A trendsetter, the luxury sector has no hesitation in using the latest cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence. But there is no question of “doing tech for tech’s sake”: these tools must have a specific role, such as enhancing the customer experience, and be part of a ROI logic. Marion Scala, head of the Hi’Tech Luxury Division at Micropole, a leading data analysis consultancy, takes stock of a successful digital transformation in Luxury & Beauty retail.
Only 47% of customers are satisfied with their luxury experience, according to a BCG study.
To reverse the trend and revive the desirability of the sector, emotions in the shop and technology seem to be the right approach. Meeting with Marion Scala, expert in digital innovation and customer experience in the luxury & beauty sector. As a Partner in the Micropole consulting firm, she supports major international companies and groups in their innovation, transformation and growth strategies. Marion Scala, who is behind the Guerlain Innovation Lab and has more than 10 years’ experience in marketing and innovation, is also the author of the book L’Innovation Digitale au service de votre marque (Digital Innovation at the service of your brand), published by De Boeck Supérieur, which proposes a new consulting methodology. She regularly speaks at conferences on the future of luxury and new technologies.
LUXUS PLUS: What developments have you identified at Micropole in recent years in Luxury and Beauty retail?
Marion Scala: By 2025, the luxury sector will have clearly embraced digital transformation in the face of an increasingly connected clientele. A very interesting international study by McKinsey predicts that by the end of the year, 20% of luxury products will be purchased online.
I have personally noticed three developments that have continued to strengthen the link between the brand and its customers in recent years. The first concerns the strengthening of the omni-channel approach, with the aim of providing an ultra-smooth customer experience between the online platform and the physical shop. Thanks to conversational and intelligent AI assistant-type commerce tools, the customer can interact with the brand, which improves customer service and helps personalize the customer journey.
The second is obviously the phenomenon of immersive experiences. Live streaming, like virtual reality, has been adopted for good, transforming the way customers interact with luxury products. I am thinking of the immersive online events of Lancôme and Dior that allow customers to virtually participate in fashion shows or product launches. You can feel this desire to go back and forth between the real and the virtual. Finally, the third development concerns the use of artificial intelligence. It is a useful technology for analyzing purchasing behavior and anticipating trends. Today, brands are integrating AI in order to offer more suitable products that will correspond to customer preferences. For example, we have advanced algorithms that analyze millions of data points to identify emerging trends and thus enable brands to stay at the cutting edge of innovation.
L+: You have also developed a unique approach to innovation, considering it as the meeting of the two a priori incompatible themes of creativity and business. A complementarity that can be found in your first Trend book that you presented at the 20 society event. Could you tell us a little more about it?
Marion Scala: This meeting of creativity and business is a pragmatic approach. Often, companies want to be innovative and creative, offering new experiences to their customers. But we must not forget their primary challenge: to generate more business. So we must shape the experience by always putting creativity at the service of business. The idea is not to do tech for tech’s sake, or innovation for innovation’s sake, but to combine and encapsulate innovation in a setting that is highly unique for the brand, with the company’s codes and a clear and realistic ROI. However, innovation in luxury is often thought of in a somewhat gimmicky way, forgetting the business aspect. This creativity-business duality is really the key word behind the Hi Tech Luxury program that I developed for Micropole.
L+: This business approach is behind the innovative experience. But what about the customer, in direct contact with brands and boutiques that create emotions? “Emotion as a driver of attachment” is one of the three pillars of the methodology you have developed to think about the retail of the future and the luxury experience in particular. What exactly is it about? How does your support differ from what is generally found in the sector?
Marion Scala: To develop this methodology exclusive to Micropole, I was able to draw on my previous experience at the Innovation Lab of the Maison Guerlain and in watchmaking for the Maison Tissot. This methodology, which is based on three pillars, aims to support luxury and beauty brands in their digital transformation through the prism of customer experience and innovation. The tailor-made roadmap that we co-construct with a luxury company leads to an internal digital transformation where the professions involved will increase their skills in new technologies.
In this methodology, there are three key images that I described in the book. The first is the eye, which allows you to observe the brand’s environment and its business lines. This role of external observation, similar to that of a consultant, consists of reporting on the ecosystem as it stands. Very often, luxury brands want a digital transformation but don’t want to shake up everything internally with a system that works. The second image is the tea bag. It consists of disseminating innovations internally in a transversal, continuous and homogeneous way so as not to exclude a team. We can see that luxury brands tend to reduce their innovation teams and think about innovation in a more transversal way. And this is essential in order to achieve a transformation of the ecosystem that is progressive, diffuse and above all total. The third image is the airplane. The idea is to show that the brand must involve the teams, from the head office to those in its markets, so that this transformation is optimal. The risk is to leave aside the teams from the subsidiaries, which on the contrary must be involved in a global project.
Within the three pillars of this methodology, there are tools such as the innovation pyramid. This is a classification of projects by different degrees of complexity. There is the matrix where projects are classified according to the degree of perception of innovation from a customer perspective and the degree of complexity. Therefore, projects with a high degree of perception of customer innovation versus degree of internal complexity should always be favored, thus avoiding “gasworks” projects.
L+: Speaking of innovation, during your last presentation at the third edition of your 20-Society event, you talked about technology and artificial intelligence. I would have liked to hear your views on the roles that luxury companies assign to classical AI and generative AI. Which are the most successful and which are still largely underestimated?
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Featured Photo: Marion Scala portrait, Partner at Micropole © Micropole
