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(bright music)
When there are challenging times in society and the world,
it's actually the most important time to innovate.
(bright music)
Hey, I'm Sanjna Parulekar and welcome to Success Today,
a new series with one simple goal,
to help you succeed right now.
We've all seen the headlines.
The world economy is really tough right now,
and no company is immune from this.
That means that as leaders,
we've got to find ways to do more with less,
come up with new ideas, drive innovation,
turn current challenges into new opportunities.
So in every episode we're going to be talking
with business leaders across industries
like sales, service, and marketing
to learn how they are tackling this time.
And these won't be high level conversations
about how great things are going.
These are back to basics conversations
with concrete tips and takeaways to help you succeed today.
We're kicking things off with our President and CMO,
Sarah Franklin, and Guive Balooch, from L'Oreal.
Guive is the Global VP
in charge of L'Oreal's technology incubator.
So if you've used one of L'Oreal's apps
to pick a new foundation,
or if you have one of those amazing YSL lipstick creators,
then you've seen Guive's work.
Sarah and Guive will be talking about how marketing
and innovation leaders can work together
to create success today.
So with that, take it away, Sarah.
Thanks Sanjna.
And Guive, thank you so much for joining us today.
Some questions for you.
You've been leading innovation at L'Oreal 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?
Well, thanks a lot for having me, Sarah,
and it does make me feel old to know
that it's been a while that I've been doing this.
It's 16 years now, and no, you know, I think that 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'Oreal 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.
I love that.
And never say old. 16 years is amazing.
You've done so much in that time.
It's time to be proud of, and age is like a state of mind.
It's not a number that we look at.
There you go. There you go.
So, 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 them 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, you know, there are a couple of things.
The first is, you know, our mission in L'Oreal
is to create the beauty that moves the world.
And I think that part of that is the essentiality of beauty,
the idea that, you know, beauty can induce self-confidence,
can help you show the world who you are
and who you want to be able to, you know,
give the image that you want to the world.
And that kind of thing allows you to have,
you know, literal 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, you know,
items that can help you feel better about yourself
and to give you some of that, you know,
in a world today where you need more and more wellness
to be able to have that.
And I think that, you know, 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, you know,
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 is 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.
I just love that.
And I have to say, as a mother of two daughters,
the focus on everyone feeling beauty in their own skin
and feeling that self-confidence
and building people's confidence is so important
in everyone today.
And just thank you for doing that.
And you mentioned technology,
and your role specifically at L'Oreal is focused on
your technology incubator,
which helps create these innovative beauty products.
You mentioned like trying things on virtually,
but you're combining technology and design,
and so much innovation is coming out of this incubator.
What is your advice for driving innovations,
and especially during, you know,
uncertain economic times like now,
what is your advice for people that are looking
to drive innovation like that?
I've been doing this a long time,
so I have a lot of gray hair now.
And I think that we've learned a lot in our team.
And I would say some of the things that, you know,
for sure I've learned, being able to create technology
for the beauty industry because, you know,
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, I don't know, hundreds of them coming,
and it's become, 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 innovative if you start
with what people want and what people need and desire.
So, you know, a lot of times we'll say,
"Okay, people want to virtually try on products
without physically being able to try them on."
That leads us to augmented reality
for like our ModiFace tech for AR,
or they want to 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.
It's 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.
We've done, you know, all kinds of stuff.
I can spend a long time, which I won't bore everyone,
but things like, you know, being able to guide people
to the right product with data that's meant for them,
like my exposure to UV, my exposure to pollution,
what my biology tells me, all of these are in the end
needs that over the last hundreds of years
without technology we couldn't solve.
And that's how I find innovation is the most effective
is by starting with that.
And the funnel will be a lot easier to handle
if you have values around what you want to achieve
and then backfill it with technology
rather than starting with the trend.
So I would say that, and I would say also, you know,
for us when it comes to innovation,
our strategy is to be able to have the right quality
of experience for our consumers,
inclusive and ethic-based algorithms
and making sure that what we do works better
than what a traditional experience would.
A value-add experience is exactly that, it's value add.
So we have to be sure we test it properly
and we take a approach where we know
that it works for everyone.
So some ideas of things that we've learned
over the last years from our test and learn approaches.
Guive, I love that test and learn,
and it makes me wonder
how people can do that.
And, and you mentioned Dreamforce,
and yes, I had the chance to walk through
the YSL Beauty app at Dreamforce this year,
and virtually try on lipsticks
with the YSL Rouge Sur Mesure.
It was incredible.
