Interview excerpt (from a Salesforce+ / Success TODAY segment) with a L'Oréal innovation leader discussing how the company approaches innovation in uncertain times. Key points: L'Oréal ‘doubles down’ on innovation during challenging economic conditions; the “lipstick effect” (consumers buy small indulgences like beauty products in downturns) creates opportunities; innovation should start from consumer needs rather than technology trends; examples cited include AR virtual try-on (ModiFace) and a realtime dispensing/personalization technology (“perso”). The clip closes with a CTA to watch the full interview on Salesforce Plus.
Chapters
You've been leading innovation at l' Oreal for, I think, over a decade now. And I just love to know when you're facing uncertainty like this, do you think it's better to stick with what you know and with work to date, or change it up? And do you think it's a time to reinvent, be more proactive?
For me, when there are challenging times in society, in the world, it's actually the most important time to innovate because it's an environment where people are expecting new experiences, new value add experiences. They have a different view of normal, they have a different view of how they use products and services. And so for my team, we've always been focused on understanding the consumer challenges and needs. And luckily we're in l' Oreal, always investing a lot in innovation, no matter what the environment is. So we tend to double down when it comes to times of uncertainty to continue to innovate and bring new products and services to our consumers.
Let's talk about something I learned about that was called the lipstick effect, I think, and I just love this term. And from what I've learned, it's the idea that consumers invest in maybe small, little luxury items like beauty products when the economy is uncertain. They may not be able to go and afford to buy a big new car or indulge in something huge, but they can do a little indulgence in like a YSL lipstick that makes them feel just really great and awesome. So does that mean that times like this can be actually a time to shine for businesses if you have that focus and explain that lipstick effect a little bit more to me?
Yeah, I think you said it perfectly. I think, you know, there are a couple of things. The first, as you know, our mission in l' Oreal is to create the beauty that moves the world. And I think that part of that is the essentiality of beauty. The idea that, you know, beauty can induce self confidence, can help you show the world who you are and who you want to be able to, you know, give the image that you want to the world. And that kind of thing allows you to have, you know, little joys, things like fragrances, things like lipsticks. And we call that the lipstick effect. But the reality is that it's the ability to have, you know, items that can help you feel better about yourself and to give you some of that, you know, in a world today where you need more and more wellness, to be able to have that. And I think that, you know, this is an incredible opportunity also for when it comes to how to innovate technology with beauty because we can provide all kinds of new services to our consumers that can give them the joy of being able to virtually try on products and to be able to have information about their beauty that can help them be more personalized. And so I think there is so much that we can do today that even if it's small, can provide value to people's lives in a time where they really need it.
So much innovation is coming out of this incubator. What is your advice for driving innovations and especially during, you know, uncertain economic times like now?
I would say some of the things that you know for sure I've learned, you know, being able to create technology for the beauty industry because, you know, it's something that's relatively new. It's a decade ago when we started our team, there were no beauty companies at the Consumer Electronics show. And now you have, I don't know, hundreds of them coming and it's become, but it's only been 10 years that we've seen that. And so what I would give as advice is first I would say to start with what consumers need rather than the technology trend. And that's very difficult. It sounds easy, but it's difficult for us tech savvy people. We want to be able to start with a technology. But what I've learned is that usually especially in beauty, where you have the joy of the formula, there are needs that consumers have that will require maybe multiple technologies to piece together and that will only be able to be innovated if you start with what people want and what people need and desire. So, you know, a lot of times we' say, okay, people want to virtually try on products without physically being able to try them on. That leads us to augmented reality for like our ModiFace tech for AR or they want to try a trend of a lipstick and just dispense it magically in real time. Like what you were having the ability to showcase at Dreamforce, which was our perso technology. This combination of electronic and architecture algorithm. It's all about in the end, what consumers want, which is the ability to try a trend in real time.
Click the link on the screen to watch the full success Today interview with Sarah and Giv. Available for free right now on Salesforce Plus. We'll see you next time.
