L’Occitane Group talks geotargeting and travel-retail

At this year’s TFWA Global show in Cannes, we caught up with the head of marketing for travel-retail at L’Occitane Groupe, Mona L’Hostis, to talk about innovation pipelines, future markets to watch, and the runaway success of Sol de Janeiro.

Cosmetics Design-Europe (CDE): Why do you think Sol de Janeiro has been such a success story in travel-retail?​

Mona L’Hostis (MLH) I think that retailers were really looking out for the brand. Plus, we are brand amplifiers and are very socially driven –  especially TikTok driven – and it is a mix of these things.

We disrupted what was being done before because we wanted to do things differently. We wanted people to know that we were intentionally directing towards travel-retail.

We also did geotargeting advertising to find new potential customers at the airport. We did this geotargeting at nine airports this summer. So, as soon as someone at the airport opened TikTok, Instagram or Facebook, they would receive an ad on their phone with a clear ‘call to action’ explaining that we were here, in the same airport as them, right now.

Visually the advert was joyful, in our signature yellow colour with a woman dancing and the iconic Bum Bum cream, so it caught their attention.   

We’ve reached more than seven million travellers through this campaign this summer.

CDE: What’s coming next for the Sol de Janeiro brand?​

MLH: We plan to continue deployment. Last year there were more than 600 new door openings and now we plan to strengthen our presence. We have proven that we are a strong brand and now we need to focus on partnering with retailers and to drive new consumers into store.

We will also be focusing on novelties with some big launches. Our innovation pipeline is wide, so we can use this to drive consumers. For example, we plan to launch some limited-edition mists because we know that people are looking for these mists. We will also expand our body care ranges.

The Bum Bum creams are still our number one collection, and we will launch some novelty products in these.

Plus, we also have some nice animations on top of this innovation. We have been very animation-driven this summer!

CDE: How’s things going with Elemis? Any plans on the horizon? ​

MLH: Elemis will undergo a ‘targeted relaunch’ and we are using the awareness of local markets to propel the brand – so you will see Elemis in new doors this year. In terms of travel retail, we are planning to utilise the ‘British corridors’, as it’s a British-born brand, so it’s already well-known among these travellers.

We also have a great innovation pipeline for this brand too. For example, we will launch two new products in travel-retail for  our iconic Pro Collagen collection. One is a serum, and the other is an SPF 50 fluid.

For travel-retail we have a ‘less is more’ approach for Elemis.

CDE: You bought the Italian home fragrance brand Dr Vranjes Firenze at the start of the year. What’s happening with this at the moment? ​

It was a new acquisition, so it’s still early days. We can’t talk about specific plans to launch into travel-retail right now, but we need to focus on having the right assortment for travellers.

The brand is based around personalising the size of your home perfume or candle, but this needs some consideration around how this can best work in the travel-retail space.  

CDE: The APAC region has been suffering in terms of travel-retail and hasn’t got back to its pre-Covid best. How is travel-retail generally going in this region for the group? Any plans on the horizon that you can talk about? ​

MLH: L’Occitane en Provence is our major focus in the APAC region. In Hong Kong, we have just launched a ‘Botanical Lab’ popup as an extension of the L’Occitane Hotel that we launched last year. So, we have our store here as well as this popup, which showcases a mix of our science and botanical expertise. Here we are showing both hair care and skin care and are offering a personalised diagnosis for scalp care.  L’Occitane en Provence is the number one hair care brand in Asian travel-retail and we are seen as hair care experts in this region.

We’ve recently launched a new anti-hair loss product that adds 17,000 new hairs to your head in just three months. We spent a lot of time working on this innovation to offer something that was sensorial as well as efficacious. Often these kinds of products are efficient but sensorial too. It’s a bi-phase product you shake before use and the scent is designed to be calming and relaxing.

CDE: And finally, in what regions do you see future potential for beauty travel-retail? ​

MLH: Many of the Middle Eastern markets are very important for us.  ​

We’ve just entered Dubai with the Sol de Janeiro brand – it’s been around three months since launch. Erborian also launched into Dubai one month ago, too.

We are now trying to use our wide portfolio to expand our footprint in this region.