It's just so much innovation that has come to beauty
and really you're meeting your customers where they are,
really being a customer company that's focused
on your customers and making them super happy
and successful and building that loyalty.
But I'm curious, how do you
how do you do that learning process to identify
those areas where there are the need for those innovations?
How do you do that?
How do you research that with your customers?
It's a great question and not easy to answer
because, you know, like when Ford had invented the car,
he said, "If I listened to consumers,
I would've built faster horses."
(Sarah laughing)
Sometimes, you know, you face this challenge of like,
do people know what they really want
when it comes to the next step of their beauty routine?
Or is it a fact that we have to be sure
that when we develop something that we know
that it reaches what their expectations are?
And so there's a balance between that.
So to answer your question more practically,
what we do is first we try to look at
all the macro trends and consumer needs of today
that are unrelated to tech,
things like, I want to know more about
what my skincare will do for me,
or how I will feel when I try a fragrance,
or will it make me feel happier,
or, you know, and these kinds of needs
that have been around for a long time
and we have great market insight teams
and discussions with co-creation with consumers
that help us understand global beauty needs.
Then we take that and then we say,
"Okay, are there new gestures?"
Are there new technologies that we can apply
that can answer these needs?
And will they be new gestures?
And if they're new gestures, it's hard to test sometimes,
because it's the point of the Ford.
And sometimes we take risk and we have to be very mindful
of the fact that it may work, it may not work.
Other times when it's not a new gesture,
it's an upgrade of a gesture, then we test even more
in detail with co-creating with our consumers.
So it all depends on that,
but it starts with our understanding fundamentally
of what the beauty consumer wants and desires today,
irrelevant of the solution.
And then we take it from there to the different avenues
that can help us to ensure that we test properly
and that it works on everybody.
I love that.
And now I have another question,
which is a little bit more specific to right now,
because research innovation, it requires investment,
which requires money,
and budgets, you know, right now they're getting tighter.
In marketing especially, budgets are getting tighter.
And so my question for you is,
how do you make the case internally to invest
and to continue to invest in these bold innovations
that you're making?
Well, you know, it's, L'Oreal is a company,
I can only speak about L'Oreal,
as I've been here my entire career,
but I can tell you that, you know,
we were started by a chemist over 110 years ago,
and L'Oreal really believes in innovation.
It's why we have, our teams is called
research and innovation,
and not just research and development.
And we've continued to increase the investment every year
in our R&D.
We have never decreased that,
even during the most difficult times,
because we have been a company built on science.
We were the first to develop a safe hair dye in the salon
by a chemist, which was our founder, Eugene Schueller,
and our current CEO is always in the belief of investing
and the same with our Deputy CEO.
So I've never had to, let's say, explain why we need
to have investment for innovation.
That hasn't been the challenge.
The biggest point for me has been utilizing
this amazing ecosystem of L'Oreal
to be able to maximize on the technology that we build.
It's more being able to get their help to be able to
work with the brands and to make them as big as possible.
And then there are times where there are things outside
that are super, maybe innovative and disruptive
and may require extra budget.
And over the years I've learned the best way
to get your executives to believe in that
is to get to a point where you can test it
and show people how it works.
I've never really had that issue,
but maybe it's I've been lucky in that way.
At the same time, I've always believed in this idea
that we have to do things.
The strategy should come after we make things happen.
And I feel like when you make things happen
and you can showcase to your large organization
that you can really make these innovations,
then the trust continues to grow with,
if you have great leadership which we do,
will grow in your ability to bring that
in terms of value for the consumer and organization.
So we've been built on that, and it's,
I won't lie, Sarah, I fought for my supper a lot,
but it worked.
So I'm still here, our team is thriving,
at least I think so.
And you know, we haven't always made successes.
So it's having an organization that believes
in that approach, I think.
I love that.
And something else which we talk about here at Salesforce
is an idea of beginner's mindset.
And you've been there 16 years.
I've been here at Salesforce 14,
and it's something which you can get a little bit
calcified in your thinking sometimes.
Like, oh, I tried that three years ago, it didn't work.
Oh, I saw somebody else do that. I saw...
How do you keep that beginner's mindset
or how important do you think that is
when something may seem complex
you need to make it simple
or you need to start over,
just question the basics?
What are your strategies for things like that?
It's an excellent question,
and it's something I've never been asked before.
And to be honest, I think that, well, you know,
I have found myself falling into that trap sometimes.
Like sometimes we will develop things and we will say,
I'll say, "Ah, but you know,
that kind of business model doesn't work."
