Post #12: Promotions

Who doesn't love a good discount?

Overall, L’Oréal has a huge social media presence. Mainly, this is because L’Oréal is customer-orientated, and wants to be more thoroughly connected with people, to listen to their feedback, wants, and needs. Mainly, L’Oréal has been using the most widely used social media platforms to interact with their customers, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Mainly, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are used for closer interaction and to inform the public about new products or potential sales, while YouTube is used to showcase their products, address issues, or makeup tutorials. Besides being on the major social media platforms, L’Oréal tries to also utilize regional social medias according to their key markets, such as WeChat in China. According to Emma Williamson, L’Oréal’s Consumer Affairs and Social Media manager for Australia region, L’Oréal understands the importance of social media and having a personal connection with their consumers, something that boosts brand awareness more times than traditional ways. Aside from direct social media, L’Oréal partners up with beauty bloggers and influencers in order to reach different audiences in different countries. In terms of traditional advertisement, L’Oréal continues to do print and broadcast advertising, but the shift into digital advertisement is what the company has been working on for these past years, as it is easier to have direct and mobile marketing when you can easily interact with customers without having to spend much in outside research.

It’s nice to see promotions in advertisings, right? When you subscribe to a newsletter, the company or brand sends you daily or weekly ads for sales and promotions. Same goes for L’Oréal and its brands. If you sign up to receive their newsletter emails, you can receive exclusive discounts and promotions, depending on the time and brand. Again, this is only for online shopping of L’Oréal products or one of their brand’s. Typically, promotions in brick-and-mortar places tend to vary, depending on the brand value or the locations. For Consumer Products, since these are products that are available to the mass, the prices are already at a reasonable level, so only “buy one, get one free / 50%” are the norm. For the L’Oréal Luxe products or of those value, promotions of “spend x amount of money, get a free gift (or gifts)” or “buy this specific product, get a product for free” are the norm, but it depends on the location and the form of selling. Personal selling seems to be the most common when selling L’Oréal products or from one of their brands, so you have more access to special and/or exclusive offers while being able to purchase what you need. An example would be how at Macy’s, Lancôme has an area where only Lancôme products are displayed, and a salesperson directly interacts with you, giving advice and persuading you to buy Lancôme products.

I definitely think that L’Oréal has a clear understanding of the growing influence social media is starting to have. More people tend to be more influenced by what goes on online, whether that is reviews, influencers, or social posts. Personally, I have turned to online reviews to see if a certain brand or product is worth the purchase, or if there is an alternative that I hadn’t considered. Having a huge social media presence also gives L’Oréal a huge competitive advantage, as the constant interaction and feedback it receives directly automatically transforms into new researching efforts.

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References:

· Grewal, D., & Levy, M. (2020). Chapter 1&17. M:Marketing, McGraw Hill Education

· Hutchinson, A. (2015, September 09). Big Brand Theory: L'Oréal Stays Connected to Their Audience via Social. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/big-brand-theory-loreal-stays-connected-to-their-audience-via-social/453022/

· Team, T. (2017, February 08). L’Oréal Is Benefitting From A Higher Digital Spending. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/08/loreal-is-benefitting-from-a-higher-digital-spending/