"Our formula for success: making the most of our global brands and democratising major beauty trends"
Alexis Perakis-Valat
President - Consumer Products
The year 2018 has been pivotal for the Division. We have had some major strategic wins that make me very confident for the future. The first highlight of 2018 was the acceleration of our big global brands. L’Oréal Paris is the No.1 beauty brand in the world and Maybelline New York, No.1 makeup brand in the world . The second highlight is the acceleration of face care, that grew double digits thanks to the success of L’Oréal Paris in anti-ageing and also the worldwide deployment of the Garnier tissue masks.
The third and last highlight is our performance in makeup where we grew significantly faster than the market thanks to the power of our brand portfolio as well as our unique expertise of the makeup category.
Building on these strategic wins, and thanks to our entrepreneurial culture and decentralised organisation, we have defined four engines that will power us ahead in 2019.
The first engine of growth is more than ever the power of innovation. Innovate to constantly renew the product and ranges that have been successful over the year. It is the case of Revitalift by L’Oréal Paris that has been championing anti-age skincare, all around the world, for more than 25 years. We are fuelling Revitalift with new innovation in 2019. The first anti-age skin cure in ampoules. But the role of innovation is also to recruit new consumers to our brands, recruit Millennials on healthcare with Hair Food from Fructis, recruit Gen Z, those 18 to 25 year olds with the new Snapscara by Maybelline and also recruit men with Garnier Men or Men Expert.
The second engine of growth is what we call marketing 3.0. It is the total reengineering of the relationship between our consumers and our brands. Augmented reality for example is a game changer when it comes to online services.
Today, our makeup websites are equipped with state of the art virtual try-ons, allowing our consumers to test live our latest products and looks. And now, even in skincare, we offer online diagnoses on our Chinese websites. The second way to reinvent marketing is eventing boosted by digital. This is what L’Oréal Paris did by organising the first ever fashion show on the river Seine in Paris that was watched live by more than 37 million people. This is what we call an “augmented défilé“.
The third power engine for the future is e-commerce. We have been pioneering e-commerce in China where we already make almost half of our sales online. And of course we’re exporting this unique expertise all around the world.
The fourth and last engine of growth is our ability to seize what is starting, to seize these ascending trends that will make the growth of the market in the future. That is the case with natural and organic in Western Europe where we’ve made three bold moves. We have launched a new skincare range, 100% vegan and 100% organic certified: Garnier Bio. We have acquired one of the German organic beauty pioneers: Logocos Naturkosmetik AG. And we have created a new brand in France dedicated to organic, La Provençale Bio.
But seeing what is starting is also to seize the growing appetite of Asian Millennials for Korean brands and beauty in general. This is why, we have acquired Stylenanda, a very trendy makeup and fashion Korean brand, that we are launching as we speak in China.
Thanks to the strategic wins of 2018, to the quality and the commitment of our teams all around the world and to the four powerful growth engines that we have defined: innovation, marketing 3.0, e-commerce and our ability to spot and seize what is starting. I’m looking to the future with great confidence and a lot of determination.
