Today, personalization is one of the major trends impacting the world of cosmetics. Tailor-made products, products to be composed yourself with bases, depending on the day’s needs, and home manufacturing machines have been receiving much media coverage these days. And personalization is now intended for the greatest number possible, in particular by means of the packaging, as several speakers evoked at the PCD show held in Paris last January.
First, Pierre Ducastin and Olivier de Lataulade, both of L’Oréal, set the scene by describing the world we live in and, as a consequence, the cosmetics industry.
To them, this world is experiencing a complete change: it is becoming a VUCA world, meaning:
• Volatility, with quick changes which prevent us from determining clear trends
• Uncertainty, due to radical changes which make it impossible to predict the future based on the past
• Complexity, with multiple and interdependent workings
• Ambiguity, which makes it hard to distinguish what is real from what is true
Cosmetics in the VUCA world
To both speakers, the realization of the VUCA world in the cosmetics industry involves several points:
• Fiercer competition, which is no longer observed between major global groups and increasingly involves ‘small’ local brands (they allegedly represent 90% of the industry’s growth today)
• Reduction of the time-to-market of products which increasingly follow short-lived trends
• Both mature and emerging markets are more ‘cost’-oriented
• Boom of the middle class all around the world
• Demand for sustainability, a notion that has become essential to market a product
• Digital revolution and connected beauty
• Boom of e-commerce
• And …
