Clarins ramps up phygital approach
19 Apr 2021 --- As prestige skin care and makeup name, Clarins, prepares to roll-out its new virtual store design to certain physical shops in 2021, senior Beauty and Personal Care journalist, Natasha Spencer-Jolliffe, explores how the heritage brand is embracing the phygital trend.
The Rise of Phygital
The rise of the omnichannel approach—whereby brands use multiple ways to offer consumers a seamless shopping experience is not new; it’s been growing in pace as social media, advancing technologies and transparent storytelling approaches provide a natural environment for beauty and personal care (BPC) brands to flourish. BPC is visual, novel, exciting and rapidly evolving. The industry therefore lends itself to omnichannel strategies.
With global brick-and-mortar closures raising a question mark over brands’ ability to survive, let alone grow, the phygital - where physical meets digital - phenomenon is making its mark on BPC strategies. For big name and big-budget brands, phygital creates inquisitive, ingenious and inventive ideas that can come to life.
Positioning itself as a phygital success story, Clarins is teaming up with consultants and rolling-out new strategies to successfully maintain a strong market position in the online and offline premium beauty market.
Virtual to visitors
Click to EnlargeFollowing the news of the French premium beauty brand’s virtual 3-D store, Clarins is also now teaming up with a new digital agency to boost its online presence. The brand’s virtual sales format served as both a buying hub and as an innovative way to tease its new look, which will appear in a select number of stores around the world from this month.
Clarins will work with the UK-based agency, Impressions, to manage its digital PR and search engine optimization (SEO), providing technical support and market-leading brand awareness through digital strategic efforts. As part of Clarins’ new digital partnership, it will concentrate on managing its new localized approach to content, signaling the brand’s focus on increasing its online presence.
The new appointment comes after Clarins revealed its new virtual boutique in 2020, to offer a glimpse of what beauty shoppers can expect to see in its Dubai, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Paris stores from April 2021. Online, users can explore the store’s makeup, skin care, novelties and beauty consultation areas, with arrows guiding digital visitors’ journeys.
Clarins hoped to continue the momentum of its Paris-based pop-up store, named Clarins Lab, as the company invited consumers to “help co-create the store of tomorrow”. The move to recreate its new design online came following the popularity of Clarins Lab.
Virtual try-on technology has exploded onto the strategies of BPC brands, with the virtual reality technology proving a true hallmark of the phygital approach. In Clarins' virtual boutique store, hearts indicate where consumers can access virtual try-ons, such as lipstick testers, beauty consultations that lead to skin care diagnostics, natural active ingredient information based on needs and routines, and how-to advice.
Clarins strategic focus
At the start of the year, in another partnership move, the long-standing beauty player revealed its collaboration with the Vee24 platform to deliver its innovative Virtual Boutique strategy. Teaming up, Clarins aims to offer one-to-one, personalized consultations that mirror the offline experience, bringing the customer service-centric physical experience, online. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the engagement platform plans to bring Clarins’ service, product advice and skin care knowledge online via virtual beauty consultations.
Clarins’ digital strategy will see it use Vee24's video and appointment setting technology to provide personalized consultations that consumers can request immediately in real-time or schedule in advance. Using Clarins’ beauty coaches and guest influencers, the brand will connect with consumers via a multi-camera set-up that enables them to connect face-to-face with customers, as well as provide images of products and application techniques.
In a further move reflecting its revitalized marketing strategy with a clear focus on digital, Clarins teamed up with beauty content provider, Gritty Pretty. Together, the duo unveiled a new campaign, entitled ‘Illuminating Women’, for Clarins’ Double Serum product. The campaign was filmed remotely via FaceTime with interviews taking place in the contributors’ homes.
“In view of the current circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were delighted to be able to pivot quickly and partner with Gritty Pretty and MAXMEDIALAB to create an impactful digital campaign that speaks to our core Clarins consumer whilst also driving consideration among Millennials and Gen Z,” Jerome Bellony, Clarins managing director for Australia & New Zealand told Bandt.
“By choosing a digital-focused partner, we were able to promote the campaign almost exclusively across digital platforms which is where our target customers are consuming their media,” added Bellony.
Pivoting during a pandemic
Click to EnlargeDescribing the challenge that Clarins faced when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, social media management platform, Hootsuite, revealed: “When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the subsequent lockdown meant Clarins had to flip its sales strategy on its head—and completely reinvent how it communicated with customers.”
With the brand’s association with in-store experiences dominating its long-standing reputation, matching the offline customer service to the one provided online was a key but important hurdle to overcome. During the pandemic, Clarins pinpointed social media as a core part of its digital strategy, focusing on producing a new content pipeline to reflect world events; identify new ways to engage and inform customers online; and offer them guidance and support.
“All this needed to be done fast—and with little to no additional budget,” stated Hootsuite in its online case study.
The launch of the brand’s tailored skin care consultation service, Clarins & Me, saw over 450 bookings in its first month. The uptake and revitalized social strategic shift also produced 30,000 website visits from social media during store closures, along with a 42% week-on-week increase in product line sales attributed to social ads.
Clarins is “hailed a top performer on Facebook with strong engagement, offering product ’quick views,’ how-tos and product finders online”, Innova revealed in its 2020 Premium Makeup Report.
In October, Clarins made another step towards connecting its online and offline worlds by showcasing its new subscription-box service in France. Jumping on the hot trend, the brand released Clarins Unlimited to enable consumers to select from various types of boxes, which are delivered once every two months.
By Natasha Spencer-Jolliffe, BPC Insights Senior Journalist