Jill Standish and Laura Gurski , Accenture04.01.20
Beauty is booming. Thought to now be worth in the region of $530 billion, the industry has been through rapid change. And with trends like direct-to-consumer (D2C), social marketing and purpose-led branding still thriving, there’s little sign that the disruption is over. So, what form will that disruption take during the next 12 months? Here are five trends we can expect to see more of in the year ahead.
No. 1: Brands are finding growth through content, commerce and community
One of the biggest changes in recent years is the radically different relationships between a brand and its customers. Boundaries are breaking down and traditional manufacturer/customer roles are becoming much fuzzier.
This is about more than simply shooting the breeze with customers on social media. Consumers today feel genuine ownership over the brands they love and whose purpose they share. And they’re willing to demonstrate this through action as well as words, engaging with companies as product developers and innovators, as brand evangelists and marketers, sometimes even as distributors.
You can see evidence of this growing desire to participate everywhere. Ipsy, for instance, offers highly relevant web content along with its beauty subscription service. That’s been a critical factor in building a shared sense of community with its customers. Volition, meanwhile, brings its customers right into its value chain, letting them suggest new products and see the best ideas manufactured and sold on the company’s website.
No. 2: Fast beauty is getting faster…
Like fast fashion, fast beauty has been a big deal for a while. But now, fueled by new sources of real-time data and new digital tools, companies are embedding the “fast” ethos in all parts of the business.
We have seen several examples of big players buying up smaller ones to scale the brand attributes across categories very quickly. The question for the consumer is whether the brand values that they have bought into, still hold true.
So, whether its rapid market sensing, co-created and hyper-personalized products, or flexible and adaptive manufacturing, brands are able to build real-time feedback loops and develop product ranges that are much more responsive to customer needs in each moment.
L’Oréal, for example, is working with Alibaba through the Tmall Innovation Center to use data and consumer insights to drive their brand and business decisions. Function of Beauty lets you take a “hair quiz” to help narrow down which of the brand’s 54 trillion possible product formulations are best for your needs. And L’Oréal/Lancôme will now sell you a unique shade of foundation, manufactured in store, based on a digital scan of your skin tone.
No. 3: …but sustainability matters more than ever
The flipside of fast beauty is its potential impact on the environment. And that’s critical because sustainability is now right at the top of the consumer agenda. Beauty shoppers want to reduce their carbon and plastic footprint, and they’re thinking much more critically about how their products are used and packaged.
The good news is that the industry is already using its ingenuity to respond to these needs. Lush Cosmetics has created a “black wax” (a blend of moisture-resistant waxes and coloring pigments) to reduce packaging and keep products safe in transport. Seed Phytonutrients has a low-plastic paper-based bottle that’s safe to take into the shower. And L’Occitane is partnering with TerraCycle to provide a collection and recycling program for empties.
This is just the start. When the connectivity of the Internet of Things takes off, the possibilities will really open out. Water.Io has, for instance, already created a plastic cap that can measure the contents of the bottle below. This has obvious applications in beauty (think everything from circular auto-replenishment services to new insights into product usage).
No. 4: Digital is now a core part of beauty
The idea of blending digital technology with physical experiences is not a new one. But in beauty there’s still so much untapped potential to use intelligent technologies to create something fresh, exciting and hyper-relevant.
Augmented reality lets consumers test out hair and beauty products in entirely new ways, overlaying an accurate real-time personalized digital representation of how a particular hair color or lipstick shade will look. Coty’s Magic Mirror is a great example of this already happening. But it can’t be long before this kind of digital “try on” experience becomes ubiquitous in retail.
When you add artificial intelligence into the mix it gets even more exciting. Modiface (the AR beauty pioneer recently acquired by L’Oréal) has trained an algorithm to detect and evaluate a person’s unique signs of facial aging. It’s not only a great new way to leverage L’Oréal’s deep industry expertise and deliver a personalized service for customers, it’s also a potentially invaluable new source of insights for future product development.
No. 5: 360-degree beauty & health—healing from within
Consumers today are much more aware of the links between inner balance and wellbeing and the positive effects that has on external beauty. To this end, we’re seeing a growing trend for efficacy-backed beauty edibles and tandem products that work both internally and topically. Think about Rituals of Banyu’ collection, inspired by the ancient Balinese water ceremony, which celebrates the healing properties of water, encouraging users to wash away the physical and spiritual dust of everyday life or Mauli Rituals on Net-a-Porter, with its handcrafted formulas inspired by Ayurvedic practices of India. We expect brands to tap into this trend of 360-degree beauty and healing from within, with a focus on mental and emotional balance achieved through stress-busting beauty and health products.
In addition, as customers become increasingly in tune about ingredients, they are refusing to accept things at face value, which is putting the onus on brands to be more open and honest about their formulations. This transparency is something that will simply need to become the norm for mass brands.
A Bright Future
Whether it’s embracing open innovation, co-creation, and building a community with customers, or accelerating product personalization and new digital experiences, the disruption hitting the beauty industry is creating so many new opportunities for growth. But one thing is abundantly clear: capitalizing on those opportunities now means making a genuine commitment to responsible retail and the circular economy. That’s the formula for success in beauty today.
