- You've been leading innovation at L'Oréal
for I think over a decade now, and I'd just love to know...
When you're facing uncertainty like this,
do you think it's better to stick with what you know
and what's worked to date or change it up?
And do you think it's a time to reinvent, be more proactive?
- For me, when there are challenging times
in society, in the world,
it's actually the most important time to innovate
because it's an environment where people are expecting
new experiences, new value add experiences.
They have a different view of normal.
They have a different view of
how they use products and services.
And so for my team, we've always been focused
on understanding the consumer challenges and needs.
And luckily, we're in L'Oréal,
always investing a lot in innovation
no matter what the environment is.
So we tend to double down
when it comes to times of uncertainty,
to continue to innovate
and bring new products and services to our consumers.
- Let's talk about something I learned about
that was called, "The lipstick effect," I think.
And I just love this term, and from what I've learned,
it's the idea that consumers invest in
maybe small little luxury items like beauty products
when the economy is uncertain.
They may not be able to go and afford to buy a big new car
or indulge in something huge,
but they can do a little indulgence in like a YSL lipstick
that makes 'em feel just really great and awesome.
So does that mean that times like this
can be actually a time to shine for businesses,
if you have that focus?
And explain that 'lipstick effect' a little bit more to me.
- Yeah, I think you said it perfectly.
I think there are a couple of things.
First, as you know, our mission in L'Oréal
is to create the beauty that moves the world.
And I think that part of that is the essentiality of beauty,
the idea that beauty can induce self-confidence,
can help you show the world who you are
and who you want to be able to
give the image that you want to the world.
And that kind of thing allows you to have little joys,
things like fragrances, things like lipsticks.
And we call that, "The lipstick effect."
But the reality is that it's the ability to have
items that can help you feel better about yourself
and to give you some of that,
in a world today where you need more and more wellness
to be able to have that.
And I think that this is an incredible opportunity also
for when it comes to how to innovate technology with beauty.
Because we can provide all kinds of new services
to our consumers that can give them the joy
of being able to virtually try on products
and to be able to have information about their beauty
that can help them be more personalized.
And so, I think there's so much that we can do today,
that even if it's small,
can provide value to people's lives
in a time where they really need it.
- So much innovation is coming out of this incubator.
What is your advice for driving innovations,
and especially during uncertain economic times like now?
- I would say some of the things that for sure I've learned,
being able to create technology for the beauty industry
because it's something that's relatively new.
It's a decade ago when we started our team.
There were no beauty companies
at the consumer electronic show.
And now you have hundreds of them coming and it's become a,
but it's only been 10 years that we've seen that.
And so what I would give as advice is first I would say
to start with what consumers need
rather than the technology trend.
And that's very difficult.
It sounds easy, but it's difficult for us tech savvy people.
We want to be able to start with a technology.
But what I've learned is that usually,
especially in beauty where you have the joy of the formula,
there are needs that consumers have that will require
maybe multiple technologies to piece together.
And that will only be able to be innovated
if you start with what people want
and what people need and desire.
So a lot of times we'll say, "Okay,
people wanna virtually try on products
without physically being able to try them on."
That leads us to augmented reality
for our ModiFace tech for AR.
Or they wanna try a trend of a lipstick
and just dispense it, magically, in real time,
like what you were having the ability to showcase
at Dreamforce, which was our Perso technology.
And it's a combination of electronic and AR, algorithm.
It's all about, in the end, what consumers want,
which is the ability to try a trend in real time.
(air whooshing)
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We'll see you next time.