What does it take to succeed with mobile advertising? Maybe not thinking of it as advertising at all, but instead seeing it as an access point into peoples’ lives.
AI company GumGum—which specializes in computer vision—recently spoke with Rachel Weiss, VP of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at L’Oréal, about how the beauty industry giant succeeds by understanding the context of mobile and why she sees devices as experiential problem-solvers. Here’s what she had to say:
How does L’Oréal approach mobile advertising?
We don’t think about mobile advertising as advertising. We think about it as an experience. We try and think about how the device can be the center of an experience that is specific, useful and adds value to our portfolio of brands and to our consumer.
So you’re not thinking about it in terms of traditional mobile display?
I don’t believe in the disruption part of an ad experience anymore—it’s really about how you insert a brand in a specific, useful way at the right time and place.
Does that come from the way people relate to their devices?
I think about mobile devices as “hearts.” They’re the remote control of our lives. How do marketers fit in with that kind of philosophy? That’s how I think about mobile experience. The mobile device is the hub—it’s solving problems for our brand, for the beauty industry and for our consumer in a useful way.
What does the L’Oréal mobile experience look like?
At L’Oréal, we know that people don’t want to talk to humans anymore; they want to interact with their mobiles—something that’s not a person—so we launched Makeup Genius, a mobile-first augmented reality (AR) tool that alleviates the need for shoppers to even go in-store anymore.
How do you incorporate a mobile strategy into an overarching digital strategy?
We don’t think first about which platform (mobile, desktop) we’re creating ads for; we think about which environment mobile can add a solution to that doesn’t already exist. The channel comes after that. You have to put the experience first and what problem you are trying to solve, then tailor to that before choosing the appropriate channel.
Is cross-device targeting important to providing a great brand experience on mobile?
Mobile is so much more fragmented. It’s not a one-size-fits-all answer anymore! In terms of cross-device on mobile, how we’re capturing people along that tunnel and how we think about attribution is difficult. We’re thinking about and creating content that is specific to that moment and to that device.
What do you see in mobile’s future?
I see three things.
The first is consumer care within messaging apps. Utilizing what the messaging platform can do, whether it’s a bot or a human. This is a good way for brands to start using mobile in an authentic way for customer care.
The second is the increasing depth of apps, be they for gaming, utility, diagnostics, or just shopping—this is a next-generation piece of what the future can look like.
The third kind of ties the other two together. How can a brand or company provide on-demand utility, knowing where you are and who you are? I see the future as brands adding personalized and specific experiences, provided to consumers at scale to solve problems or make them happy.
