| President of L'Oreal North Asia Fabrice Megarbane speaks during a press conference at the company headquarters in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of L'Oreal Korea |
By Kim Jae-heun
L'Oreal Korea has revealed its plan to share the vision of diverse and sustainable beauty with Korea while promoting the country's innovative products to the world through the “KO-creation” strategy during the company's celebration 30th anniversary in Seoul, Friday.
“We are extremely grateful to all our customers, partners, suppliers and our employees, for their incredible support and contribution to L'Oreal Korea's thirty-year journey. We look forward to working even more closely with the entire Korean innovation ecosystem, to create the beauty that moves Korea and the world,” President of L'Oreal Korea Samuel du Retail said.
The French cosmetics firm set KO-creation as a key initiative, which will leverage Korea's unique beauty environment and a rich innovation ecosystem, to achieve next-level growth. KO-creation in three strategic areas are continuing Korea-inspired product innovation, expanding partnerships for research and innovation and collaborating with the government for open innovation.
“We recognize the strategic role L'Oreal Korea plays in the North Asia beauty triangle ecosystem both from the consumer insight and the research and innovation perspective. Korea offers the latest insights on consumer trends, digital innovations and biotechnology, and we are ready to work closely with our partners in Korea to capitalize on future opportunities for growth and innovation,” President of L'Oreal North Asia Fabrice Megarbane said.
Since the mid-2010s, L'Oreal Korea played a key role in bringing K-trends to global consumers, by launching K-beauty-inspired “BB cream” and cushion products globally. More recently, the K-inspired YSL pink cushion, YSL candy glaze and Lancome Clarifique pro-solution serum, have been received very well in Korea and across North Asia.
L'Oreal set Korea as a strategic hub for research and innovation, where the company is exploring new partnerships. L'Oreal recently signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with GS Caltex on bio-based cosmetic ingredients, with Cosmax on microbiome technology and Kakao Healthcare on precision beauty solutions powered by bioinformatics.
The company has also been partnering closely with Seoul city and the Ministry of SMEs and startups on open innovation, to discover and nurture startups and small- and medium-sized companies and help them scale up globally.
L'Oreal signed an MOU at Viva Technology 2023 with MSS to support startups and will be launching the Big Bang program shortly, to explore new startups in beauty tech and devices, powered by digital and artificial intelligence.