Fifty-six percent of beauty brands received challenged or feeble rankings for their digital performance in France, indicating that attention given to other markets saps commitment to the studied country, according to L2 Think Tank's latest report.
The Digital IQ Index: Beauty France investigates why digital innovation has lagged in France even though ecommerce sales are rising. As evidence of the disproportionate attention paid to other markets, 48 percent of brands surveyed have mobile optimized Web sites in France, versus 75 percent in the United States.
"One of the most surprising findings was the extent to which the French market is neglected by major beauty players in color cosmetics, skincare and fragrance," said Stasha Rosen, L2 lead researcher of the report, New York.
"However, despite competition from local beauty players in France, the Estée Lauder portfolio earns the highest average Digital IQ across its brands, thanks to consistently strong investments in ecommerce and mobile programming," she said.
The 2014 Digital IQ Index: Beauty France report assesses the digital competence of 58 global and local beauty brands in the French market over the past year.
Mind elsewhere
Beauty brands are swiftly reallocating marketing budgets away from print and television to digital. Mobile spending is expected to grow 80 percent in 2014 due to the high rates of smartphone and tablet adoption.
Lackluster performances pervade social media, according to L2. Brands produce an average of 3.8 Facebook posts, 6.3 tweets and .5 YouTube videos per week.
L'Oréal Paris France Facebook post
Considering that the average French consumer spends 1.7 hours per day on social media, additional social efforts are unlikely to be a waste.
Estée Lauder France Facebook post
Email advertising is also underutilized in France. Sixteen percent of brands send personalized emails to French consumers, while 55 percent send them to U.S. consumers.
Forty-nine percent of brands send emails in French to French consumers, while 100 percent send emails in English to U.S. consumers. This disparity also reaches into welcome emails and branded emails.
Fifty-six percent of prestige brands are buying Google ads for brand terms, which means that when consumers search for those terms, the results are up in the air.
Estée Lauder ranked 8th overall, but had the highest ranking portfolio.
While the general assessment of the digital landscape is harsh, some brands excel.
L'Oréal Paris, the 4th ranking brand, has built a thriving Instagram community.
L'Oréal Paris Flash of Genius
Lancôme, the sixth ranking brand, has demonstrated its ability to link digital campaigns with in-store events.
Social forecast
L2 Think Tank’s latest social media report makes the case that Instagram is beginning to outstrip veteran platforms because of its proliferating and attractive user base, high engagement levels and ecommerce conducive format.
Visual commerce company Olapic collaborated on the report with insights, such as user-generated images presented on brand Web sites increase conversion by 5 to 7 percent and boost average order value by 2 percent. Luxury fashion brands such as Michael Kors, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs have emerged as dominant Instagram players, suggesting that Instagram is ideal for an “evolved form of window-shopping” (see story).
Similar to any marketing area, the brands struggling can borrow ideas from those in the lead.
"Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Estée Lauder and MAC Cosmetics all maintain robust ecommerce sites for the French market," Ms. Rosen said.
"Brands in the Estée Lauder portfolio own the highest average share of results on Google.fr for brand search terms," she said.
Final Take
Joe McCarthy, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York