Jill Standish is senior managing director, global lead, Retail and Laura Gurski is senior managing director, global lead, Consumer Goods & Services, Accenture. To learn more, visit web- site: www.accenture.com
No. 1: Brands are finding growth through content, commerce and community
One of the biggest changes in recent years is the radically different relationships between a brand and its customers. Boundaries are breaking down and traditional manufacturer/customer roles are becoming much fuzzier.
This is about more than simply shooting the breeze with customers on social media. Consumers today feel genuine ownership over the brands they love and whose purpose they share. And they’re willing to demonstrate this through action as well as words, engaging with companies as product developers and innovators, as brand evangelists and marketers, sometimes even as distributors.
You can see evidence of this growing desire to participate everywhere. Ipsy, for instance, offers highly relevant web content along with its beauty subscription service. That’s been a critical factor in building a shared sense of community with its customers. Volition, meanwhile, brings its customers right into its value chain, letting them suggest new products and see the best ideas manufactured and sold on the company’s website.
No. 2: Fast beauty is getting faster…
Like fast fashion, fast beauty has been a big deal for a while. But now, fueled by new sources of real-time data and new digital tools, companies are embedding the “fast” ethos in all parts of the business.
We have seen several examples of big players buying up smaller ones to scale the brand attributes across categories very quickly. The question for the consumer is whether the brand values that they have bought into, still hold true.
So, whether its rapid market sensing, co-created and hyper-personalized products, or flexible and adaptive manufacturing, brands are able to build real-time feedback loops and develop product ranges that are much more responsive to customer needs in each moment.
L’Oréal, for example, is working with Alibaba through the Tmall Innovation Center to use data and consumer insights to drive their brand and business decisions. Function of Beauty lets you take a “hair quiz” to help narrow down which of the brand’s 54 trillion possible product formulations are best for your needs. And L’Oréal/Lancôme will now sell you a unique shade of foundation, manufactured in store, based on a digital scan of your skin tone.
No. 3: …but sustainability matters more than ever
The flipside of fast beauty is its potential impact on the environment. And that’s critical because sustainability is now right at the top of the consumer agenda. Beauty shoppers want to reduce their carbon and plastic footprint, and they’re thinking much more critically about how their products are used and packaged.
The good news is that the industry is already using its ingenuity to respond to these needs. Lush Cosmetics has created a “black wax” (a blend of moisture-resistant waxes and coloring pigments) to reduce packaging and keep products safe in transport. Seed Phytonutrients has a low-plastic paper-based bottle that’s safe to take into the shower. And L’Occitane is partnering with TerraCycle to provide a collection and recycling program for empties.
This is just the start. When the connectivity of the Internet of Things takes off, the possibilities will really open out. Water.Io has, for instance, already created a plastic cap that can measure the contents of the bottle below. This has obvious applications in beauty (think everything from circular auto-replenishment services to new insights into product usage).
No. 4: Digital is now a core part of beauty
The idea of blending digital technology with physical experiences is not a new one. But in beauty there’s still so much untapped potential to use intelligent technologies to create something fresh, exciting and hyper-relevant.
Augmented reality lets consumers test out hair and beauty products in entirely new ways, overlaying an accurate real-time personalized digital representation of how a particular hair color or lipstick shade will look. Coty’s Magic Mirror is a great example of this already happening. But it can’t be long before this kind of digital “try on” experience becomes ubiquitous in retail.
When you add artificial intelligence into the mix it gets even more exciting. Modiface (the AR beauty pioneer recently acquired by L’Oréal) has trained an algorithm to detect and evaluate a person’s unique signs of facial aging. It’s not only a great new way to leverage L’Oréal’s deep industry expertise and deliver a personalized service for customers, it’s also a potentially invaluable new source of insights for future product development.
No. 5: 360-degree beauty & health—healing from within
Consumers today are much more aware of the links between inner balance and wellbeing and the positive effects that has on external beauty. To this end, we’re seeing a growing trend for efficacy-backed beauty edibles and tandem products that work both internally and topically. Think about Rituals of Banyu’ collection, inspired by the ancient Balinese water ceremony, which celebrates the healing properties of water, encouraging users to wash away the physical and spiritual dust of everyday life or Mauli Rituals on Net-a-Porter, with its handcrafted formulas inspired by Ayurvedic practices of India. We expect brands to tap into this trend of 360-degree beauty and healing from within, with a focus on mental and emotional balance achieved through stress-busting beauty and health products.
In addition, as customers become increasingly in tune about ingredients, they are refusing to accept things at face value, which is putting the onus on brands to be more open and honest about their formulations. This transparency is something that will simply need to become the norm for mass brands.
A Bright Future
Whether it’s embracing open innovation, co-creation, and building a community with customers, or accelerating product personalization and new digital experiences, the disruption hitting the beauty industry is creating so many new opportunities for growth. But one thing is abundantly clear: capitalizing on those opportunities now means making a genuine commitment to responsible retail and the circular economy. That’s the formula for success in beauty today.
Jill Standish is senior managing director, global lead, Retail and Laura Gurski is senior managing director, global lead, Consumer Goods & Services, Accenture. To learn more, visit web- site: www.accenture.com
