It’s here. Finally. Kiehl’s, the venerable – and extraordinarily popular – Old World apothecary with New World style has arrived with its first free-standing store in Canada, unique, word-of-mouth marketing strategy in tow.

The chain’s 152-year-old flagship store in New York City is known for having waiting lines of customers. They’re drawn by the New York-based retailer’s signature look combining a line of approximately 150 custom-manufactured, Kiehl’s-branded products, utilitarian packaging, elegant store design and its reputation for great customer service. While the environment at a Kiehl’s store is consciously non-solicitous, knowledgeable help is always immediately at hand.

‘It’s a logical step for us,’ says Kristin Armstrong, VP/GM, Kiehl’s Since 1851, of the move to Canada. She adds that the only reason the chain didn’t come up sooner was it hadn’t yet completed its consumer research.

That research indicated Canadians already knew some basic facts about Kiehl’s, such as its origins in New York and its reliance on natural ingredients. ‘When we asked, ‘What would you like to see in the future?’ almost every single group said that they would love to see a Kiehl’s free-standing store. It reassured us that that was the right thing to do.’

The Canadian store opened in Toronto on June 20. Launching with a splash, Kiehl’s sampled at the June 22 MuchMusic Video Awards pre-party where it handed out 500 gift bags. An official launch event on July 16 will feature the presentation of a cheque for $10,000 to the Toronto Public Library’s Young Voices From the Street literacy program for youth in shelters and drop-in centres. (The retailer typically aligns itself with AIDS, environmental and children’s charities.)

In 2000, the Kiehl’s chain was sold to L’Oréal, but that hasn’t changed the company’s culture or marketing approach, which has been characterized by word-of-mouth awareness building, ‘generous’ sampling and the use of an in-house PR team at its New York location.

This strategy seems to work for the retailer. According to Armstrong, the company has experienced 30% growth over 2002 so far this year and its products rank in the top 12 at Holt Renfrew. Kiehl’s currently operates seven other stores, six in the U.S. and one in London, U.K.

‘L’Oréal has been incredibly supportive and respectful of the way Kiehl’s is being run…. We do absolutely no paid advertising,’ says Armstrong. ‘[Kiehl’s has a] desire to control to a large degree how [it] is perceived, but more importantly to put out efforts into what has always been our number-one mission and that’s to serve our customers.’

Kiehl’s has only anecdotal evidence to back up the impact of its sampling efforts, but Armstrong says that typically, the ‘return is very quick’ with people coming back to the store for more product. Last February, direct mail was sent out to Holt Renfrew’s Toronto and Vancouver customers, inviting them to sample hair-care products. Approximately 5,000 people were targeted in Toronto. ‘We saw significant growth in the hair-care category,’ says Armstrong. ‘Was that all because of [the direct mail]? No. But we know that we were able to sample these products and we saw growth.’

Although PR is typically handled out of New York, opening up a store in Canada on Toronto’s trendy Queen Street West presented challenges. So the company hired Toronto-based PR agency Industry to handle the business, marking the first time Kiehl’s has worked with an outside firm. The company’s PR strategy focuses on media relations with the press, which simply entails keeping media outlets abreast of what’s going on at the store.

Says Armstrong about the process of migrating north, ‘The awareness was very low. So we said, ‘Here’s our opportunity to let people know we have a free-standing store but also to let people know that Kiehl’s exists across Canada.”

Kiehl’s is essentially pharmacy as fashion, paradoxically ahead of its time given its 1851 birth date, but a perfect fit for today’s style-conscious consumer eager to inject post-modern couture into even the most mundane shopping experience.

The décor inside a Kiehl’s features pressed-tin ceilings, hardwood flooring, stainless steel appointments, white marble countertops (all unchanged from the original New York City store’s look), a vintage Harley Davidson motorcycle in the Toronto store’s window display and hip music pumped through speakers. It’s simultaneously evocative of a laboratory, avant garde art display and chic Banana Republic outlet.

The store’s fashionable élan precedes it, right down to choice of location. Armstrong says Kiehl’s did a market-location study and focus groups to determine how customers felt about the company. ‘Queen Street West spoke to the very heart and soul of Kiehl’s. We wanted to be in a very young, hip, trendy, bohemian neighbourhood…a place where all sorts of ages and cultures converge.’

Prior to the opening of the Toronto store, Kiehl’s did have some distribution in Canada – at Holt Renfrew (which invited Kiehl’s up in 1997) in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, Delineation in Toronto, Bacci In Vancouver, Edward Carriere in Edmonton and in the ’80s at now defunct Toronto boutique Moe’s.

A sense of fashionable exclusivity appeals to consumers who like their shopping to come heaped with style, and Armstrong says Kiehl’s cultivates that desire as a marketing tactic. ‘That translates through our choice of distribution for Kiehl’s. We are intentionally in a very small distribution and we are intentionally in specialty stores and a few independents and now moving into free-standing stores.’

Surprisingly, Armstrong is reluctant to characterize Kiehl’s as targeting the attendant demographic. She insists the store attracts people from all walks of life, wealthy and working class, and young and old. And it’s not just for women, either. Armstrong says that in the U.S. 30% of customers are men and, while it’s still early to say in Toronto, she adds that the same appears to apply to the Toronto location.

Canada will be getting another dose of Kiehl’s next year with the opening of a second free-standing store, although its location remains unannounced. In the meantime, Kiehl’s locations at the Bloor and Yorkdale Holt Renfrew stores in Toronto will be renovated and expanded this fall, and new ones will open at the Holt Renfrews at Sherway Gardens and in Edmonton.

Says Armstrong, ‘We’re eager to open more free-standing stores and we’ll approach it very much in the same way we approached Queen Street.’