L'OrйAl's Global Brand Management Strategies

Scientific Approach,

One of the Group's most recent challenges is the African market. The Group merged and purchased Soft Sheen and Carson, thereby offering African consumers a new product line. The chosen approach was scientific. Alain Evrard, L'Orйal's managing director for Africa, the Orient and the Pacific, explains that L'Orйal boosted African awareness of the combined brands by: "educating hairdressers about our products and providing training in how to use them."They opened a Chicago laboratory to study the properties of African and African-American hair and research

"Hitting the right audience with the right product"

L'oreal is a very carefully crafted portfolio, each brand is positioned on a very precise [market] segment, which overlaps as little as possible with the others."

Brand portfolio management is about as original as "adding water to moisturizing cream". However, the secret ingredient that makes L'Orйal stand out from all the rest is its highly cosmopolitan CEO. He is driven to manage brands so that they live up to their full potential, so that they grow and expand "outside the box". There is no reason for brands to continually service the same clientele. L'Orйal brands are therefore constantly spruced up and sent travelling to the four corners of the world. With a strong commitment to research and constant innovation (the equivalent of more than 3% of sales revenues are spent on scientific research), L'Orйal is a company that truly brings science to bear on beauty.

Diversity in Creed

One of the Group's creeds is diversity, and L'Orйal sometimes surprises the public with just how diverse its conception of beauty can be. This year, the cover of its annual report