L'Oréal sees transformative potential of CIIE

Beauty giant L’Oréal hopes to become one of the most sought-after booths at the second China International Import Expo (CIIE) as it works to transform itself into a beauty-tech business.

“As a globalized company, L’Oréal is very active at the CIIE and fully supports the event and we feel honored to be involved in the great progress of China’s economic and social development. The most fundamental motivation of China’s booming beauty market is the growing beauty desire of consumers, especially their yearning for more personalized offerings,” said Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of the L’Oréal Group.

For two years in a row, L’Oréal has been among the first companies to confirm their participation in the CIIE.

“We will continue to use all our efforts to fully leverage the power of beauty, activate and boost the beauty market, and at the same time support China to grasp the ‘golden key’ of consumption to let more people embrace a better life,” Agon added.

Beauty for All is L’Oréal’s mission for over a century.

Now it’s seeking the perfect merger of the power of beauty and cutting-edge tech to customize the most aspirational beauty experience for every consumer and change their life for the better.

“The Chinese market is not only the global benchmark in terms of product and formula innovation, but also the engine for L’Oréal’s transformation to a champion of beauty-tech worldwide. More and more innovations from China have already been launched and are welcomed and embraced by consumers, bringing inspiration to the development of the world’s beauty industry,” added Fabrice Megarbane, President and CEO of L’Oréal China.

At the end of October, it also announced a strategic investment in Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital fund founded to support entrepreneurs engaged in the sustainable transformation of the world through technology. With this transaction, L’Oréal strengthens its connection to the beauty tech startup ecosystem. By shifting its focus toward beauty-tech, it aims to drive a 360-degree consumer-centric strategic transformation to enhance the entire value chain.

In the first place, research and innovation work will be boosted by beauty tech as its research capabilities will be amplified thanks to data science.

Data processing and learning will be deployed in research labs, and the powerful algorithms derived from L’Oréal’s anonymous database will also allow research and innovation teams to develop new formulas that are perfectly suited to the needs of consumers.

The meeting of cosmetics science and other basic sciences, such as the science of skin microbiome, exposome, smart materials, regenerative medicine and digital technologies, is the key to the future of beauty products. Hit products, such as Lancôme’s “second-generation Génifique” that were developed with the aid of scientific understanding of microbiome are proof of the infinite potential of cutting-edge science in cosmetics.

One of the highlights of L’Oréal’s appearance at CIIE is the plethora of choice of “beauty tech” applications that beautifully bring together beauty and cutting-edge technologies. The world’s first “Scalp Hair Multi-Functional Intelligent Detection Application” created by KÉRASTASE will be premiered at CIIE for the very first time worldwide; SkinDr, the mobile one-stop skin detection APP will debut in Asia; SkinCeuticals is slated to debut its Custom D.O.S.E serum personalization offering in Chinese mainland. La Roche-Posay’s Effaclar Spotscan app which was announced at Viva Technology, will be showed at CIIE as the milestone to create disruptive beauty experience innovated in China while benefiting consumers worldwide with open innovation.

 Data technology is helping personal care and beauty brands to precisely understand consumers and forecast shifts in their tastes. In China specifically, L’Oréal is using social media tools to track consumer comments and feedback on more than 36,000 websites.

Through its “Ring of Confession” in the 6.1H exhibition zone, L’Oréal will, for the first time in Asia, showcase Deep Vision, an AI-aided consumer insights system. In the China context, the system is capable of exporting from Weibo images shared publicly by consumers in real time, helping consumer insights specialists to track both beauty trends and dynamic changes at the macro level and examine particular expressions on the micro level.

By gathering consumer insights through its partnership with Tmall, it successfully identified the latest consumer trends such as male grooming in 2018 and efficacy skincare in 2019.

It’s also going all out to cater to consumer habits in the digital age: some 80 percent of its marketing content is produced for digital channels.

In China, it’s also leading the transformation and adoption of new marketing technologies, such as live broadcasting, virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

With the long-term commitment of “Sharing Beauty With All”, L’Oréal utilizes beauty-tech to empower the highest level of sustainability. Besides an “experience zone” focused on sustainable development” on L’Oréal’s booth space, about 50 percent of all its building materials used being eco-friendly materials. A novel kind of green parcels for e-commerce use will also be showcased. In the middle of this year, the China market officially became the L’Oréal Group’s first “zero-carbon market.” Agon said, “Beauty-tech is about perfection and about the creating of positive energy that in turn leads to greater convenience, safety, good health, and inclusiveness.”