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00:00It is a conversation between generations, mother to daughter, conversation shaped by experts.
00:06And with AI, the experience is becoming a chat now. Everybody is chatting.
00:21Well, so we're here to talk about AI. What does it mean for marketing, personal connection?
00:27How do we maintain that human element in the age of AI?
00:33So let me just start with how do each of you think about the possibilities of AI in the context
00:41of advancing creativity and personal connection?
00:45That's the lead off question.
00:47That's good. Well, thank you so much for having me.
00:50And I think, you know, there are so many conversations right now about AI.
00:55I'm sure there is not a stage that exists any day I can where someone is not mentioning it.
01:02And, you know, what I would feel as if has evolved a bit is it does feel as if we're
01:06talking more about the human than just about AI.
01:09And I hope that next year we're not talking about it as an it anymore.
01:14And we're just really talking about it as a method and a tool.
01:18And we're getting back to really talking about the work.
01:21So that it's operationalized.
01:23Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
01:25And, you know, I will say I have never underestimated and also overestimated AI more and actually what it can
01:33do.
01:33In some ways, it's really amazing how it helps you find insights and really get specific to us being able
01:40to reach consumers that we've never been able to reach before in the right way.
01:44And the fact that you can now actually do messages that are relevant for them, that matters.
01:50At the same time, it doesn't always mean that it's delivering the best.
01:55That's like a derivative content conversation.
01:57I mean, when we started talking about the best creative, you know, that still has a lot of human influence.
02:05Yeah.
02:06And for you, Asmita.
02:07Asmita, I'll go back a bit, you know, YouTube reached 1 billion users in 2013.
02:15Instagram reached 1 billion users in 2018.
02:18Then e-commerce came and there was a lot of augmented reality and virtual try-ons in the journey.
02:25And TikTok reached 1 billion users in 2021.
02:29Now, through all of that, beauty journeys were democratized.
02:33There was more beauty, you know, with digitalization.
02:36And I feel now in as OpenAI and Google and all are reaching billions of users,
02:44I feel in terms of marketing, AI will augment both the consumer journey as well as the marketeer journey.
02:51And really looking forward to what you are mentioning.
02:55Yeah.
02:55So what are the key trends here?
02:58And I guess one of the big questions is how do you prevent AI-enabled marketing from becoming generic, right?
03:06Because the AI system is designed to create the lowest common denominator in a way.
03:13Is that a challenge?
03:15Is that an opportunity?
03:16Is it just a question of how do you incorporate it?
03:19So it's nice to be able to answer this question in front of an amazing, amazing CMO.
03:25Because I will tell you, the best ones aren't going to let that happen.
03:29The best CEOs are not going to let that happen.
03:32Because when you actually care about what you are providing to your consumer,
03:37you know that you have to include creators.
03:40You know you have to include, like, the human influence.
03:44And some of the friction that makes something special, you understand that.
03:48And I think in the beauty world, you understand that significantly because there are lots of options.
03:54And so if you are not distinctive and if you're not building some type of loyalty connection to your consumer,
04:01they're going to choose someone else.
04:07So as LLMs are becoming the new front door to beauty discovery, we are thinking about three questions.
04:15We are thinking about, are we appearing in the answer layer?
04:19Then we are thinking about, well, if beauty is a conversation, how are we shaping that conversation when everything is
04:27becoming like a chat?
04:28And we have been very good in e-commerce over the last 10 years.
04:33How are we going to become the Asian tech commerce category captains in beauty?
04:38So those are the three questions we are thinking.
04:40And just to elaborate a little more on the first one, how do you appear in the answer layer?
04:45It's a content transformation.
04:47And it's a content transformation in terms of, do you have medical journals, credible content?
04:52And does your product appear?
04:54And that's why La Roche-Posay does so well for us.
04:57It's about brand content.
04:58And does the brand content have the right transcripts?
05:02Can the machine read it on the websites, et cetera?
