Ombre, Tie-Dye, Splat Hair: Trends or Fads? "pull" and "push" Social Media Strategies at L'oréal Paris

Ombre, Tie-Dye, Splat Hair: Trends or Fads? "Pull" and "Push" Social Media Strategies at L'Oréal Paris

Part 1 -- Summary

In the L’Oreal Paris case, Marie Gulin, the VP of Global Integrated Communications at L’Oreal Paris, is tasked with identifying a new product opportunity that will live up to L’Oreal Paris’ reputation for innovation in the hair colouring market.

        First, Marie and her team identified the most popular hair colour styles: ombre, tie-dye, and splat. From these three variations, the team looked to label each style as either a trend or a fad. Whereas, fads are styles that rise quickly in popularity and then burn out, trends are styles that rise quickly in popularity and also have staying power, and over time they become “classics”. Thus, it is imperative that the team correctly identify the trends vs. the fads, so as to maximize sales and growth over the long term. Once the correct method was identified, Marie and her team believed that “social media could be a game-changer in the hair-colour market”.

        How did the team go about identifying trends vs. fads? “Pull” social media strategies. Pull methods involve “pulling” information from consumers via social media listening. L’Oreal partnered with Google and searched online to learn what consumers were looking for and saying online.

        The next challenge that the team faced was identifying what marketing and social media strategy would be best. What would be the new product’s point of difference? How do we brand the new product? What do we price the new product? What social media platforms are best?

Part 2 -- Study Questions

1.

1. L’Oreal’s target market is quite vast because of their wide array of beauty products. For L’Oreal Paris there are three sub targets including women from ages 20 - 30, who have just started coloring their hair. Next would be women ranging from 30 - 50, who are more sophisticated and independent. Lastly, would be elderly woman (50+).
2. L’Oreal’s positioning is that they strive an affordable luxury that strives for innovation and research.
3. The 4 P’s of L’Oreal include:

1. Product: Wide range of beauty products including hair and skin care.
2. Promotion: They are very proactive in their means of adopting new promotional techniques to market their products. They have started to focus more on social media listening as a means to better understand customer trends.
3. Price: L'Oreal Paris penetrates different markets in different price levels. They strive for innovations so they have a luxurious brand, but offer a price that can penetrate a plethora of markets
4. Place: L’Oreal Paris has the largest market share in the beauty industry, which means their products are distributed worldwide in retail and salons

1. The 4 P’s tie in well with their branding strategy, which simply put is “Beauty for All.” They create high end products that make you look and feel beautiful and offer it at a price that can be consumed by everything.

2.   Using Google Trends, Social Mention, Topsy, we found that the ombre  hair style seems to have the best chance to endure change in style over time. In the entirety of 2014, the ombre hairstyle had dominated social trends, has maintained a consistent interest and is forecasted to continue its likeability as shown in the graph below:

Ombre Hair

The Ombre hair dye is an exceptionally hot commodity in the current year and is predicted to increase in the coming year as shown in Graph 1. Graph 2 depicts ombre’s social media presence in the last month, which has completely dominated the other styles. Finally, Graph 3 shows how the keyword, ombre, appeared (7x) more on blogs than the other two styles.

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