Prior to the pandemic, more than 95% sales of Loreal’s luxe brands stemmed from offline, but lockdown rules made them untenable and an ordinary digital activation would not excite the luxe shoppers in the same way.

At strategic business level, while the virtual event is set to meet an immediate sales target, it is also aimed to accelerate the growth of a larger online shopper to future proof the beauty business via e-commerce contribution in a longer term.

We wanted to excite shoppers again in the absence of a luxe beauty event - but how could we do that without the option of an in-person experience?

Beauty shoppers love events. The joy of browsing through attractive deals and delightful packaging, chatting with experts, receiving professional advice and consultations and highly attentive customer service. All of which usually leads to higher impulse purchases and basket value.

We knew a virtual event could offer the same perks as the traditional habits of our consumers, but an ordinary live streaming event wouldn’t make the cut, it had to mimic the luxury of the beauty-counter experience.

We had to ensure everything our luxe customers loved about beauty events could be experienced in the comfort of their own homes, and disrupt the ordinary mode of live streaming which have developed over the COVID-19 year.

So, we decided to help the L’Oréal Luxe Division to take a bold leap and build a 12-hour virtual beauty festival on Facebook, modeled after the excitement of physical beauty events, for 8 of their luxe brands.

Each brand was given 1.5 hour to promote its products, featuring celebrities, influencers hosting giveaways, and flash sales, the complexity stemmed from the individual brand’s unique audience base and modus operandi.

To successfully bring 8 brands to Facebook live all within 12 hours, precision audience are key to ensure that the awareness of the event is widely spread to the targeted luxe audience, whilst we applied the L’Oréal Target Precision Optimisation framework to build the audience base uniquely to each brand for its dedicated brand session. To ensure we were able to reach and a recruit high-interest audience, we deployed a CRM and CRM Look-a-Like audience strategy, which have contributed to higher attendance and conversion rate.

Other channels consisting of PR content and print titles were also used to boost event awareness beyond the Facebook platform.

We launched a dedicated event hub page that housed all brands in order to consolidate the amplification of overall event awareness. At the same time, we increased sign-ups to individual brand pages by highlighting the limited time promotions and exciting line-ups of KOLs, giveaways, tips, and tutorials during their respective brand show.

On the day of the show, we drove up the livestream views via video ads and kept our audience engaged with flash sales and prizes, to ensure they stayed throughout the session.

During the Facebook Live event, high persuasive content such as crash test, efficacy proof, live demo and consultation were included to provoke exceptional end-to-end consumer journey to deepen brand engagement and drive instant conversions. Presenters encouraged viewers to use a dedicated hashtag, which triggered a personalized conversation via Messenger. Beauty advisors then offered a one-on-one consultation, and helped customers place orders and make payments.

The first ever 12-hour virtual beauty festival has achieved an overwhelming response amidst the pandemic. It has made a feature in Forbes.com and listed as Facebook Business Case Study: Integration of social commerce.

Strategic Business Achievement:

One month’s worth of online sales in 24 hours

5x omni customer penetration vs. YAGO

+95% sell out week-over-week

3x uplift of transactions vs. daily average

6x conversion rate higher than legacy channel

Total leads generated at 94% above set target

Media achievement:

Activated over 17,000 chats

Reached 2.6 million people

47,000 live video views

85 times higher engagement (4.28%) vs. global beauty industry standard (0.05%)

12% post-engagement rate

“Thanks to our partners and agencies, we were able to host an outstanding live event that deepened our engagement with our audience and boosted sales. It was a great success!” - Eda Lim, Head of Digital and eCommerce, L’Oréal Luxury Malaysia