Euromonitor Podcast on Digital Trends in Beauty: If We All Already Know These Basics, How Do We Differentiate?

In preparation for my participation in the L'Oreal Brandstorm competition, whose focus this year is on developing an integrated digital strategy for La Roche Posay, I was looking into some Euromonitor analyses on what makes a successful digital strategy and ended up listening to a podcast that focuses on this topic. It was actually surprising to find that the research mentioned aren’t that much of a surprise to what I’ve already learned through my work at Vain Pursuits. 

The four pillars for a digital strategy in beauty were noted to be: engagement, personalization, curation and best price. The Euromonitor analyst emphasized the importance of having a holistic approach and thinking of overall brand development through the digital strategy. In terms of engagement, the advantages of conversing with customers were highlighted, being that this allows marketers to harness more data on customers’ behaviours and their beauty regimes and that it can lead to higher brand loyalty as customers’ needs are more accurately identified and met. Personalization is no doubt another obvious pillar, as customers are looking for more tailored solutions especially when it comes to skincare. What surprised me was that the two main trends identified to address this pillar were virtual try on and skin analysis, trends that I have already been familiar with, from learning about L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius App to being highly acquainted with Vain Pursuits’ business model. 

This podcast itself did not present me with any revolutionary ideas or findings. However, it has led me to consider an important question: how salient have the successful factors of digital in beauty become? In a sense, it seems almost like most digital marketing individuals and brands have caught on to what people want. We see apps and brands incorporating augmented reality growing by the day and there isn’t really anything that you can’t get personalized, particularly in beauty. How exactly then, can a beauty brand differentiate itself on digital and find the disruptive technology that will propel it in this saturated digital beauty playing field? This is something I really hope to find out soon,  as I know my Brandstorm fate is heavily dependent on the answer. 

HBR Digital Customer Engagement: L'Oreal Innovating the Customer Decision Journey with Makeup Genius

After spending an inspiring weekend in Boston to attend the Harvard Women in Business conference, I ended the trip well with the purchase of the latest Harvard Business Review issue, which has a focus on digital customer engagement. One of the key parts that caught my attention in the segment was the focus on “streamlining the decision journey”, striving to deliver customers directly into the loyalty loop and keeping them in there. 

The main example illustrated in the article is the L’Oreal Makeup Genius app, an app launched in 2014 with over 14 million downloads that allows customers to virtually try on makeup at home using augmented reality. The recognition technology can capture 64 facial data points and 100 different facial expressions to flawlessly apply makeup onto the face. The user can then save their photo with the makeup on, purchase the products in the app through retailers like Amazon and directly share their latest look to social media. The app’s functionality extends beyond the purchasing decision in that after the customer’s purchase arrives, she can reopen the app and it will automatically give her instructions for applying the products. The app then stores data on the styles that the customer appears interested in and will periodically alert her of a new style she might like. Through several more purchases and a greater awareness of her preferences, the app can further tailor the recommendations sent. It has been analyzed that this interaction helps to cultivate customer loyalty and encourage the sharing of app links to friends who have similar interests in beauty. 

I think this app is an exemplary example of combining the four key capabilities of effective customer path to purchase journey, as highlighted through the HBR article: automation, proactive personalization, contextual interaction and journey innovation. It definitely highlights the rapidly growing importance of personalization in all aspects of a customer’s purchasing experience and how when this is delivered effectively through digital technology, it can create a loyal retained customer.  

Sources: 

https://hbr.org/2015/11/competing-on-customer-journeys

Luxury Fashion Brands in the E-Commerce Competitive Landscape

Luxury fashion brands that have traditionally heavily relied on fancy flagship stores and distribution through department stores are shifting their competitive landscapes. It’s no surprise that many notable brands like LVMH and Hugo Boss are actively developing their own e-commerce platforms now that it is evident that shopping behaviours are migrating online and the growth in the Chinese luxury retail market is slowing. The result is a new competition ground between these brands’ own e-commerce sites and the department store e-commerce sites that they typically sell through. 

I personally found it very interesting to see such a big move for luxury to e-commerce, given the fact that luxury fashion is a high-effort purchase that normally involves more in-person engagement with the product prior to purchasing. However, it is definitely worth nothing that it is predicted that the “web sales of luxury goods will grow at more than twice the pace of the overall luxury market, to 27 billion euros ($30 billion) through 2019”. It seems likely that luxury brands will increasingly utilize the “showroom” strategy whereby using their existing stores and outlets as a means for consumers to interact with the products but aiming to drive conversions and repeat sales through e-commerce. 

I believe it’s important to note that moving the luxury fashion market online doesn’t just provide brands with another channel to sell through. With the various metrics and data collection mediums available, there is a vast amount of customer data that these brands can collect through consumers’ e-commerce and mobile behaviour to better understand how to adapt their online strategies. There’s also much experimenting to be done to see whether brands should focus on selling through their own e-commerce sites or work closely with their department store distributors to build a stronger presence on their websites. As the luxury retail online continues to grow in the near future, it's interesting to consider whether an e-commerce storefront can ever render the luxury storefront obsolete.

Article inspiration source: http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/luxury-web-battle-looms-as-lvmh-hugo-boss-develop-e-commerce

Shopify's "Buy Now" on Twitter

This morning I briefly came across an article about the new “buy now” button on Twitter. It definitely intrigued me but it was not until I actually sat down tonight to look at the fashion-tech news that I truly considered the implications of this, not only for e-commerce retailers, but for the future trajectory of social media as a whole. 

Shopify is a Canadian based company that develops software for online stores and retail POS systems. It has a range of clients from emerging startups like fashion brand Good As Gold to growing small businesses like Skinny Teatox. With the new partnership with Twitter, Shopify merchants can tweet any product and it will include the buy button that lets users “make purchases within their Twitter timeline”. Similar buttons have already been implemented for Pinterest and Facebook.

As a frequent e-commerce shopper and aspiring digital marketer myself, I recognize the importance of social media platforms as a way of reaching out to potential customers and convincing them to convert. However at the same time, I am really thinking about how this trend of “buy now” buttons everywhere will come to impact the quality of content and interactions by these brands on social media. Especially for fashion and beauty brands, I believe that it is extremely important to cultivate a strong connection with customers and communicate with them the brand’s story and lifestyle as a part of leading the customer on the path to purchase. With more and more of these features that allow customers to purchase directly from social media sites, I feel as if the opportunities for true customer relationship development may be hindered, if companies are not careful in using it. I agree that to a great extent, it becomes very convenient for customers to click a button and be led to purchase. Yet at the same time if brands focus too much on just generating the click to purchase and ease off on still enhancing the various touchpoints with the customer, what they may end up facing is a series of one-time purchases, but not high customer retention. 

With the current movement of technology and mobile, it is inevitable that our apps will only continue to be crowded with “buy now!”, “click this!”, “go here!” call to actions. What I feel is extremely critical though is that companies do not take this as a means of being lazy and just bombarding timelines with “buy now!” Tweets. They must continuously strive to build on their brand stories and give potential customers a reason to come back!