FIT’s ‘Beauty in Digital World’

The Fashion Institute of Technology's (FIT) beauty industry think tank unveiled “disruptive” visions for the future of consumer product marketing in three key areas of the digital sphere when they presented Beauty in a Digital World on June 5.

The key areas—digital analytics, digital marketing, and digital commerce—were presented by candidates for the Master of Professional Studies degree in the college's Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management (CFMM) program.

This year's research was conducted in conjunction with Google, Inc., and with contributions from leading global digital technology and business experts, with the support of event sponsor, Beiersdorf North America.

“Beiersdorf was honored to serve as this year's title sponsor of the FIT Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management graduate program,” said Bill Graham, president, Beiersdorf North America. “Not only did we celebrate the graduation of two of our company's brightest managers, we supported a one-of-a-kind program that promotes innovation and unprecedented collaboration within our highly competitive industry. Digital marketing is at the core of our brand campaigns. We look forward to implementing some of the great thinking and research findings to continue growing our brands.”

The predictions from the research included:

•  Leveraging artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and predictive analytics technology will revolutionize the in-store experience by completely personalizing it.

• Motion-activated technology will allow consumers to virtually browse aisles of products located anywhere in the world and make purchases directly from interactive screens in their homes.

• “Beauty on Demand” will utilize image-, sound-, and video-capture technologies to allow consumers to shop for anything, anywhere – with just one click. The street becomes the new shopping mall.

• Micro-targeting, enabled by data and technology, will allow brands to create highly personalized communications. The result, micro-engagement, will increase individual consumer lifetime value for brands.

• ROL is the new ROI. Return on Learnings (ROL) will replace Return on Investments (ROI) as a new real-time metric to track and drive brand value.

• Sensors will be molded into product packaging to track actual consumer usage behavior.