L’Oréal’s strategy to keep up with trends-something brands must watch out!

Published: March 23, 2023

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3
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L’Oréal, the undisputed leader in the global beauty market, is focusing on more social listening this year in order to quickly tap into emerging trends.

In order to achieve this, the global powerhouse in the beauty industry is using in-house teams to speed up content creation that capitalises on trends within days and not the weeks or months like traditional marketing timelines.

When developing content for these new beauty trends, L’Oréal employs both paid and unpaid methods. Given that the company did not disclose specifics regarding ad budgets or the quantity of in-house creatives required to make this strategy successful, it is uncertain how much money L’Oréal is investing in this project.

We're recognizing the speed of change has changed. It is speeding up. Our goal at L’Oréal is to really concentrate on how to move at the speed of culture, which is driven by platforms for content, algorithms, and changes in consumer behaviour.

Han Wen

Chief digital and marketing officer at L’Oréal

The content for these trends is produced by L’Oréal’s internal teams, which helps the company reduce the time between realising a trend is worthwhile pursuing and disseminating content about it.

With this process in place, Loreal was able to identify the trend that white eyeliner was making a comeback recently. Consequently, L'Oréal figured out which of its brands was suitable to run a campaign around and started campaigning on time around the emerging trend of the Y2K aesthetic.

It invariably aided them in displaying the appropriate goods, content, and locations where customers wanted to make purchases.

The trend cycle in the current market is moving very quickly. At that time, you have to seize that trend. You're missing out if you're developing a campaign three months later and buyers have moved on to the next fad.

Eunice Shin

Partner at a US-based growth and transformation consulting firm

Why should marketers place a greater emphasis on social listening?

The competition in the market, particularly in the digital sphere, is becoming stronger now than ever.

While brands invest heavily in social media to increase brand value and attract their target audience, social media platforms are experiencing unexpected turbulence in today's privacy-conscious world.

Particularly for fashion brands, TikTok is the power player to gain the attention of the Gen Z crowd. That way, if the TikTok ban story turns out to be true, that will be a major catastrophe to face.

At this point, it is critically important for brands to keep up with the microtrends that could vanish in a blink of an eye.

That is, only when a brand turns its ears to what their customers are talking about, they can reap the best out of their social media marketing efforts and spend.

According to statistics, almost 61% of companies have a social media listening system in place.

Now, the cosmetic conglomerate's new strategy of using in-house teams to increase social listening in order to take actionable steps is unquestionably a step forward.

By adopting this strategy,

  • Brands can take and implement the timely decisions to keep up with the happening trends.
  • Diversify their marketing efforts and spend based on different platforms' popular trends.
  • Brands can protect themselves from losing the potential revenue-making opportunity by joining late in the race.
  • Brands can also choose the relevant influencers based on the trends to amplify their reach.
  • Gain a tonne of insights quickly on what is working and not working among their potential and existing customers.

As the number and use of generative AI models in industry grows by the day, content creation is only becoming easier and faster.

So, if brands implement appropriate systems, such as assigning an in-house team to chase trends, as L’Oréal does, they will be able to stay ahead of the curve and maximise the reach and ROI of their brand.

Author

Grace Wang

Grace is an advertising professional who keeps abreast of the latest and greatest in the marketing and advertising space. She is a traditionalist in lifestyle and modernist in her profession. Outside of marketing and advertising, she helps younger generation try and adapt traditional lifestyle for a healthy living.

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