Weekly Beauty Notes: L’Oréal And Estee Lauder

The year for the beauty industry started with a lot of fresh new initiatives by the giants in this domain. L’Oréal is expanding its online reach as it believes that digital media could be its primary revenue generator in the future. Estee Lauder has lined up a new product range called Estee Edit specifically targeting the younger beauty users. Also, L’Oréal’s Chief Ethics Officer got awarded for being the best executive in Corporate Ethics. Estee Lauder had promoted three of its top executives, currently.

Below, we give a quick rundown for the two beauty companies.

See Our Complete Analysis for The Companies Here

L’Oréal

Post the June 2015 release of Urban Decay’s official launch in Hong Kong, L’Oréal has recently launched two websites for the Urban Decay brand in Hong Kong and Korea. The launch was made in partnership with OSF Global Services – an e-commerce site for the Korean market and a marketing site for Hong Kong. There will be further website releases in the APAC region throughout this year.
According to OSF, the brand is aiming to build a global presence with localized contents for different geographies. The website in Hong Kong, available in both English and Chinese, features beauty care routines which might influence the user’s purchasing patterns. Urban Decay Korea also features an e-commerce section. ^[1]

In related news, L’Oréal has chalked out a plan for a large scale expansion of its online media as the company predicts that the importance of eCommerce will increase in the future. According to L’Oréal’s CEO, Jean-Paul Agon, the cosmetics giant is developing itself to become one of the topmost online companies in the future, along with being a supplier to bricks-and-mortar retailers across the globe. In fact, when it comes to digital initiatives and research and development, L’Oréal is the foremost beauty company, currently. L’Oréal generates almost 20% of its revenues in China through online sales. The company’s total online sales have surpassed 1 billion Euros, contributing to almost 15% of its revenues in recent times. ^[2]

On January 20th, L’Oréal’s Senior Vice President and Chief Ethics Officer, Emmanuel Lulin, was awarded the Ethics & Compliance Initiative’s (ECI) Carol R. Marshall Award for Innovation in Corporate Ethics. The award, created in 2010, is meant to give recognition to business executives who display significant accomplishments in the ethics and compliance domain. The award was given for the first time to a non-US citizen and organization. L’Oréal is one of the foremost French companies to have chalked out a Code of Ethics in 2000 and to create the position of a Chief Ethics Officer in 2007. (Press Release.)

L’Oréal’s stock price has gained around 5% over the past week.

Estee Lauder

Estee Lauder is slated to launch a new line up called Estee Edit through Sephora in March 2016. Industry experts predict the sales from this line might reach around $60 million in North America in the first year itself. The Estee Edit range is targeted at millennials and hence the launch at Sephora seems to be a strategic one, because Sephora is one of the most popular beauty retail chains for the millennials. Estee Lauder had been increasingly trying to lure in a younger customer base. Recently, when its bigger brands like Clinique and the flagship Estee Lauder were showing lackluster demand in the U.S., Estee Lauder introduced products within these brands keeping the younger clientele in mind. The company has also roped in social media sensation, Kendall Jenner as its newest face in order to make the younger generation identify more with its brands. Beauty blogger Irene Kim was signed in for its websites and other online platforms. However, till now, the launch of Estee Edit remains the biggest move by the company for targeting a younger user base. ^[3]

On January 28th, Estee Lauder announced the promotion of three of its top level executives which have been effective since January 1, 2016. The promotions include those of Stephane de la Faverie, promoted to global brand president for the Origins and Darphin brands, Beth DiNardo to global brand president for Smashbox, and Daniel Rachmanis who had been promoted to be the president of the Latin American business. Prior to this, both Stephane and Beth held positions of senior vice president/global general managers in their respective brands. Mr. Rachmanis has led the company as the senior vice president, general manager of Latin America and International Business Development during its expansion in the Latin American region since 2009. (Press Release.)

Estee Lauder’s stock price lost around 0.5% over the past week.

1. L’Oréal’s Urban Decay launches e-commerce site in Korea, further local APAC sites planned for 2016, Global Cosmetics News, Jan 27, 2016 [↩]
2. L’Oréal Growing E-Commerce Platform After Strong Online Sales, European Supermarket Magazine, Jan 28, 2016 [↩]
3. Estée Lauder Launches Estée Edit, WWD, Jan 21, 2016 [↩]