05:05And it's a product data.
05:07And is our product data rich enough?
05:09So all in all, it's a big content transformation that we all have to do.
05:13Yeah, there is this question of, you have to market to the machines in a way.
05:19Is that a way to think about, you know, making your marketing message machine readable?
05:25You know, I wouldn't say market to the machine.
05:28But I will say, as Mita highlighted, it is truly about your data structures.
05:33Like, do you have structured data that actually allows, like, anyone to find you, both your consumers and LLMs?
05:41I will share, you know, when you start, I spend a lot of time talking about agentic commerce.
05:47And when you start having conversations about what does it mean to be discoverable, you actually find that a lot
05:52of people are like, oh, we have brand guidelines.
05:54But then you pull out the brand guideline, and it hasn't been updated in a while.
05:58All it is, it talks about descriptors.
06:01It doesn't give any context.
06:03And when people shop today, they shop more not just about the it, but about what's happening around it.
06:09There's a different type of intent.
06:11It's also about experience.
06:12You look and you say, I am going to can, and I know it's going to be 100 degrees, and
06:18what is the best makeup?
06:19And that is how you make a decision.
06:21You don't just say, what's the perfect lip color?
06:24And that is what's changing.
06:26So I actually think we are creating data sets and enriching the data in a way that touches more consumers
06:32versus less.
06:34Totally agree.
06:35Let me ask this.
06:36Do that.
06:40There are going to be different levels of adoption.
06:44What are the companies that are most forward-looking, where are they in the journey of AI adoption and operationalizing
06:54that piece of it?
06:55And where would you put L'Oreal in terms of, do you need to do?
06:59I would use, so I was to say, I think L'Oreal is a great example.
07:05Well, I will tell you, I spoke to you about the consumer journey and the marketeer journey, right?
07:10So I'm separating the two a bit, because what is the consumer seeing and what are the marketeers doing?
07:15So let me talk about the marketeer journey here.
07:18And every bit can have a bit of AI.
07:21Think about insight generation.
07:22So we are taking about 100,000 documents of our company and putting a knowledge management layer, so when we
07:30do proprietary beauty research, people can read it in a few minutes and summarize it.
07:35When it comes to creation, and there's a lot of talk about creation, because we are in the festival of
07:40creativity, then you can use multiple models, agencies, different operating models, but all in all to augment creativity.
07:48Whether it's Nano Banana, or Adobe Firefly, or tools from you, Accenture.
07:53So we are using that at scale, and Createch is our Gen AI content platform, which thousands of marketeers are
08:00using.
08:01Then when it comes to, and I'm going to finish in a minute, so we have talked about, you know,
08:06insight creation.
08:07Marketing is activation, AI-powered media.
08:10AI-powered media means better strategic direction, so that the execution can be automated.
08:17And even measurement, I mean, you know, when you do MMMs, et cetera, you can democratize it using AI.
08:25So throughout the value chain, you can create value for the marketeers, and that is what we are a bit
08:30busy with at the moment.
08:32That's great.
08:33That's great.
08:34I agree.
08:35Plus one.
08:36I was going to ask you, so do you have a specific example of where AI provided some sort of
08:43insight or a creative inspiration?
08:47That you might not have gotten from a human team or something like that.
08:51You know, I'm going to give, I'm going to try and give a few examples in one.
08:56So one of the things that we have found, if you think about the process today, the process today is
09:01long, even when it's fast.
09:03When you think about what it takes to, A, when you're thinking about the concept and the idea, and then
09:10you're briefing the agency.
09:11And then someone is doing that often manually.
09:14You're briefing.
09:15Then after you're briefing, the agency gets it, and they start to show iterations in different territories.
09:20And then you're like, no, you didn't understand the brief.
09:22And then you're going back and forth for a period of time before you even get to the point of
09:27shooting.
09:28Okay?
09:29So what that means is you're not testing.
09:31You actually don't know yet.