It didn't work in the past,
or you know, this, this won't work because I remember
six, seven years ago when I discussed with, you know,
a division or a brand or a thing that it wasn't
in their in their roadmap, it wasn't in their...
And then when I fall into that trap,
I remember some of the stories,
and this is one of the disadvantages of being
in a job a long time, but also advantage.
The advantage is I remember all the stories
where things that didn't work eventually worked.
So I have stories of times like the Rouge Sur Mesure
is a perfect example when we started that project,
which is this personalized lipstick machine
that you can do AR and see the lipstick
and then make it right there within a few seconds.
When we first started that project five years ago,
I couldn't sell it because we didn't have the AR.
We didn't have the trends.
We didn't have the ability to see a trend in real time.
We just had the ability to create the shade.
And I think what happened was that we realized that
it was really, the twist was the fact
that we wanted the trends.
And when it came back and we had that, and we said,
"Oh now we have a new iteration," we put it on the market.
And that reminds me to have this beginner's mentality,
because, you know, a lot of times what didn't work
five years ago will work today, just based on slight tweaks,
and the change in how your company and your consumer
are thinking about innovation.
So the only way I can do it is realize I'm in that trap.
And remember the times when we had successes
from waiting and having the the next iteration of something.
Guive, I love that.
And our time has just flown by
like your 16 years at L'Oreal.
There you go.
They've gone by fast.
We learned so much from you today,
and I really love how focused you are on the customer
and it anchored in my head when you said, you know,
"Focus on what the customer wants, not just the trend
or the tech that, of the time."
Thank you so much for sharing everything with us today,
and it's been great having you here.
My pleasure.
Thank you so much, Sarah for having me.
Thank you.
All right, some great takeaways there.
Here are some of the tips that stood out to me.
First, double down on innovation.
It's times like these that consumers
are looking for value and experiences.
Second, look at macro trends and consumer needs.
Don't look at technology trends
to determine where to go next.
Instead, look at consumer needs and build from there.
And finally, how do you make the case to invest
in an innovative idea when budgets are tight?
Well, test it out and show people how it works.
Then trust will continue to grow.
We'll be back soon with another episode of Success Today
on Salesforce Plus.
And we want you to tell us what you want to hear about
and who you want to hear from.
So follow at Salesforce on Twitter,
and let us know using the hashtag SuccessToday.
And if you want to take a deeper dive
on some of the topics we talked about today,
check out the link to get Success Now with Customer 360.
And on December 8th, make sure you tune in to Salesforce's
world tour live from New York City on Salesforce Plus.
Thanks for joining us, and we'll leave you with this look
at how L'Oreal has launched a new era of beauty,
using some of the technology we've talked about today.
Enjoy.
(dramatic music)
The world is changing so fast
and technology is changing so fast
that we have to continuously transform
and adapt to the new world.
The purpose of L'Oreal is to create the beauty
that moves the world.
Over the last 113 years we have been going through
many transformations.
The one that really was a game changer
for us was the digital transformation.
You know, today's world is powered
by tech and data, and allow us to jump into
a new era of creation,
not solely a product, but product plus services,
allowing consumers really to have beauty experiences
that they never had before.
(dramatic music)
We have been digitalizing
the beauty consumer journeys
for a decade now because the consumers are digitalizing.
E-commerce exploded and allowed us to reach
our consumers everywhere around the world.
We were very early in doing it.
That gave us an incredible competitive advantage.
Salesforce was the backbone of 200 plus
(indistinct) sites for us.
During the Covid crisis consumers could try
our products online and then buy our products
from their phone or their laptops.
And we had fantastic market share gains.
And that's due to great partners like Salesforce.
Being powered by AI and tech capabilities,
beauty tech is allowing us to create the
ultimate personalization experience for consumer.
Today L'Oreal is the number one beauty company
in the world.
We have more than 35 brands.
The biggest challenge is to create inclusive beauty
at global scale.
We have a center long gold mine of data
accumulated solely to beauty,
hair science, skin science, makeup, consumer routines.
We need to make the most of this data,
to be around one consumer and to get the data
from each and everyone touchpoint at home, offline, online
in a seamless journey.
I mean, we are powered by Salesforce Customer 360
bringing more personalization, more relevance,
more satisfaction to our consumers
in an ever evolving and complex beauty consumer journey.
Beauty tech is nothing less
than shaping the future of beauty.
Joining forces, Salesforce and L'Oreal,
to create magical experiences for our consumers.
(dramatic music)
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