategy stays just as fixed. “The type of sales channel has to be the same, selective prestige,” Francalanci said, adding that even when retail chains come calling, the brand never moves into mass.

Nuo Capital leaves brand decisions to the people who run them

Nuo Capital, the Milan-based fund backed by the Pao Cheng family, among others, took a stake in Ludovico Martelli with the explicit aim of helping high-end Italian businesses scale internationally. Francalanci described the relationship as one built on distance rather than interference. “There is strong collaboration, strong trust. They know where to leave us alone because we do the know-how, and all the different brands are managed as a standalone, because each brand stands for a specific benefit and a specific category,” he said. Synergy across the portfolio, which includes Proraso, Valobra and Floïd alongside Marvis, stays confined to production, logistics and finance rather than brand strategy itself.

AI still plays a supporting role, not a creative one

Asked how much of brand building can be automated without losing the texture that makes a brand feel premium, Francalanci was candid about where Marvis currently sits. “We are a bit behind there. We are still learning,” he said. Today, AI mostly handles routine tasks rather than anything closer to the product experience. The ambition points further, though. Francalanci wants AI to deepen how users interact with Marvis, particularly among Gen Z shoppers, because that first interaction tends to decide everything that follows. “We realise when the user interacts with Marvis, even as a first timer, that triggers the trial, and then the loyalty comes along,” he said.

Online growth has made the physical shelf the most overrated channel

Francalanci named the physical shelf as the most overrated channel in beauty today, since he sees the growth concentrating elsewhere. “All the growth is coming from online,” he said, pointing to TikTok as an example: a big chunk of the growth for TikTok Shop comes from the beauty & personal care segment. Asked which market he would skip first when launching a new heritage brand, Francalanci pointed to a specific economic signal rather than a region. “I would say anywhere where the Gini index is actually low,” he said, referring to the measure of wealth concentration. Where that index is low, he wouldn’t lead with business first.

A career bet on family ownership over the next platform

Francalanci left FMCG and a high-growth tech business to join a family-owned Italian house, a decision made while much of his peer group was chasing the next platform or vertical. Looking back, he traced the lesson to leadership. “The most important thing is as long as leadership has vision, like in the case of my CEO and the family ownership. As long as there is trust, as long as the CEO is willing to give you all the resources you need, if there is a rationale behind pursuing the growth, that’s fine,” he said.

Marvis now carries more than half of Ludovico Martelli’s revenue outside Italy on the strength of that same discipline: one sensory promise, held constant from Milan to Manhattan.