L'Oréal Product Design
Product Design / Strategy
Revolutionising L'Oréal's Tech Game with VR AI-Driven Perfume Experiences
Role
Duration
Key Skills
Product Designer
2 Weeks
Business Analysis, User Research, Journey Mapping & Prototyping
PROBLEMS
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L'Oréal seeks to differentiate its brand in the competitive tech market amidst the rise of emerging beauty technologies.
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Fragrance technology remains largely untapped despite exponential growth in cosmetic and beauty tech.
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Based on L'Oréal's PY annual report, L'Oréal has a low fragrance business segment, while cosmetic and beauty business segment remains high.
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Whilst personalised perfume products exists in the market, the potential of combining Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create an immersive and interactive fragrance personalisation experience remains untapped.
KEY INSIGHTS
80%
consumers prefer personalised experiences
highlighting a significant opportunity for L'Oréal to develop a fragrance personalisation solution
15%
projected growth in revenue for personalised products
indicating a strong market potential
9%
consumers purchase luxury goods using VR
showcasing the viability of integrating VR technology into the fragrance personalisation experience
Limited use cases on stimulating the smell sensory using VR headset
VR headset can stimulate sound, touch and vision. However, smells have always been difficult to design and implement for a VR headset. Smell sensory is heavily presented in the gaming industry, but yet to be in the fragrance industry.
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Hence, this highlights a strong opportunity for L'Oréal to partnered up with tech L&Ds to be a market leader.
Philyra, a global manufacturer for flavours and fragrances with the help of AI
Philyra’s algorithms can learn, suggest, and predict alternative raw materials and formula substitutes; appropriate dosing for raw materials; the human response to a fragrance; and the novelty of a fragrance by comparing it to commercially available ones.
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Consumer Goals
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By creating and associating unique memories with scent, individuals can express themselves, boost their confidence, and cherish those memories for years to come.
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Offer a diverse range of fragrance options to cater to different tastes, preferences, and cultural backgrounds
Business Goals
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Enhancing the overall customer experience by leveraging VR and AI technology to provide a distinctive and immersive experience in the beauty industry, setting the brand apart in a competitive tech market, and establishing the brand as an industry fragrance leader.
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Address Sustainability: To align with L'Oréal’s product’s strategy goals, incorporate eco-friendly packaging materials and promote a reduced carbon footprint in the manufacturing process.
USER PERSONA
MEET
OLIVIA J.
Background
Olivia is a working professional who values self-expression and uniqueness. She enjoys exploring new beauty products and seeks personalised experiences. She is also environmentally conscious and prefers brands that prioritise sustainability.
Interests
Technology
Beauty
Environmentally Conscious
Olivia's Goals
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Express her personality through a personalised fragrance.
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Experience an immersive and interactive fragrance personalisation process.
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Make environmentally conscious choices when purchasing beauty products.
Olivia's Pain Points
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Difficulty identifying a good mixture of fragrances to represent her emotions / experiences
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Difficulty visualising how a fragrance will smell before making a purchase.
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Concerns about the environmental impact of fragrance products.
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Post Purchase Experience
Improve future customer experience by understanding feedback. VirScent Recycling Program is implemented where you can return your used packaging to the nearest L'Oréal or VirScent Shop to be sorted, cleaned, melted, and reused, and you are also rewarded 10% discount on your next purchases.
Delivery
Delivery using 100% electric vehicle to reduce carbon emission to customer’s home or in-store collection from our nearest factories.
Packaging
Sustainable eco-friendly packaging to transform, empower and contribute to a more sustainable world and support social and environment needs.
Personalisation
By personalising fragrances based on your preferences and experiences, the integrated AI virtual assistant reduces inventory and material wastage in mass production, including unused and returned products.
Explore Scent
Build your own personalised scent profile by choosing from top to base notes with a wide range of floral, oriental, woody, and fresh notes, using VR headsets in-store with retail assistance or in-home. In the VR space, 3D representations of the chosen scent notes gradually build the world around you to create a unique personalised view.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
SOLUTION
A digital personalised perfume with VR & AI experience
With L'Oréal’s goal on inventing the future of beauty and becoming a Beauty Techpowerhouse, these technologies can provide a distinctive and immersive experience that enhances customer satisfaction and sets the brand apart in the competitive tech market.
VR experience to provide users to stimulate the scent of perfumes by visuals and audio , enabling them to form an emotional connection with their personalised fragrance before making a physical purchase.
This solution also emphasises eco-friendly packaging materials and promotes sustainable manufacturing practices to reduce the environmental impact.
By partnering up with Philyra, L'Oréal can integrate an AI-powered Virtual Assistance in its software that helps provides customer a personalised fragrance recommendations based on the user's personality, preferences, and past experiences.
PROTOTYPE
I’ve created a prototype digital perfume VR experience using Blender.
VirScent
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NOT EVERYTHING WENT AS PLANNED
Huge Learning Curve
Learning Blender for prototyping while under time pressure was the most challenging aspect. My team's 3D design skills were limited, so I had to learn quickly with the aid of YouTube tutorials.
Intensive User Research
The product development is more influenced to the business needs. Due to the time constraint, we were limited to our user research to understand further understand our user's needs and wants.
Mentoring
As this was our first product design, we should have seek a mentoring guidance throughout our process to obtain meaningful and other perspective feedbacks to build a more accessible and meaningful product.