L’Oréal’s recipe for sustained success over 100 years.
With a widespread presence in more than 150 countries and 36 subsidiaries, L’Oréal has dedicated itself to advancing beauty technology for over a century. As the world’s leading beauty company, L’Oréal is present across all distribution networks: supermarkets, department stores, pharmacies and drugstores, hair salons and e-commerce.
In this article, we will be investigating the factors that led to the French personal care company’s enduring success.
Personalized AI experience
The beauty industry has been shifting to a more tech-focused approach, and personalized beauty products that utilize machine learning and robotic systems have become increasingly in demand.
L’Oréal is leading the charge in revolutionizing the beauty industry. At the start of 2020, L’Oréal unveiled Perso, an AI-powered at-home system that predicts what you need and personalizes formulas for you. First, the user takes a photo of their face with the Perso app which would identify skin conditions, like large pores, dryness, or lines, using its AI software. Then the app analyzes geolocation data to see what surrounding environmental concerns could potentially affect the user’s skin conditions, including air pollution, humidity, temperature and UV index. Finally, the user enters their skin-care goals, like eradicating acne or dull skin tone. The data is pulled into a special algorithm, and the device will formulate a product custom-made for the user. For example, if the device detects dry weather and high levels of pollution in a user’s surroundings, they could cook up a formulation with larger quantities of antioxidants and hyaluronic acid.
Similarly, the lipstick version of the device can help customers create a customized liquid lipstick color. Through the Perso app, users can design their desired shade based on a trend, their outfit of the day, or the blush they’re trying to match.
Digitized customer engagement
To understand consumers’ expectations and how to better serve them, the L’Oréal digital team has designed a social marketing model called “Listen-to-Engage”. This model brings together product, marketing and customer service departments into one platform to optimize customer interactions.
Customer-facing community managers are trained to listen in to all social channels, blogs, forums and news sites to monitor brand reputation and collect consumer insights that will feed product marketing. The social listening capabilities of the platform will be utilized by managers to detect interesting conversations and communicate to consumers in a reactive and personalized way while selling their products.
Diversity and inclusion
L’Oréal takes diversity and inclusion in its workspace seriously. In 2020, the beauty company was ranked sixth in the 2020 Refinitiv Diversity & Inclusion Index and was the only beauty company in the top ten companies.
L’Oréal is committed to achieving gender equity at all levels of the company and dedicates itself to establishing more inclusive environments in favor of the LGBTQIA+ community in offices around the world. The company also devotes itself to accelerating the inclusion of employees with disabilities with a minimum target in all countries. L’Oréal is also dedicated to increasing the diversity of socio-economic and cultural origins in their teams. Particular attention is paid to the diversification of recruitment pools, ensuring that equal opportunities can be given to every potential employee.
Workplace diversity in decision-making processes ensures a clear understanding of multiple perspectives. It helps the company strike the right chord between both global and local targets and better integrate with local demands.
L’Oréal’s continuous technological advancements across decades, its ability to balance between both global and local audience and its intuitive marketing strategies are all factors that have landed the beauty brand as a clear favorite among its consumers and a leader in the beauty industry.
Header Image Courtesy of L’Oréal