09:33What AI allows you to do from a prototyping perspective, it allows you to imagine, like, what it could feel
09:41like, what it could look like in a much shorter period of time.
09:44It allows you to take your voice, which, like, your language is actually probably the most natural way of coming
09:51up with ideas.
09:52You can change that into a brief.
09:54You can change that into an image.
09:56You can change that into a video.
09:58Just to prototype concepts before you even make a decision.
10:02And so when you start thinking about how do we come up with, I actually believe that after we get
10:07through sort of maybe a still learning phase,
10:10we're actually going to be at the point where we deliver better products, better experiences, and better content because we
10:17would have tested and tried more.
10:19Yeah.
10:20Once you get experience, it's going to be better, right?
10:23No, I'm going to build on what you're saying, Ndidi.
10:26To take that example of prototyping, I'll give you an example which we don't think about all the time.
10:32We have a lot of luxury brands.
10:34And luxury brands have retail.
10:36And retail design, it's so beautiful, right?
10:41Have you seen our airports and travel retail?
10:44Now we are seeing our brands like Valentino and all do all their retail design on AI first because you
10:51can try so many different varieties and shelves and then create it or post-produce it because you can't create
10:58a shelf as quickly.
10:59So that is bringing your idea to life.
11:02Yeah, absolutely.
11:03It's true.
11:03What is the value of using AI to do, you know, synthetic testing of how well a creative piece is
11:12going to perform?
11:13Is that something that you're doing or looking at?
11:16Is there value in it?
11:17Yeah.
11:18Well, we are testing it for sure.
11:21So our consumer and market intelligence teams are working with Kantar and Ipsos to do some synthetic testing.
11:28But I think even more than that, the whole content process can go faster.
11:33And I would focus more on that than just a single use case and a single instance of something because
11:40the process itself is going through a change.
11:43Great.
11:43And, you know, I actually think, Todd, I think it's an and.
11:46I think so often, you know, in this world where we want to be so polarizing, it is, do you
11:52use it, do you not?
11:53You know, do you only use human?
11:55And I actually believe that it should be both.
11:58It's an input, right?
11:59It's an input.
12:00And you should not value one over the other.
12:03But I also want to say that our human collection wasn't great either.
12:07And, you know, we would say we were pulling diverse groups and it was never really diverse.
12:12We would say that we were pulling.
12:14We often you can only do a certain subset.
12:16And what AI allows you to do is not just through synthetic personas, but also gather more insights across from
12:24actual humans.
12:26And at some point, you just have to have a gut instinct and take a risk, right?
12:31In the entertainment world, films test great and they bomb at the box office.
12:36Very true.
12:37Or vice versa.
12:38So you don't exactly know what's going to ring the bell.
12:42And I'm not sure synthetic personas would have been the answer or the test group wasn't necessarily the answer.
12:48I think it's both of them.
12:51So Esmita, for you, you know, L'Oreal beauty brand, luxury brand, it's deeply personal, very emotional roots in the
13:01brand, right?
13:02More than 100 years old.
13:03How do you maintain that authenticity and that personal connection with AI?
13:10And I think we've been talking about how you manage this whole process and maintain the core of your brand
13:17messaging, right?
13:18Now, I'll shift gears.
13:20Consumer journey, marketeer journey.
13:22Think about beauty, which has always been a conversation.
13:26It is a conversation between generations, mother to daughter, conversation shaped by experts.
13:32And with AI, the experience is becoming a chat now.
13:37Everybody is chatting.
13:38So our objective is to redefine that dialogue.
13:43And to redefine that dialogue, you need structured, unstructured data, product data, information on how consumers speak.
13:51So beauty genius is one example, which is an AI powered personal beauty advisor, but it is fed by all
13:58the knowledge of the L'Oreal Paris brand and L'Oreal group scientific knowledge.
14:02So you can ask questions to it.
14:05And coming to the human part, people ask very intimate questions.
