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Living Proof increases conversions, average order value, longer sessions, and was able to capture over 25 thousand emails with an AI Haircare Advisor experience powered by Revieve.
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About Living Proof
Created in 2005 by a combination of innovative hair stylists and biotech scientists, Unilever's prestige brand Living Proof has pioneered the first-of-its-kind haircare philosophy based on science. The brand is at the forefront of scientific discovery, continually investing in next-generation innovation that delivers game-changing results for all hair types and textures with a minimal routine.
Living Proof has grown into a family of 120 global patents, 450+ formulas, 45 products within seven unique collections, and 200+ awards, serving as a pioneer in the prestige haircare space. The brand's "Science in Action" philosophy enables them to stay ahead of the curve with the latest technological advances that require developing new products simultaneously, building cut-through products and services, and delivering world-class results.
Bringing the Salon Experience to an Intimate Digital Environment
With the Covid-19 outbreak, the haircare industry, as with most beauty businesses, was forced to rethink its pre-pandemic playbook and reimagine the customer experience in an entirely new way. For the science-led haircare brand Living Proof the shift was inevitable and required to bring science and technology under one roof to deliver customers a seamless and intimate brand experience.
Living Proof had already implemented a haircare quiz to guide consumers in finding the right haircare products. However, the quiz was not aligned with the brand's philosophy and wasn't converting shoppers as expected. Moreover, the brand was looking to gather quality zero and first-party data, which they could immediately use to enhance their retargeting and customer communications strategy, leading to a more personalized conversation with each customer.
As a pioneer in addressing the root consumer haircare problems, pains, and concerns, Living Proof needed to replicate the in-person haircare consultation experience digitally. Most importantly, they wanted to provide consumers with expert insights into their hair condition and types, powering rich recommendations based on their needs and educating them across the entire customer journey – all within one seamless journey.
We’ve noticed a customer experience gap that left many consumers unsatisfied with brands' products and services simply due to a lack of experience and individual hair knowledge. This is why we've decided to do a deep-dive into technology to enable customers to be in the spotlight and treat their hair like a professional stylist, said John Winer, Vice President of Digital, Living Proof.
Revieve and Living Proof Co-Developed the World's First AI Haircare Advisor
Living Proof was looking for a partner to jointly pioneer an innovation in haircare that would provide precise hair analysis and product recommendations across any brand touchpoint. As John Winer, Vice President of Digital, Living Proof, puts it, "today's consultations happen in either two ways: in a chair at a salon or through an extensive online questionnaire. Online interactions are lacking because they miss a key piece of the diagnostic: seeing what is happening with someone's hair."
Knowing its needs, Living Proof embarked on a partner search for over two years to bring to life this next-generation haircare quiz. This search eventually led them to Revieve. Winer explains, "Revieve met our vision with excitement and ingenuity, allowing us to pioneer in this space jointly."
Launched last year, both companies worked together for more than a year to debut the AI Haircare Advisor: an industry-first digital haircare experience powered by advanced technologies, computer vision, and deep learning.
The digital experience was designed to go beyond hair quizzes, modeling hair textures or tone effects and instead leverages consumer input and selfies to match with hair cleansing, conditioning, and styling products, or solving hair problems instead of concealing them. The main goal for both Revieve and Living Proof was to provide an experience addressing all hair concerns but tailored to unique needs – thus covering a wide span of hair types and styles.
In the AI Haircare Advisor experience, consumers input their hair concerns and needs for their haircare routine. After this, they take a selfie that's analyzed with patent pending AI selfie hair analysis technology that determines the condition of different hair parameters such as hair type, volume, curl type, color, and others. The user will then receive optimal haircare and styling routine suggestions through an AI recommendation engine. As a result, the customer is delighted to receive a personal and unique haircare suggestions from the Living Proof product collection.
The most crucial element of this experience is to empower customers to become brand advocates and help them understand their haircare needs and concerns on a more personal and efficient level. With the AI Haircare Advisor, we could translate our experience and knowledge into something a consumer can understand and learn from. The world's first digital haircare experience that speaks for itself is efficient, smooth, personalized, and removes any concerns they might have. We believe this is set to take the brand experience and personalization to the next level, said John Winer, Vice President of Digital, Living Proof
The AI Haircare Advisor Delivers Higher Conversions, Average Order Value, and Longer Sessions During Q2 2022
Living Proof has taken a holistic marketing approach with the deployment of the new haircare advisor. For example, the brand made its AI Haircare Advisor the centerpiece of its online experience. Moreover, the brand has extensively promoted the experience on social media taking advantage of both earned and paid media and favoring advertising mediums such as podcasts.
This holistic approach to promoting the solution and making it central to their brand experience has yielded fantastic results. Living Proof has seen a 67% conversion rate uplift amongst users engaging with the advisor compared to the previous period. Similarly, the advisor experience is helping them yield better ROAS as the experience is helping them convert users in paid search four times better.
Additionally, users who receive tailored recommendations are more likely to add products to the cart. Living Proof has seen a 20% uplift in the Average Order Value compared to the previous period. At the same time, the revenue per user is 2.4 times higher for users that went through the experience.
Furthermore, Living Proof has built the experience around having consumers share their email before receiving the product recommendations. Through this strategy, the brand has gathered over 25 thousand emails during this period. Email marketing today plays a crucial role in marketing success. For example, Many experts in email marketing have found that email drives an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, higher than any other channel.
In addition, while going through the experience, consumers will spend more time on-site discovering new products and building a more meaningful relationship with the brand because everything in the experience is personalized to the consumer. For that reason, users that engage with the AI Haircare Advisor have sessions that are 6.4 times longer.
