Hair Color Trends And Social Media Marketing Essay For L.

L'Oreal and its history of hair dye innovations

Question:

Discuss about the Strategic Marketing Management of  L’Oreal.

L’Oreal is one of the most famous cosmetics and beauty product Company, attracting thousands of customers with the variety of products that are being offered. The company was founded by a young chemist named Eugene Schuellers, in the year 1908. The chemist patented an innovative hair dye. The chemist soon opened a company named L’Oreal, in order to sell his products. The products soon spread to the internationally recognized hairdressers of Canada as well as US (Ashraf et al. 2015). However, the significant breakthrough was made, when L’Oreal launched bleaching powder in the year 1930. This assignment highlights the various styles of hair colour that has been identified, namely tie-dye, splat and omber. The use of social media in order to build a marketing plan for L’Oreal has been identified, along the ways of monitoring and measuring the success of the campaign. The significance of the replication of the Wild Omber strategy in identifying the new opportunities in L’Oreal has been discussed in this assignment.   

The year 1950 witnessed the revolution in the market of hair colour. This revolution resulted in the number of steps to dye the hair from five stages to one. Thus, the overall process of colouring of hair became a simpler one. L’Oreal introduced three main categories of hair colour (Ashraf et al. 2015). These include temporary, semi-permanent and permanent dyes. The permanent dyes and hair colours do not wash out. This means that the consumers have to re-colour their hair or they must be grown out (Dias 2015). Almost 70-80% of the people of the colour market in Europe use the permanent dyes. For L’Oreal, the permanent dyes constitute the largest amount of market share (Kruger 2017). The various types of hair colouring include tie-dye, splat, and omber. The customers using hair colour are often driven by the trends or the fad. The tie-dye hair colour is one of the types of hair colouring that is a short term-trend, rather than a long term fashion. The tie-dye of the hair gives a design, along with displaying colourful patterns (Ashraf et al. 2015). This is a short tem fashion and the customers who prefer following the latest trends prefer the tie-dye type of hair colouring. However, the ombre hair colour trend is a long term fashion. People, not preferring to change their hair colour frequently, tend to use the ombre type of hair colouring. However, in order to highlight the popularity of one kind of hair colouring that is majorly used, survey questions could be given to the customers. Thus, the successful completion of the survey will highlight the popularity of the kind of hair colouring type, used by the customers (Ashraf et al. 2015). The ombre hair colour is a long prevailing trend, where the hair root areas are kept dark, with the natural colour of the hair. However, through the mid-shaft to the end of the shaft, the colour gets lighter. The other kind of hair colouring that is popular and is a fad is the splat hair colour. In this hair colouring style, the hair is painted with bring colours, either at a random fashion or in a pattern that is different from a regular hair dye. Rainbow colours are often seen in splat hair. These colours are usually non-permanent and can be removed with few washes (Lamartine et al. 2014). This kind of hair colouring is very short lived and done while attending fancy dress parties or during festive seasons. However, the tie-dye and splat hair colouring types are fad, rather than trends, and hence they are short lived.     

Hair color types: temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent

Marketing has a key role to plan in ensuring the success of any product. With the increase in the use of social media among the customers, the social media marketing has become essential for the hair colour and other hair products of L’Oreal (Grez and L'oréal 2014). The company could use the social media, in order to promote the new hair colours that are launched by the company. The social media could be used to develop the push of newly launched products of L’Oreal. The pull strategy use by the company helps to develop a deep in-sight about the choices of the customers (Ashraf et al. 2015). The preferences of the customers are identified and the products are modified, to match the customer preferences.

In order to build the marketing plans by leveraging the social media could be done using two strategies. These are the push strategy and the pull strategy. The introduction of the Casting Creme Gloss brand mainly targeted the customers, who are being introduced to colouring of hair. This product mainly targeted the customers who are in their 20s to early 30s. Social media marketing is used in order to push this new product to the customers, such that they find interest in using the product. Before the advent of social media, the fashion industry had to rely on various secondary sources in order to distinguish between the trends and fads (Ashraf et al. 2015). However, the use of the secondary sources might not be effective enough in revealing the actual scenario of the industry. With the advent of social media and its popularity among the users, the company is able to distinguish between trends and fads thus investing on the products in a similar manner. With millions of the customers searching for information online, along with engaging themselves in various fashion-related conversations, the social media marketing is effective in identifying the path of their market trends.

Thus, leveraging the social media, in enhancing the marketing plan of L’Oreal, the company is able to enhance its business successfully. It is essential to understand the social media trends and plan for the next marketing strategy (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). Moreover, depending on the plan, the decision of the launch of new products and the target market is selected, thus making the marketing plan viable. The benefits of using the social media marketing include the creation of awareness of a product, among the customers. The social media launch of a product also excites a customer, and he/she might engage into a discussion with the other friends who are also using the social media platform (Henson 2016). The creation of loyal advocacy, along with providing faster access to the rights of the customers is also facilitated with the use of the social media marketing.           

