Le Grand LOral

How did LOral become the worlds largest cosmetics company? Besides selling
beauty, the brands primary focus has always been growth
Rachel Mossberg, December 2015

Cosmetics giant LOral is a force to be reckoned with, and thats nothing new. As a
Fortune 500 company, boasting product and company acquisitions like Lancme,
Garnier and Maybelline, the French beauty companys ethos has always been about
developing the next big thing. In its branding, LOral broke boundaries with innovate
marketing concepts and pioneered the manner in which almost all beauty companies
advertise. Today, The LOral Group continues to create new ways to engage their
customers, with a formidable social media presence and a newfound focus on their most
important brand spokesperson: You.
I was a twenty-three-year-old girl - a woman, she said. What would my state of mind have
been? I could just see that they had this traditional view of women, and my feeling was that Im
not writing an ad about looking good for men, which is what it seems to me that they were doing.
I just thought, Fuck you. I sat down and did it, in five minutes. It was very personal. I can recite to
you the whole commercial, because I was so angry when I wrote it.
Specht sat stock still and lowered her voice: I use the most expensive hair color in the world.
Preference, by LOreal. Its not that I care about money. Its that I care about my hair. Its not just
the color. I expect great color. Whats worth more to me is the way my hair feels. Smooth and
silky but with body. It feels good against my neck. Actually, I dont mind spending more for
LOreal. Because Im -and here Specht took her fist and struck her chest- worth it.
Ilon Specht, copywriter
From the essay True Colors by Malcolm Gladwell

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Since the companys inception, LOral has been steely focused on revolutionizing the
world of womens beauty. In 1909, Eugne Schueller was a young chemist when he
developed a hair color product he called Aurale, French for halo. Determined to
make hair coloring safe to use, he peddled his products to Parisian hairdressers,
resulting in Schueller registered his company,[7] the Socit Franaise de Teintures
Inoffensives pour Cheveux (Safe Hair Dye Company of France), in 1919. Schuellers
vision for his company was led by two guiding principles in the field of beauty: research
and innovation.

Primarily a hair color company, LOral branched into cosmetics by the 1950s. The
company grew rapidly, with a strategy of gaining an international presence and
broadening its brand identity, products and capital with numerous acquisitions. When
Schueller died in 1957, new company chairman Franois Dalle led LOral into this new
era of expansion, with emblematic products and a new company motto: Savoir saisir ce
qui commence (seize new opportunities). By the 1960s, LOral became listed on the
Paris Stock Exchange, had absorbed most of its European competitors and began
launching products that now seem impossible to live without: flexible hairspray, home
hair color treatments, soap-free shampoos and more.

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During this period, LOral came toe-to-toe with its largest competitor, the American
hair color company Clairol. Trying to seize the greater market share, LOral struggled
against Clairols Nice n Easy home hair coloring treatment, which wooed American
women with its lower price point and coy effortlessness. LOrals MVP product,
Preference, was its direct competition, but pricier and unknown to American women.
With a daring advertising concept, LOral leaped over Clairol by telling women, for the
first time ever, that they should spend a little more money on themselves, because
theyre worth it.
On the path they charted, LOral has been nothing but successful. To date, LOral
operates 6 international research and development centers and currently markets over
500 brands that are sold via countless retail channels. Today, LOrals thirst for
research has brought the company into pharmaceuticals and tech, with exploratory
acquisitions in the fields of skin cell reproduction and human skin 3D printing.

It might seem unexpected that a company so focused on growth and development would
barely alter its logo over the course of 100 years, but LOral has stayed true to its roots.
Never straying from their signature sans serif wordmark, LOrals logo evokes the
simplicity, modernity and elegance of its brand identity. Theres no doubt that LOrals
continued use of the same logo has formed an indelible link between the logo and the
brand, which has likely kept consumers loyal. With a product line thats ever-changing,
the steadfast logo has helped LOral maintain a brand that consumers can trust.
Branding has been crucial for LOrals rise to the top, and it began with Eugne
Schueller. The companys founder believed there were two types of advertising: publicit
dattaque, designed to raise interest, and publicit de rendement, designed to maximize
sales. Perhaps his most successful endeavor was the creation of Votre Beaut, the first
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monthly beauty and wellness magazine for women, in the 1930s. Schueller released
numerous print ads that showed models interacting with the products and flourishing in
their newfound luxe beauty.
With the monumental success of the empowering Because Im Worth It in the 1970s
and the taglines subsequent transition to the more inclusive Because Youre Worth It
in the 1980s, spokesmodels became a huge factor in LOrals commercial appeal. A
diverse range of beauties have represented LOrals products, from Heather Locklear to
Jane Fonda, Beyonc to Jennifer Lopez, Claudia Schiffer to Kerry Washington, and stars
with international appeal like Aishwarya Rai, Natalie Imbruglia and Penelope Cruz.

