Here’s How L’Oreal Is Gaining Competitive Advantage With Its ‘Beauty Squad’

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By now, it is a well established fact that L’Oreal leaves no stones unturned with its digital initiatives and its marketing efforts. In one such move, a few months back, L’Oreal Paris roped in five of the most influential YouTube beauty vloggers from the UK who together have a combined reach of around 5.5 million viewers. These five vloggers (“video bloggers”), also known as the Beauty Squad, were to join forces with the brand’s global digital influencer, Kristina Bazaan, to help maintain L’Oreal Paris’ position as the ‘go-to digital beauty brand.’ Engaging beauty influencers in the social media sphere is a popular way of attracting customers for beauty companies. The millennial beauty consumers especially are attracted towards products promoted by influential beauty vloggers. A case in point is Estee Lauder’s #FaceForward campaign for its flagship brand, Clinique, which (coupled with other strategies) not only helped revive Clinique’s sales but also made Clinique’s Global Brand Chief, Jane Lauder, AdWeek’s 2016 Brand Genius winner for health and beauty. However, according to L’Oreal, the specialty of its Beauty Squad lies in the company’s trying to create a unique kind of relationship with the beauty influencers.

What Are The Specialties Of The Beauty Squad

  • The members of the Beauty Squad include women across diverse age and ethnicities. What is different in this case is that usually companies work with one or two influencers, however, here L’Oreal is working with a group of five people. The company could also rope in one person with a much larger fan following than 5 million (which is the combined reach of the Beauty Squad) than 5 people with smaller fan followings each. The reason it did so was because of the authenticity and reputation that these influencers are known for.
  • While they might not have the biggest reach, the members of the Beauty Squad are well known for their knowledge and expertise in a particular field and each has been chosen to represent a specific beauty segment such as skincare or haircare.
  • Though, like all social media influencers, the Beauty Squad will promote L’Oreal’s products, however, instead of blatant promotion, L’Oreal claims that the Beauty Squad will also provide their honest reviews for the products and will talk about other competitor brands as well.
  • Also, L’Oreal is keen on building a long term relationship with the Beauty Squad instead of engaging with them for short term projects.

The specialty of these influencers is that though their follower base is not gigantic, however it is also not too small. Their combined reach comes to 5.5 million. What is more important, though, is that these people are known for their knowledge and authenticity. When a large corporation hires a fashion or media celebrity as a social media influencer, the audience is skeptical about the veracity of their claims. However, when these influencers are people who already have a good reputation and who are also free to give their honest opinions and also talk about other brands, it makes their reviews more authentic and consumers find their claims more credible.

Hence, this does seem like a solid plan for the company to grow both its new and loyal customer base. In fact, L’Oreal might be pioneering a promising marketing path with its ‘Beauty Squad’ which its peers might soon try to emulate.

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Notes:

1) The purpose of these analyses is to help readers focus on a few important things. We hope such lean communication sparks thinking, and encourages readers to comment and ask questions on the comment section, or email content@trefis.com
2) Figures mentioned are approximate values to help our readers remember the key concepts more intuitively. For precise figures, please refer to our complete analysis for Estee Lauder

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