Is the 'Metaverse” the future of beauty or a bubble?

《Beauty Headlines》New Media

In 2021, the concept of "Metaverse" will become popular all over the world. It seems that the Metaverse is "flaring out", which may be due to the accelerated withdrawal of capital and the "diversion" of the popularity of new technologies such as Chat GPT. This situation will begin to appear in 2022.

However, In recent days, beauty companies have been increasing their presence in the "metaverse" very frequently. It can be seen that the wind of the metaverse in the beauty industry continues to blow.

01

The wind keeps blowing

Many beauty companies have invested in “Yuan Universe”

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More and more beauty brands are embracing the "metaverse", either to improve user experience, to let consumers understand the brand story, or to let consumers understand the product in a more three-dimensional way.

On May 23, foreign media reported that the first immersive virtual store jointly created by Amorepacific’s brand Laneige and the AR/VR e-commerce platform Obsess will be officially launched in the near future.

Julien Bouzitat, chief marketing officer of Amorepacific America, the parent company of Laneige, said that the virtual store is a powerful customer engagement platform that can let consumers deeply understand Laneige’s scientific knowledge and digital content, And help them choose products that suit their skin needs.

Coincidentally, just recently, Urban Decay held its first-ever metaverse makeup conference "Urban Decay Eye-Con". It is understood that Decline City’s press conference was held on the Metaverse gaming platform Roblox, and 18 virtual makeup looks were released on the platform for players to try on.

At the same time, Elizabeth Arden also recently launched its first virtual store experience in cooperation with the Obsess platform, allowing customers to experience the brand products in real-life situations to understand the story behind the brand, and ultimately form a digital-driven consumer group.

Obsess founder and CEO Neha Singh said: “This virtual store experience will provide brand consumers with unique interactive content to discover, learn about and purchase Elizabeth Arden’s products. A new approach to skincare, makeup and fragrance.”

In addition, the wind of the Yuan Universe has also reached the upper reaches of the beauty industry.

On May 18, COSMAX announced that in order to deepen the interconnection with its customer partners and the MZ generation, the main force in the cosmetics market, it has created the COSMAX metaverse platform COSMAX META. In "COSMAX META", COSMAX uses digital means to create a metaverse space, three-dimensionally presenting its patented materials and technologies, cosmetic dosage forms and other contents.

In fact, in 2023, the concept of "Yuanverse" has not cooled down in the beauty industry, and has even become a focus track in the minds of investors.

L’Oréal Corporate Venture Capital Fund BOLD announced in January that it would make a minority investment in the Metaverse platform Digital Village. Public information shows that Digital Village was founded in 2021 and will create cutting-edge virtual products for L'Oreal's brands and provide a more in-depth consumer experience for the beauty industry.

02

Play with "flower"

The beauty industry is involved in the "Yuanverse"

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The trend of "Yuan Universe" seems to have never stopped in the beauty industry.

In the past few years when the concept of "metaverse" has become popular, the beauty industry, which is already at the forefront of trends, has already started the "crazy entry" mode.

Major beauty brands have also played with "flowers" in the concept of "metaverse".

For example, Create a virtual character. After the virtual beauty expert "Liu Yexi" was born, the "Yuanverse Beauty" trend was instantly launched. Since then, many beauty brands have stepped up their cooperation with virtual characters through cross-border co-branding and cross-border endorsements. As early as 2021, L'Oreal Hairdressing officially announced the virtual character AYAYI as its color refresh official, and declared that AYAYI would be defined as a "digital person of the metaverse" to start metaverse marketing; in the same year, Laneige announced its official entry into the metaverse, inviting special guests Chuan CHUAN, a popular virtual idol with twin eyes and different eyes, has crossed over to serve as Laneige's trend experience officer; this year, NARS also launched its first batch of virtual brand ambassadors "NARS Power Players"; from the perspective of domestic brands, Huaxizi's official virtual IP "Huaxizi" " also earned enough attention, Winona even launched two avatars, "Weiwei" and "Brother Nuo"...

