L2, a think tank for digital innovation, has just published its L2 Digital IQ Index® Beauty for France. The Top 3 of this global benchmark for digital performance of brands: Clarins, L'Occitane and Nuxe, in a beauty market where e-commerce is the lone channel experiencing consistent growth.
Virtual is trendy, says Scott Galloway, founder of L2. Firms are turning online to build their brands. Although ad spending in TV, magazines, and newspapers is flat ad declining, digital advertising will experience solid growth. Mobile ad spending is projected to grow 80 percent in 2014, on the back of explosive growth in smartphone and tablet adoption (64 percent and 43 percent of the French population, respectively, will use the devices by 2017).
But Beauty brands have been distracted by the prospect of success in emerging markets to the detriment of their home market. As brands fail to repatriate investments and innovation in other markets back to France, digital properties suffer. L2 gives examples:
• Just half of sites include video, of which only 21 percent supply all videos in French;
• Only 48 percent of sites are optimized for mobile, compared to 75 percent in the US;
• Brand activity on social media is anemic, averaging 3.8 posts per week on Facebook, 0.5 videos per week on YouTube, and 6.3 tweets per week.
L2 methodology of ranking includes:
• Site & e-commerce: functionality and content;
• Digital marketing: search, display, and email marketing efforts;
• Mobile: compatibility, optimization, and …