With a business model that embraces all things new and efficient, its no surprise that
LOral has stayed on top during the seismic shift from a print-dominated advertising
culture toward digital and social mediums. In fact, with global Facebook accounts that
claim 25 million fans, it seems LOral continues to lead the pack with digital advertising
and marketing strategies.
For LOral, a strong online presence is not only favorable, its critical.
We know that consumers are actively looking to online platforms for trend advice, look
inspiration and product recommendation. Everyone wants things instantly these days as
were living in a fast paced and ever changing world. We can no longer just rely on TV and
print ads to draw attention to our new product launches, we need to own the
conversation and drive interest in the market.
"To do this, our vision for our brands on social is to have a conversation with the
consumer, we want to entertain them with stories and content thats the right piece at the
right time, and thats also meaningful to drive conversion.
Emma Williamson, Consumer Affairs and Social Media Manager, New Zealand + Australia
SocialMediaToday.com, September 2015

LOrals digital marketing has taken many forms. With numerous channels like
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube, they approach engagement with customers
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as a hybrid service, combining product education, promotion and elements of customer

services, claiming to have 400 employees posting on social media platforms alone,
corresponding with commenters to maintain the conversation.
The greatest focus of LOrals modern branding has been to deemphasize the role of
celebrities in their branding and to shift toward the customer as the face of the
products they use. Increasing accessibility toward all consumers has been a ubiquitous
concept among the brands digital outlets, perhaps blazing yet another trail for other
beauty companies to take heed.

#BeautyForAll is one of LOrals latest initiatives for making the brand more inclusive.
#BeautyForAll has its own Facebook and Instagram accounts, urging users to upload
and share their own iterations of beauty and how they use their favorite products. A quiz
on LOrals website allows users to find their beauty nationality, a novel concept that
capitalizes on LOrals broad international scope and offers insight as to how trends
and concerns affect LOral users differently throughout the world. The website also
features a prominent #Trending feed, which aggregates user-uploaded photos, allowing
one to browse up-to-the-minute snapshots of the latest and greatest products,
contextualized by actual LOral product consumers.
Personalization is key, and LOral addresses this concept with two unique apps: True
Match and Makeup Genius. Both apps help bring the products to the forefront of a
users mobile device, allowing consumers to test products virtually, and of course, to buy
online.
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True Match is one of LOrals most popular line of products, focusing on matching a
wearers skin tone with a special formula and a wide variety of shades. The True Match
app was launched in 2012 with hopes to help users embrace the product without having
to buy-and-try first. The app simply asks one to take a questionnaire about their skin
and provides the perfect shade upon completion. Share and Buy options encourage
the user to share their results, as well as making the transaction process as seamless.
The Makeup Genius app takes this personalization to dramatic new heights, by putting
the makeup directly on the user with facial scanning, via front-facing cameras on mobile
devices like phones or tablets. Somewhat bizarre but mostly helpful, I found the Makeup
Genius app to be very clever: it finally made it possible for a consumer to be made up
in looks sported by celebrities and designed by famous make up artists. LOrals sense
of playfulness showed with the Makeup Genius app, allowing users to take video and
photo selfies while virtually trying on products, in addition to options for sharing and
purchasing. While the app isnt without flaws, it certainly makes strides toward bridging
the gap between the professional quality looks of LOrals make up ads and the real life

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consumer (in this case, me) trying to determine what the products will look like in their
faces.
What lies ahead for LOral? Continuing to bridge that gap, which separates the nearunattainable perfection of their star-studded advertisements and the consumers who
buy the products all over the world. In October of 2015, LOral announced its first
international e-spokesperson, beauty blogger Kristina Bazan, as one of the newest
official LOral faces. Bazan is a literal stopgap between the impossible and the
attainable which is precisely why LOral launched a partnership with her.

She is a bridge between classical advertising and the consumer, says Yann Joffredo,
vice president of global cosmetics at LOral Paris, told WWD. Kristina is totally in line
with all the values of the brand, he continued, describing her as a woman of worth,
entrepreneurial, a makeup junkie, glamorous, connected and authentic.
As 2016 approaches, LOral is showing no signs of slowing as they continue to
dominate the cosmetics industry. Their original guiding principles of innovation and
research have helped make LOral the gold standard of wearable beauty, allowing
everyone to take part in the brands identity. With their newest endeavors in
strengthening engagement with their consumers, LOrals digital presence has taken
advertising far beyond their print and television spots and on to the screens of their
customers mobile devices. LOral has proven to the world that they remain on the
cutting edge of beauty, strategy and technology I cant wait to see what comes next.

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