Business never survived without advertising. It is the perfect soulmate without which business would cease to exist. According to figures from GEM Global Report, in every second three businesses are formed worldwide. That means 11,000 companies every hour around the globe. Now, imagine the number of advertisements that would come in too! Whether you are a startup or a multinational corporation, advertising gathers serious consideration during a yearly budget.

L’O real, the French cosmetic company is one such brand that gives immense regard to advertising. They are quite famous for breaking new grounds in marketing and for teaming up with worldwide influencers. The company is also in the front league of digital investments and its media budget for digital channels saw a significant increase from 15% in 2015 to 30% in 2016. It is only expected to go higher in 2017 and 2018. By effectively making use of social media, influencers and personalized communication, L’Oreal is constantly on the lookout for innovative ways to engage their customers.

Some of their popular marketing efforts in recent times are:

Campaigns in Partnership with Social Networks

Infallible Lipsticks – For the Valentine’s Day of 2017, L’Oreal created a custom graphic using Snapchat’s popular lenses that makes use of Augmented Reality Technology to animate photos and videos to promote its Infallible lipsticks. Using L’Oreal’s animated lens, users were able to add a wide range of sparkling lipstick colors to their videos. The lens also overlaid a graphic of eyeliner on snaps.

Pure Clay Mask – Working with BzzAgent, a network of everyday influencers, L’Oreal deployed 2,000 UK based women who were between 20 to 55 years for a campaign that ran across Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Youtube. The campaign, to promote their new skincare brand Pure Clay Mask ran from August to October 2016. L’Oreal’s brigade of influencers encouraged users to “clay the day away” with the latest detox cream and they posted various photos, videos, and reviews on the different social media channels. The result? Through all the six channels L’Oreal was able to reach to 741,000 consumers with 5,800 pieces of content and social conversations elevated 53%. In a match market test lead by the measurement firm IRI, it was revealed that the campaign showed 51% rise in sales for the Pure Clay Mask!

AR & VR

YouCam Make Up – Partnering with Perfect Corp, L’Oreal integrated to make up collections from its brands worldwide in YouCam MakeUp, an Augmented Reality beauty app. This will enable customers to virtually experience L’Oreal makeup collections, learn about different L’Oreal products and even shop through the app or in-store. The customers can also make use of the app at L’Oreal counters or in the freestanding stores, presenting them an opportunity to expand their customer journey online to offline. Virtual makeup, live streaming, augmented reality shopping are some of the key modern day features that L’Oreal aims to explore through this collaboration.

L’Oreal Beauty Lab – Internally named the L’Oreal Beauty Lab, the brand’s virtual reality conference room at the New York City Headquarters is equipped with virtual reality glasses and a VR screen that occupies the entire floor to ceiling space on the wall. There are two other screens in the room and they are used for 3D modeling demonstrations. The company’s 42 different cosmetics, hair and skin care brands are encouraged to use the room for improving efficiency and productivity for the decision making in merchandising, packaging and overall branding. On a typical time scale, these processes can take several months to complete while it’s just a matter of weeks when it comes to this brand new VR room. Using local virtual research, decision-makers can make use of valuable insights to consolidate user input at every step of innovation. Using Virtual Reality and 3D renderings, they can create prototypes and in-store demos that will help them stay up to date in the stiff industry. The first property to test the VR room was Dermablend, a dermatologist created a brand of foundations and concealers. Dermablend needed a total rebranding and package redesign and through the Beauty Lab in L’Oreal, they created a new diverse group of models with a greater range of makeup shades. The rebranding was possible in three months while on a typical scenario it would have stretched to as long as eight months.

Influencer Campaigns

French lessons with Helen– When it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, nobody does it better than L’Oreal. Naomi Watts, Julian Moore, Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez… Well… There are plenty of influencer ambassadors for this amazing brand. But one amazing addition was that of Helen Mirren. She was signed in 2014 as the face of L’Oreal’s ‘Age Perfect Moisturizer Range’ and she is now their oldest brand ambassador. Here is she challenging the attitude towards older women through this wonderful little advertising campaign. Bonjour, Bon appetit, bon voyage… we do use a lot of French vocabulary in our daily conversations. France is a part of our daily lives much more than we think. Have a look at how Helen Mirren puts it! The campaign promoted the new Age Perfect Face, Neck & Decollete skincare line.

‘All Worth It’ Initiative – If you thought fashion and beauty are just for a section of the society, you couldn’t be more wrong. Here is L’Oreal’s ‘All Worth It’ initiative along with Prince’s Trust that calls for more diversity in fashion. The initiative is planned as a three year project that would offer confidence training to 10,000 young adults all over the U.K. From the Hijabi blogger beauty Amena; author Katie Piper who survived an acid attack; beauty blogger Jordan Bone who is in a wheelchair; a pregnant Sheryl and a plus size model Jada Sezer, the campaign is a delightful gang of inspirational personalities.

In business, it is never easy to be a global leader. If the journey to becoming the best of your kind is tough, staying there as the best for a long time is even tougher! Whether you are a toddler or an industry expert in your line of business, advertising is always your companion. And that is why one should consider making smart use of it just like L’Oreal!