Pharmacies play to a change of script

Stephen Roche is transforming Priceline shops into temples of health.

Earlier this month, Stephen Roche crawled into bed with soapie star Ada Nicodemou and another fetching young woman who is often spied on the red carpet.

Any romantic mood was probably killed by the hundreds of people watching them, the live TV audience and the fact the bed was situated in the middle of Sydney's bustling Martin Place, but it helped deliver a powerful message about postnatal and antenatal depression to perplexed onlookers.

Stretched out on a pink bed under a hot pink bedsheet, Roche was a long way from the often stuffy and staid world of pharmacies with their typically old men in white coats standing on raised platforms and typing labels on to small bottles of pills.

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The public event, a record attempt at the world's biggest breakfast in bed, was even further away from Roche's first career out of school, plumbing, but goes to the heart of his strategy to turn around Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) from being viewed simply as a pharmacy group to a specialist retailer which is aimed directly at women and leads the country in health, beauty and wellbeing products.

Chief executive since 2006 of the 102-year-old API, Roche has launched a revamp of the group's retail arm, Priceline, changing the in-store layout, categories and focus as well as its logo to better pitch itself to female shoppers.

It's a long way from when Priceline was better known as a simple pharmacy with a grab-bag of products from nappies and band-aids to chocolates and housewares.

''Priceline wasn't necessarily centred around beauty, it was about some opportunities, it was homewares for example, a whole range of things which was relevant at the time to what it was,'' says Roche.

''The transition here is to move into health, beauty and wellbeing and then to reinforce that to customers as to what it means and why you should shop there.

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Pharmacies play to a change of script