Tie-Dye and Splat: Short-term trends

The social media campaign is an important marketing strategy, which is likely to enhance the business of L’Oreal. However, it is essential to monitor and measure the success of the campaign (Hong and Doz 2013). The social media marketing needs to be a success, such that L’Oreal could continue the use of social media, as a platform of marketing (Henson 2016). In order to measure the success of the campaign, the increase in the number of customers using the various hair colour products of L’Oreal could be measured. The significant increase in the number of customers using the newly launched hair colour products of L’Oreal highlights the fact that the social media campaigning was a major success. However, if the customer base does not seem to change with the implementation of the social media marketing, then it could be concluded that the social media marketing is not an effective one. Hence, changes in the campaign need to be designed.

Another way of monitoring the success of the social media marketing is by monitoring the popularity of the hair colour products of L’Oreal. The popularity of the newly launched products of L’Oreal is likely to be increased if the social media marketing is successful (Ashraf et al. 2015). In order to ensure that the social media marketing is successful and effective, L’Oreal has entered into a partnership with Google (Henson 2016). Since Google has an access to a wide amount of information, hence, L’Oreal took this opportunity as a strategy for social media listening. The company is able to identify the most popular trends and discussions about the various products of L’Oreal and understand whether their innovation and the launch of the new products are justified or not (Hong and Doz 2013). The monitoring of the campaign is important, to understand whether the investments that are made for the social media marketing are being used resourcefully or not. Moreover, the responses of the community and the blogs that are being used for social media marketing could also be used to measure and monitor the success of social media marketing.        

L’Oreal is looking for new opportunities and expansion in the various beauty products, along with hair colour. The various kinds of hair dyes and colours that are available could be increased (Henson 2016). Moreover, new shades of colours that are not commonly seen in the hair colour trends could be used (Hong and Doz 2013). Moreover, refinement in the use of the ingredients, along with use of natural products, rather than that of chemicals could also be use as a future opportunity (Ashraf et al. 2015). The target market of US and Asia has a good growth and opportunity for L’Oreal. Moreover, launch of a new brand that offers good quality beauty products, at a cheaper price. The beauty products that are used by the professionals could be introduced for the mass, such that a new opportunity for the company could be explored. These new opportunities are effective to be explored by L’Oreal, in order to ensure that the development of the business is done successfully (Ashraf et al. 2015). Since L’Oreal has gained the confidence of the customers as a brand, and many of the loyal customers, have a preference towards the brand, hence the launch of new products of L’Oreal will have the loyal customers, to use the products. Moreover, the image of L’Oreal as a brand is attractive to the customers and has goodwill. Hence, venturing into new areas of work and experimenting with innovative ideas are effective. Expansion of the business of L’Oreal into the countries where the products have not been launched is also an opportunity that the company could use to ensure its successful expansion.  

Conclusion

L’Oreal is one of the most famous companies selling beauty products. The various styles of hair colouring that are mainly seen include the ombre style, splat and tie-dye. However, out of these styles, the tie-dye and the splat are fads and they are in demand for a short period of time. However, the ombre style of hair colouring is a trend and thus is in demand among the customers for a longer period of time. The various strategies that are adopted by L’Oreal, in order to ensure that the company faces enhancement of the business have been highlighted in the assignment. The use of social media as a marketing strategy is effective and is implemented by L’Oreal. However, the social media marketing is effective in enhancing the business of L’Oreal. Though social media marketing is used effectively, yet it is essential to monitor and measure the social media marketing campaign (Ashraf et al. 2015). In order to monitor the success of the campaign, the reviews of the customers are to be monitored. The sudden enhancement in the number of customers or the increase in the popularity of the products of L’Oreal highlights the fact that the social media marketing is effective. The new opportunities that L’Oreal might explore to enhance its business and ensure the success of the brand have been shed light upon, in this assignment. Thus, a complete strategic marketing plan of L’Oreal has been presented here, in this assignment.

References

Ashraf, I., Ashraf, F., Azhar, N. and Anam, W., 2015. The Case Analysis of L’Oreal Corp. as Market Leader. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 5(8), pp.131-148.

Dias, M.F.R.G., 2015. Hair cosmetics: an overview. International journal of trichology, 7(1), p.2.

Grez, J., L'oréal, 2014. Hair color system using a smart device. U.S. Patent Application 14/586,138.

Henson, R., 2016. Building an Organizational Global Mindset Culture: Implications for Practice. In Successful Global Leadership (pp. 261-283). Palgrave Macmillan US.

Hong, H.J. and Doz, Y., 2013. L’Oreal masters multiculturalism. Harvard Business Review, 91(6), pp.114-118.

Kruger, P., 2017. Individual expression through hair makeup: hair care. South African Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Review, 44(1), pp.26-27.

Lamartine, B.C., Orler, E.B., Sutton, R.M.C. and Song, S., The Procter & Gamble Company, 2014. Hair treatment process providing dispersed colors by light diffraction. U.S. Patent 8,881,743.

Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.