What is the "lipstick effect", and why is it important?

Pete,

Thanks for answering.

I did take the time to read the links. I know it's not just LOreal. And I know they Said it happened before. But so what... didn't their business increase any other time this last century?

It's not as if their business only increased during a Rough Time. As I said, businesses are in business to increase business on the previous year's results. Constantly. To only talk about the increases during selected times is misleading and paints a false impression.

Now... to YOU sales increase might mean "they have sold more units during one period of time, than another", but to others it could mean something different. You know, people don't always say what they mean, do they? Which is why I say "what's that even Mean"?

So if we take it that... they had a Sales Increase - they sold more units. Then from that we can imply... because they didn't say they increased Profits... that those sales were generated from Discounting. The Discount increased sales but not profits.

That being the case, then the Increase is something THEY are generating and Not a condition of the time, isn't it? And hence my skepticism.

Michael Ross