More than a decade ago, L’Oréal began its significant journey into the digital revolution.
Recognizing the transformative potential of emerging technologies, the company launched a second, more profound revolution in 2018, coining the term ‘BEAUTYTECH.’ This strategic initiative aimed to integrate advanced technologies into the beauty industry, enhancing innovation and creating meaningful consumer interactions to provide unparalleled beauty experiences.
In 2018, we seized the accelerating trend of new technologies. This year marked a tipping point with advancements in computing power, the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented and virtual reality, 5G, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). These innovations, alongside the rapid emergence of generative AI (Gen-AI), propelled us into a new paradigm shift. We engaged with full force, reshaping and augmenting beauty experiences throughout the consumer journey.
In any industry, including TECH, AI, or Gen-AI, the winning ‘ingredients’ for success are the richness, accuracy, and relevancy of the data. Herein lies our indisputable competitive advantage: our 115-year legacy dedicated solely to beauty. This century-old heritage is the richest beauty database globally, encompassing skin, hair, and scalp knowledge, formulations, beauty routines, and deep connections with a diverse consumer base.
This unique database goldmine positions us best to transform our deep and superior beauty heritage through cutting-edge technologies. We create, invent, and augment beauty innovations and experiences, ensuring the widest connections with consumers wherever they are and whatever their beauty desires may be.
The world has been dramatically disrupted by technology. Affordable tech at scale is reshuffling and transforming lives and business models across industries. This tech transformation is a true revolution, characterized by its magnitude and the incredible speed of scale and adoption. The most disruptive element is computing power, enabling new generations of AI to be implemented at lightning speed.
The combination of these cutting-edge technologies has opened new horizons. The eruption of Gen AI in our lives and businesses, even in its early stages, is definitively impactful. We aim to maximize its benefits across various areas, including our ways of working, daily tasks, content creation, and interactions with retailers and consumers. Ultimately, it enhances our innovation power.
Disruption is also evident in daily health monitoring. Wearable sensors and health apps have integrated into people’s lives, tracking biological signs, hormonal cycles, sleep patterns, pollution levels, nutrition, and even serious diseases. This integration has led to numerous innovative breakthroughs, enabling companies to seize the potential of these technologies to augment business models and disrupt industries.
The same is happening in beauty: beauty augmented by tech. Beauty is an essential human need and a relentlessly growing market. In the coming years, the quest for beauty will continue to increase, with more than 600 million new addressable consumers, from boomers to Gen Z, seeking sustainability, purpose, and diversity in their beauty products.
L’Oréal has transitioned from ‘BEAUTY FOR ALL’ to ‘BEAUTY FOR EACH’, addressing individual needs, expectations, and desires with a personalized approach. This individualized beauty approach is achievable at scale and cost-effectively, powered by new technologies. Our motto, ‘BEAUTY FOR EACH powered by BeautyTech,’ reflects our commitment to personalized beauty solutions.
Our strength lies in our teams: more than 8,000 experts specializing in tech, digital, and artificial intelligence. Recognizing that today’s and tomorrow’s successes are undoubtedly collective, we are committed to open innovation, partnering with cutting-edge tech startups and tech giants.
In summary, L’Oréal’s ‘BEAUTY FOR EACH, powered by BeautyTech’ initiative is a forward-thinking strategy designed to anticipate and meet consumer expectations and desires. By combining creativity, science, and technology, L’Oréal aims to deliver unprecedented beauty experiences at scale, revolutionizing the beauty industry and setting new standards for personalized beauty solutions.
For 115 years, L’Oréal, the world’s leading beauty player, has devoted itself to one thing only: fulfilling the beauty aspirations of consumers around the world. Our purpose, to create the beauty that moves the world, defines our approach to beauty as essential, inclusive, ethical, generous and committed to social and environmental sustainability. With our broad portfolio of 37 international brands and ambitious sustainability commitments in our L’Oréal for the Future programme, we offer each and every person around the world the best in terms of quality, efficacy, safety, sincerity and responsibility, while celebrating beauty in its infinite plurality.
With more than 90,000 committed employees, a balanced geographical footprint and sales across all distribution networks (ecommerce, mass market, department stores, pharmacies, perfumeries, hair salons, branded and travel retail), in 2023 the Group generated sales amounting to 41.18 billion euros. With 20 research centers across 11 countries around the world and a dedicated Research and Innovation team of over 4,000 scientists and 6,400 Digital talents, L’Oréal is focused on inventing the future of beauty and becoming a Beauty Tech powerhouse.
