During the first half of 2017, innovative technologies and social media proved to be a luxury beauty and fragrance marketers’ best asset when aspiring for consumer awareness and involvement.
Technologies such as augmented reality are perfectly applied to beauty campaigns, allowing consumers to virtually try-on a product, share a make-up look with friends and learn about a brand’s quality offerings. Augmented reality paired with advancements in artificial intelligence is recreating the beauty counter experience, but traditional marketing, such as video campaigns, many with messages of female empowerment, still pack a punch in today’s consumer climate.
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Here are the top 10 beauty and personal care brand efforts from the first half of 2017, in alphabetical order:
1. Armani says Sì to female empowerment
Italian fashion label Giorgio Armani brought together a panel of intelligent and accomplished women for its annual Sì Women’s Circle campaign, supporting and emphasizing that women can and should be an accepted element of any industry.
The Armani Beauty campaign is primarily experienced through four videos the brand has produced, interviewing the featured women about their backgrounds and the importance of normalizing women in the workforce. Armani is emphasizing not just the women in the luxury industry, but outside of it as well.
Coco Mademoiselle Instagram campaign. Image credit: Chanel
Chanel searches for Coco Mademoiselle
French house Chanel painted its Coco Mademoiselle fragrance in a mysterious light through an interactive Instagram campaign that resembled a scavenger hunt.
Chanel's official Instagram account shared an image for its Coco Mademoiselle campaign that was comprised of three different ad photographs in an effort to be mysterious. Fans then clicked the tags to see the full images revealed to discover the different facets of Coco Mademoiselle.
Dior Addict Lacquer Stick on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Image credit: Dior
Dior’s AI assistant
French atelier Christian Dior leveraged Facebook Messenger as a method to dispel news and happenings with consumers.
Dior launched an experience via Facebook Messenger called Dior Insider. Similar to other brands' strategies, consumers interested in learning the latest Dior news or who have questions regarding a product can interact with an interactive chatbot software.
Estée Lauder's Pure Color Love lipsticks. Image credit Estée Lauder
DFS and Estée Lauder’s Beauty All Night
LVMH-owned travel retailer DFS teamed with beauty marketer Estée Lauder to transform fans into influencers with an omnichannel initiative.
The #BeautyAllNight campaign May 1-31 brought together in-store activations with digital touchpoints via Chinese messaging platform WeChat. Beauty marketers have embraced technology-enabled efforts to enhance traditional counter trials and experiences with great success
DFS and Estée Lauder were inspired by the popularity of online beauty tutorials. To bring the concept in-store DFS is leveraging the abilities of its WeChat to enhance consumer interaction with the #BeautyAllNight concept.
Estée Lauder enhances browsing
Beauty marketer Estée Lauder is helping consumers visualize its cosmetics on their own faces through a personalized try-on experience.
Buying beauty online without a trial can be a challenging prospect, as consumers are unsure how a particular shade will appear on their unique skin tone. Estée Lauder is looking to solve this problem and drive more confident purchases by incorporating ModiFace’s automatic facial analysis technology into its ecommerce platform, allowing shoppers to view makeup on their faces in real-time.
Video still from Jean Paul Gaultier's "The Sweet Scent of Justice". Image credit: Jean Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gauliter’s superheros
French fashion label Jean Paul Gaultier enlisted the crime-fighting prowess of Wonder Woman and Superman in an original narrative with a fragrance focus.
In honor of the limited-edition Classique and Le Male scents bearing the DC Comics character’s visages, the brand is getting into the superhero spirit with an episodic film series modeled after comic books. Associating these scents with the well-known characters enabled the brand to tell a new story surrounding the perfumes that originally debuted in the 1990s.
#CastMeMarc for Marc Jacobs Beauty. Image credit: Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs casting call
U.S. fashion label Marc Jacobs named the finalists of its casting call to find the brand’s next beauty ambassador.
Launched in November 2016, Marc Jacobs turned to its social audience in the Cast Me Marc effort that relied on the brand’s community of followers to source a brand ambassador. As Gen Z consumers move up in the ranks, brands are beginning to formulate efforts in response to the demographic's penchant for video tutorials produced by amateur influencers.
The five winners will be featured in upcoming #BeautyMarc how-to video series.
Sephora Virtual Artist Looks. Image courtesy of Sephora
Sephora’s virtual counter gets a boost
Beauty retailer Sephora helped consumers achieve their desired beauty look with help from artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
The color matching feature on the Sephora Virtual Artist bot for Facebook Messenger was extended to Sephora’s mobile applications for iOS and Android, allowing consumers to find and try on product shades that correspond to hues in images. The retailer’s updates also included the expansion of its try-on feature to cheek color cosmetics for the first time.
SK-II's The Expiry Date reinforces that age is just a number. Image courtesy of SK-II
SK-II never expires
Beauty marketer SK-II explored the internal and external pressures women face as they mature in its latest global marketing campaign.
SK-II’s “The Expiry Date” follows three Asian women as they grow from young girls to women, exploring how they are self conscious of the “proverbial expiration date” they have been assigned. SK-II’s latest advert tackles the social stigmas women face if they are not successful, married or mothers by a particular age, a narrative that plays out across cultures.
The Expiry Date was developed from discussions based off an online survey about age-related social pressures conducted by SK-II and its parent company Procter & Gamble in May 2017.
Staz Lindes for YSL Beauty. Image credit: YSL Beauty
YSL Beauty tags a friend
YSL Beauty leveraged user behavior by encouraging its Instagram community to “tag a friend” to expand the reach of its latest social media campaign.
In the party-themed “About Last Night,” social influencer and Instagram-famous model Staz Lindes was shown in a nightclub setting surrounded by fellow revelers. Hoping to build awareness among her more than 72,000 followers, YSL Beauty introduced Ms. Lindes, the daughter of Dire Straits’ guitarist Hal Lindes, as a social media ambassador at the start of the new year.
In YSL Beauty's first About Last Night image shared to Instagram, Ms. Lindes is shown closing two French doors while the caption reads, “When you’re the light and soul of the party. Tag your party partner in crime below!”
By expanding the reach of its own posts it is likely that YSL Beauty will gain new followers and introduce its cosmetics to an untapped audience segment.
Story originally published on www.luxurydaily.com. Republished with permission.
