Metaverse & NFT, where skincare divides

As a competitor to the Ordinary Company, L’Oreal is one of the first skincare brand to join the world of Metaverse and NFT. They have lunched several campaigns and have accomplished some outcomes. However, the Ordinary Company and competitors operating in the same, cost-centric style, none of which put any investment or campaigns in Metaverse or NFT. This may be the start the polarizing of beauty industry, and let’s take a closer look on one of L’Oreals campaigns to see why.

In December 13 2021, L’Oreal collaborated with five female artists to create NFT inspired on “shades of red — within the new L’Oréal Paris Reds of Worth by Colour Riche”. And L’Oreal held an auction at Opensea, an NFT trading site. And till today, the hottest NFT, out of the five sold in auction, is work 4 Wrapped Ether( a cryptocurrency), equivalent to 6955 USD. According to L’Oreal, they are trying to raise awareness on that fact that “the lack of female representation in the NFT space with its approach to NFTs.”

So in layman’s term, L’Oreal wants to use this event to both support female artists and also enhance its presence in the field of NFT. However, there does not seem to be a clear selling objective involved rather than branding effort. In this case, L’Oreal did successfully addressed its brand value and demonstrated presence in NFT field. As Zofia Zwieglinska wrote in Glossy.com, this is only one of the many measures L’Oreal takes to carry their success to the area to Web 3.0.

The part that intrigued me is that they are taking the use of NFT in the right step. Unlike Clinique, which is taking NFT as a part of their loyalty program, L’Oreal are incorporating it at the same rate as the public accepts that. And it gave L’Oreal a chance to form its own fan culture from merely a beauty brand.

I believe this trend of incorporating NFT will be highly polarizing among beauty industry. Based on our study, the higher end brand with its own culture and history tends to incorporating NFT faster from their practices, bringing some cultural value to their brand name; to the country, none of the brand selling on product ingredients, like the Ordinary Company or Inky List, incorporated the NFT. I believe that begins the separation from product and brand, or in a way seperation between Metaverse and reality.