The beauty world is changing. When we look at current major trends like clean beauty, multicultural, age-inclusive, and gender-neutral, the common denominator in all is a more social-led and personalised approach to meet the needs of everyone rather than having a one-size fits all approach. This includes personalisation in the beauty industry.
Beauty growth is increasingly being driven by indie brands, which often have the eyes and ears of trendsetting members of Gen Z and Millennials.
Major beauty manufacturers have collectively lost their share to indie and direct-to-consumer (DTC) beauty brands. Consumers want products that are made for them, products that are delivered at their convenience and products to fully allow them to express themselves. Companies use big data and personalization to best understand and reshape their consumers’ needs which is how I found my new favorites Skin + Me and Trinny London. Through online quizzes, companies are able to collect data on products that suit what you are looking for. They have thrown out the cookie-cutter approach to consumer issues with algorithm-powered product solutions that beauty shoppers love.
Luxury house Yves Saint Laurent has now rethought how they offer a personalised tech-enabled approach with an at-home lipstick tech tool that helps customers get a custom shade from whatever sparks their fancy.
Artificial intelligence is not limited to the sci-fi genre—it is a beauty industry tool too!
Consumers have endless choices so it’s important that brands and retailers stay relevant and speak to the consumer directly. There’s a major opportunity in understanding consumer behavior; we have seen the power of personalisation. Beauty brands cannot cave into social media pressures for a quick ‘win’; diversity and inclusion is not a goal; it is a practice. Brands and retailers need to ensure each shopper is treated like an individual, not just a number, and use data-driven decisions to help them do so.
This is a really interesting space, and I am enjoying watching it evolve. I am currently designing interview content around this area, if you’re interested in contributing, please do get in touch.
Emily Cawley
Emily is one of Orbition’s amazing Talent Partners. She has a passion for enabling organizations to drive decisions and obtain value from the use of Data, Analytics, and AI.
She does this by connecting leaders and professionals within the senior end of Read more.
