L’Oreal Paris: How a Foreign Brand can Become TOP in China
- Chaileedo Press
- Sep 17, 2021
- 4 min read
In 1907, Eugène Schueller invented the world's first non-toxic synthetic hair dye and named it L'Oréal at his age of 28. Since then, hundred years has passed with great change of the world but L'Oréal Paris has never stopped its constant pursuit of scientific research and innovation. Today, products of L'Oréal Paris have expanded many fields from hair dyes to women's skincare, color makeup, women's shampoo and household hair care, hair color in home, men's skincare, men's shampoo and styling and so on.
L'Oréal Paris selects the glamorous celebrities from all over the world to form the "Dream Team" which dedicated to telling the story of "Beauty without Borders" from different perspective and make the concept of "Because I'm Worth It" as a classic. Each of the ambassador L'Oréal Paris boasts outstanding careers and extraordinary personalities such as Jane Fonda, Helen Mirren, Gong Li and Chris Lee(Chinese name: Li Yuchun) who perfectly interpreting the brand concept of "Because I'm Worth It".
In 1997, L'Oréal Group and its brand entered China. In 2009, the sales of L'Oréal Paris in the Chinese market exceeded $465 million. According to public data, L'Oréal Paris doubled its sales in China to reach $931 million in 2012. Since then, it has become one of the largest beauty brand in the Chinese market and it has been firmly on top of the list.
In 2016, China has turned to the second largest market for L'Oréal Paris, which ranked in the top three of the Tmall beauty hot brands list in November and won the award of “2016 China National Brand Daily Cosmetics”. (Tmall Beauty: Tmall Beauty is an independent beauty vertical market on the Tmall platform, which is one of the most popular comprehensive shopping sites in China)
In 2017, L'Oréal Paris, which has been teamed up with the Cannes Film Festival for 20 years, launched the Cannes Stars Commemorative Lipstick about four ambassador - Gong Li, Chris Lee(Chinese name: Li Yuchun), Jing Boran and Guan Xiaotong - and sold it exclusively on Tmall. The sales volume of it reaches nearly 30,000 units on Tmall Super Brand Day. (Tmall Super Brand Day: an promotional campaign conducted by Tmall in conjunction with its merchants, in which the participating merchants set their own "brand day" for the year.)
In 2018, marketing campaign created by L'Oréal Paris named "Challenge of no wrinkles" gained 500 million + exposures on the Chinese network. The eye cream of this campaign named "Zi Yundou" in Chinese became the No.1 new product in Tmall beauty in 2018. (Zi Yundou means Purple Iron in English. It is the popular eye cream of L'Oreal Paris. Because the packaging is purple. The consumer hopes that this eye cream can be like an iron to wipe to iron out wrinkles, so its nicknamed is purple iron)
In the promotional campaign on November 11, 2019, L'Oréal Paris was among the Tmall RMB1 billion club, (RMB1 billion: RMB 1 billion converted to $155 million) and came to be the No.1 beauty brand. In May 2021, L'Oréal Paris opened its first global offline flagship store in Shanghai, China. It has won the "Sales Champion" of Tmall and JD Beauty during the promotional campaign on June 18, 2021 again. (JD Beauty: JD Beauty is an independent beauty vertical marketplace on the JD platform which is one of the most popular comprehensive shopping sites in China)
L'Oréal Paris has been developed in China for 24 years. With the aim of providing consumers in China and Asia with the proper products for hair care, skin care and color cosmetics, its parent company, L'Oréal Group, has established the China R&D and Innovation Center in Shanghai specializing in the research and development of Chinese skin and hair as well as raw materials and formulations. The R&D and Innovation Center has become the largest R&D facility of the L'Oréal Group in Asia Pacific ranking among the six largest R&D hubs worldwide.
In addition to this, L'Oréal Paris has been committed to environmental protection in China. Currently, L'Oréal Paris uses 100% recycled plastic in the PET bottles of all hair care products sold in Asia Pacific; the goal is to use full recycled plastic in the bottles of all hair care products sold in the region by the end of 2021.
In 2020, 132 tons of glass were saved from the production in its plant, Beautycos International Co., Ltd., in Suzhou and 80% of the industrial water was recycled in the production of color makeup at its plant, Yichang Tianmei International Cosmetics Co., Ltd.. In mainland China, all products of L'Oréal Paris produced in the two plants completed carbon neutral.
During the promotional campaign on May 5 in 2021, L'Oréal Paris opened its global flagship store "Shanghai Beauty Hall" in Shanghai, China. The store boasts a environmental design concept with sustainable materials to help the development of sustainable retail. By the end of 2021, L'Oréal Paris will dispatch more than 20 million parcels that are all recyclable with tape-free, easy to tear and biodegradable. Besides that, L'Oréal Paris also launched the "Empty Bottle Project of L'Oréal Purple Iron" which has covered more than 1,000 department stores and boutiques in China.
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