14:09So they ask questions about I'm a teenager.
14:11I'm suffering with acne.
14:12What should I do about my fine lines?
14:15Maybe I'm losing some hair.
14:17And can you give me some advice?
14:19And that intimacy can be very, the only thing is that we have to be a definitive source of truth.
14:26That what comes out should be credible as an answer.
14:29And therefore, that is our focus.
14:32Yeah, by the way, I'm losing hair, too.
14:34Okay.
14:35Beauty genius.
14:36I need some of your products.
14:36You need to go to L'Oreal.
14:39What were you going to say?
14:40Didi, I was going to ask, go ahead.
14:41You know, I actually, one of the things that I just want to amplify is it is creating a different
14:47relationship with the consumer.
14:49And I also believe that for most companies, it allows them to actually think about how they can play different
14:55roles in the consumer's life after they've built that trust.
15:00All right.
15:00Well, I think we have time for one last round of questions.
15:03I would ask this.
15:04What excites you most about the future?
15:07And what advice would you have to people who have questions about AI in terms of what are the success
15:17factors?
15:20It's a two-part question.
15:21I think we should be more demanding of AI.
15:25You know, I think if you look at the last decade of marketing, there has been so much fragmentation, fragmentation
15:32of the consumer journey, upper funnel, lower funnel, online, offline, fragmentation of the marketeer journey, e-commerce marketing, brand marketing,
15:40content marketing, fragmentation of this ecosystem and can line.
15:44I think we should demand from AI, what can you do to bring the consolidation so that there can be
15:51more end-to-end processes, solutions, tools, conversations, but just be more demanding of AI.
15:59That's good.
16:00You know, I will say I am always hopeful for the future.
16:04I always believe that a better way will be found.
16:09And I do think that one of the things that happens now is that we spend a lot of time
16:15talking about AI being, I would say, cost-driven, productivity-driven.
16:21And we don't spend enough time talking about how AI can be a growth driver, how it can be a
16:25catalyst of us reaching new consumers, a catalyst for us engaging with our teams in a different way, a catalyst
16:32for us to learn and solve more than what we've ever had before.
16:36And that is what makes me excited and inspired about what's to come.
16:40Do you sense in general, you know, a desire to do that?
16:47Yes.
16:48Yes.
16:48I think it's hard.
16:50It's hard.
16:50Why is it hard?
16:51You know, what you find often for a lot of organizations is that there's a lot of analysis.
16:57As Amita said, it's so fragmented.
16:59How do you make the right decision?
17:00And some make no decision.
17:02And so they just stay in this limbo state where they don't make movement.
17:06And then 12 months has gone by and nothing has changed.
17:10So that's hard.
17:12And then also it is hard to change people.
17:15This is a human conversation.
17:17And it's really, really challenging to just try and flip a switch because you turned on the AI and then
17:24all of a sudden you expect people to change.
17:25You're trying to change the culture of an organization.
17:28Yeah.
17:29There are tensions, right?
17:30If you're on the street, you see the tension.
17:33To me, there are three tensions.
17:35What can AI do?
17:36What can AI not do?
17:37Are we demanding enough to change the industry?
17:40The second, the power of the algorithm versus the culture, the power of culture and the power of algorithm.
17:46So there seems to be a tension.
17:48And then the whole tension around skills.
17:51Are there just AI skills?
17:53Are there human skills?
17:54Which one are we doing better?
17:56And I think that tension is okay.
17:58But at some point, we need to resolve that tension and let it coexist and then go on to the
18:04next part of the marketing shift.
18:07Yeah.
18:08Fascinating.
18:08We can keep going.
18:09I think we're out of time.
18:10It's too hot.
18:11It's too hot.
18:12It's too hot.
18:14Hot conversation.
18:15Thank you both.
18:17Nice to have you.
18:18Thank you very much.
18:19Thank you very much, guys.
18:27We'll see you next time.