SITUATION: There’s so much choice, confusion and anxiety involved in buying cosmetics, people often stay with what they know. But what would happen if we gave people an entirely new way to try on makeup?

PROBLEM: There are plenty of Makeup apps based on still images but it doesn’t help the consumers to get a real advice, a real simulation.

STRATEGY: With Makeup Genius, L'Oréal offers consumers to try out the products they might not otherwise have tested or considered, and to buy it directly online

- Launch event and press conference in Cannes with key influencers and the support of global L'Oréal Paris' spokespersons

- PR coverage by major editorial medias

- TV commercial featuring L'Oréal Paris' spokespersons discovering the app and trying it

- Dedicated prints and call to action on all L'Oréal Paris makeup products prints

- Digital trailers featuring local spokespersons to cover the main zones

- Push on the brand websites and banners campaigns

- Bloggers and social influencers activation

Makeup Genius targets all existing L'Oréal Paris' consumers and aims to massively recrut new ones. For the first time, the brand is directly connected to its end users. This used to be impossible since the manufacturers had to rely on retailers to interact directly with consumers. This direct connexion is very valuable and it is a major revolution for fast-moving consumer goods’ corporate, technology and marketing strategies. Thanks to digital/mobile, the brand recreates a content and a relationship with the consumer that it has never happened in the self-service world.

- A technological / digital innovation which gives the brand a step ahead of its competitors

- A huge image benefit for L'Oréal Paris being the first to offer such a useful and realistic service to consumers

- Number of countries who adapted the app: 32

- Number of app downloads WorldWide: +9.900.000

- Cumulated number of looks tried WorldWide: 25.025.712

- Cumulated number of products tried WorldWide: 64.248.117

For the first time, the "manufacturer / product centric" company L'Oréal Paris had to manage the launch of a service as if it was a new product. A massive cultural change... With this campaign, the brand moved into a new territory of marketing service, allocating the same kind of budget as if they were launching a new product or brand.