L’Oréal Uses Virtual Makeup Testing to Boost Online Sales

Cosmetics company L’Oréal has partnered with Facebook to boost online sales using virtual makeup testing technology. L’Oréal recently acquired ModiFace, a firm specializing in augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI), to help create a makeup testing program on Facebook. The program shows L’Oréal products as interactive ads that allow users to virtually try on makeup while using the Facebook camera. According to L’Oréal chief digital officer Lubomira Rochet, virtual makeup tests helped the company increase its sales. For the first half of 2018, L’Oréal reported a total revenue of 13.39 billion euros with a 6.6% sales growth. The report showed that the company flourished in e-commerce, which represented 9.5% of the total sales. Rochet said that social media, in particular, greatly propels the company’s online sales. L’Oréal’s CEO hopes that the good sales figures can give the company the confidence to be at the forefront of the cosmetics industry this year. Apart from the virtual makeup testing program, L’Oréal also launched a conversational commerce initiative, a form of advertising that uses messaging apps to help shoppers. In 2017, the company released an AI chatbot called the Beauty Gifter on Facebook Messenger with the aim of making gift giving easy. The giver simply has to let the receiver answer questions. Based on the answers, the AI processes the receiver’s preferences and then recommends gifts from L’Oréal’s products. This initiative to personalize advertising is a move that L’Oréal is leveraging on in the digital media age.