Building Digital China: L’Oréal Partners with Tencent at Cannes

At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Chinese marketing conglomerate, Tencent, managed to steal the show once again with an amazing presentation of original and revolutionary ideas that had brands and agencies alike, fired up for the future of “Digital China”.

PRNewswire reports, Tencent held spirited conversations with a few of L’Oreal’s top executives to discuss strategies on how to leverage modern marketing trends.

Among the attendees at this high-profile gathering, was L’Oreal’s Chief Digital Officer for Consumer Products, Asmita Dubey, as well as Dan Lu, who’s L’Oréal’s Strategy Expert, Senior Director of Tencent Social Ads and Senior Director of the Strategy Development Department.

Also in attendance were Sophia Ong, who is the KA at Tencent OMG and GM of Strategic Partnership and Chairman of Tencent Advertising, and SEVP of Tencent, SY Lau.

“Embrace smart retail and use content to reach and connect with consumers for business growth. But sustainable growth is not just about making money. Society is demanding that brands, both public and private ones, serve a social purpose,” says Sy Lau.

Content and “Smart Retail”

The formation of the CMO Growth Council points to the increasing importance of having a Chief Marketing Officer when it comes to promoting business growth.

SY Lau pointed out that the Chinese context in particular, shows the importance of content as an indispensable tool for reaching wider audiences and growing company revenue, while also highlighting the importance of what he termed as “smart retail.”

However, Lau also pointed out that these days, real sustainable growth can only be achieved by a brand that looks beyond the bottom line to making a measurable social impact that makes it easier to connect with consumers on a deeper level.

On the other hand, Sophia Ong focused on how brands can leverage smart marketing strategies to drive business growth using Tencent WE+, which is the organization’s latest integrated marketing platform to date.

China’s Biggest Social Network

What Tencent WE+ does for brands, is that it makes it easier for them to integrate their CMOs within the Tencent network, which enables them to improve business intelligence through the network’s trio of fundamental competencies:

• There’s WEpower which gives brands access to an untold number of internet users, while simultaneously linking data silos.
• WEngage which enables brands to get the most out of IP, while also making it easier for them to integrate consumer scenarios with content.
• WEmbrace, on the other hand, is focused on helping brands drive multi-conversions and infiltrate particular consumer touchpoints.

With Tencent WE+, brands get a comprehensive, full-circle service from the planning stages all the way to implementation and metrics.

So far, L’Oreal has been able to use the consumer behaviour data insights provided by Tencent WE+ to create specific and effective content that actually converts and engages.

For example, L’Oreal partnered with WeChat and famous Chinese singer Li Yuchun, to create a live streaming event that made it possible for Chinese consumers to feel as though they were actually on the red carpet attending the Cannes Film Festival.

Not only that, but viewers were also given the opportunity to “borrow” a celebrity’s look by purchasing the L’Oreal products used to create it.

Image via @L’Oreal #BeautyForAll

During the meeting, L’Oreal also shared some pretty valuable nuggets on how brands can really stand out when participating in a campaign or via a platform that features multiple other brands.

Distinguishing Your Brand

According to L’Oreal’s background, it’s clear that getting back to the basics can make things easier, because it allows you to go back to the brand’s original identity, which is what the consumer probably fell in love with in the first place.

Representatives from Tencent also added that finding an appropriate angle can be the key to connecting with consumers that share the same values as the brand. However, the success of this strategy largely depends on using the right content, while keeping in mind, that Chinese audiences respond incredibly well to long-form online content.

Stay tuned for the latest improvements! In the meantime, discover these 7 Snapchat Marketing Tools to Build Your Brand or learn Why Every Business Needs Pay-Per-Click Advertising and keep your site at the top.