At the same time, virtual spokespersons have also set off a new wave in the field of beauty brand endorsements, including L'Oréal's virtual spokesperson Ou Xiaomi, Sulwhasoo's virtual spokesperson ALICE, Perfect Diary's virtual spokesperson STELLA, and Nature Hall's virtual spokesperson The spokesperson is Tang Xiaomei.

Another example, launches NFT products with related concepts. NFT digital collection, one of the Yuanverse marketing technologies, is even more popular among beauty players. Take the NFT small brown bottle jointly launched by Estee Lauder and Decentraland as an example. Consumers can obtain wearable NFT equipment in the virtual world to dress up their virtual images. L'Oréal Paris teamed up with five female artists to create and launch NFT lipstick - Reds of Worth NFT, and auctioned it on OpenSea. The minimum starting price for each NFT is US$1,500. In addition, international brands such as Clinique, Givenchy, MAC and Nivea, as well as domestic first-line brands such as Zhitang, have also launched a series of NFT products.

Another example is,create a virtual space. By creating an immersive virtual scene that is interactive and consistent with the brand image, the brand builds a digital image for consumers and enhances the consumer experience. The above-mentioned Laneige, Decline City, Elizabeth Arden and Cosmax entered the market through this method.

In addition, there are also many domestic and foreign brands seizing the limelight by applying for the Yuanverse trademark. In 2022 alone, L'Oreal Group applied for 17 trademarks related to NFT and metaverse categories, involving its Kiehl's, Maybelline, Pureology, Urban Decay, Redken, etc.; in addition, the beauty brand founded by the well-known singer Rihanna Makeup brand Fenty Beauty has also applied for the Metaverse trademark; earlier, Perfect Diary applied to register "Perfect Diary Metaverse" and "Pico Bear Metaverse". However, Yixian E-commerce said that it has applied for trademark protection purposes and has not yet registered it. Metaverse plan.

Not only that, in today's day when live streaming is popular, e-commerce platforms even provide 7×24 hours of uninterrupted live broadcast services for many big beauty brands through beauty anchors.

The involution of the beauty industry is well known, but now it seems that in the emerging technology of "Metaverse", beauty brands have also started the "involution" mode, striving to "compete for the beauty of the metaverse" through various methods. Universe”, “stealing” consumers’ attention.

03

The metaverse is “immature”

Is the beauty industry going to face the "time to wake up from the dream"?

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Although beauty brands are still actively deploying in the field of the Metaverse, the actual situation is far less colorful than the concept of the Metaverse, and difficulties in getting closer to reality still exist. “It may take decades or even longer to realize the ultimate form of the Metaverse.” Kaiyuan Securities pointed out in an analysis report on the Metaverse.

In fact, there is still a considerable technical threshold for the development of the Yuanverse. If beauty products want to use virtual reality to allow consumers to better perceive the products and experience them, there is still a long way to go. For example, consumers wearing VR glasses may cause 3D vertigo. Due to technical reasons, the virtual products launched by beauty brands using NFT cannot be stably output.

Judging from the actions of major beauty brands, due to the maturity of the “Metaverse” itself, most brands’ current exploration of the “Metaverse” remains at the marketing stage.

However, for beauty brands, although the industry is full of uncertainty, everyone wants to seize the future. After all, waiting means missing the opportunity to build relationships with users. Marketing through this emerging future concept and interactive method is also a new way to connect with consumers, while also conveying more technological and futuristic values.

On one side is the immature "Yuan Universe", and on the other side is the beauty brand that is "involved in the Yuan Universe". The beauty industry’s desire to tell the story of the “Yuanverse” will not happen overnight. Technology is still being iteratively upgraded. Whether it can maintain long-term innovation to ensure its healthy and sustainable development is worthy of the attention of beauty brands. and think deeply about important issues. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the dream of "Yuanverse Beauty" can come true.

Producer / Huang Zhidong

Chief Editor / Chen Shanhua

Author / Liang Ling

Editor / Huang Youzhi

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