Essilor of America's Sherianne James, senior vice president and chief marketing officer.
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PHOENIX—Nearly 900 Essilor employees, team members, ECP and lab partners and senior execs converged here earlier this week for Essilor of America's national sales and strategy meeting, themed "StandOUT," to reflect on 2018's achievements and prepare for a series of new programs, product launches and marketing programs for the coming year. Attendees at the four-day meeting heard from global and North American senior executives, took part in training sessions and recognized the achievements of colleagues among sales teams and IDD Partner Labs. The meeting's keynote speaker, blind adventurer and author, Erik Weihenmayer, who successfully climbed Mt. Everest, inspired the group with his poignant story and his "No Barriers" approach to achievement and fulfillment.

Among Essilor's activities this year, 2019 will see the launch of its first-ever instant digital rebate program in February, the "Instant $100", which will leverage digital tools to reach consumers and link them to participating ECPs to access an expanded Ultimate Lens Package program, building on the success of the original 2018 initiative. Designed to drive second pair purchases, patients can get $100 back instantly on the purchase of the Essilor Ultimate Lens Package and a qualifying second pair. To ensure ECPs have an offer for every patient, the promotion will leverage the full Essilor product portfolio and patients can get $50 back when they purchase any Varilux or Eyezen+ lens with a Crizal No-Glare treatment along with a qualifying second pair.


Crystal Barranger, president of Essilor Photochromics and Transitions Optical.
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Essilor of America's Sherianne James, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said the new program will be promoted via a national media campaign, including new digital advertising and a television campaign with two commercials to reach both single vision and progressive lens wearers.

The new instant rebate is designed to be simple for consumers to redeem and easy for eyecare professionals to recommend, she noted. Any consumer that purchases two pairs of qualifying Essilor lenses can go to www.instant100.com, where they will enter some basic information and submit a photo of their receipt to receive their rebate. Any independent eyecare practice is eligible to participate in the Instant $100 promotion but to take part, ECPs must enroll their practice at www.essilorusa.com/instant100.

Transitions also revealed its plans to build on its banner 2018 sales year, which saw the photochromic brand extend its reach to Millennials. This summer Transtions Optical will launch the next generation of Transitions Signature lenses, called Transitions Signature Gen 8. The new lenses are the result of over five years of product research and development. “Building on over 20 years of innovation, we are always pushing the limits of performance in our products,” said Chrystel Barranger, president of Essilor Photochromics and Transitions Optical at the annual meeting's general session. “We are passionate about bringing the benefits of light intelligence to all consumers and are excited to bring a new generation of our most popular lens offering to the market.”

Transitions execs also heralded the 2019 first half launch by Johnson & Johnson Vision Care of the new Acuvue Oasys contact lenses with Transitions, which they said, will bring extended recognition of the brand and the features of photochromics to the new vision correction category.