House of Worth

Insight

For over 50 years, Because You’re Worth It has been an integral part of the L’Oréal Paris identity, empowering women to recognise their true self-worth.

How might a retail experience represent Because You’re Worth It for a new generation of beauty lovers?

Idea

Transport L’Oréal members to the House of Worth in the heart of Paris, where they can indulge in an individualised skincare shopping experience.

Located on Shanghai’s famous Nanjing East Road, the House of Worth welcomes shoppers to experience the future of retail. As they wait in line to be assisted by a personal beauty associate, customers can watch in-person livestreams hosted instore, customising the scene behind the presenter. Plus, take a bike ride through the streets of Paris, collecting loyalty rewards as they do so.

Skin analysis technology underpins the experience, generating an individualised result that’s encoded on to a physical key used to unlock beauty throughout the store. As experiences are interacted with, product recommendations are made based on the data that the key holds. Selected items are added to digital shopping baskets under personal accounts on the L’Oréal Paris WeChat mini-program, and can be taken home, delivered anywhere in China or purchased later. The key can be returned for complementary samples of new products, and repeat engagement is sustained through ecommerce and the membership hub.

Impact

A blueprint for the future of retail.

This was the first flagship store L’Oréal has launched in China and was covered extensively across Chinese media platforms. The project delivered a range of firsts for L’Oréal in physical retail and connected mobile.

The blueprint created with the AKQA team transformed how the L’Oréal group develop experiences, with several now following suit with experiential flagships, utilising many of the same methodologies and components. The seamless exchange of data between the store and connected mobile platform has since been adopted as a core component of the CRM and IT capabilities.

The custom visualisations designed to analyse skin condition have been carried over into virtual try-on applications across the L’Oréal group.