Tech-EM Chats With Claude Prevost From L'Oreal Canada

Claude Prevost, Director of Corporate Sponsorship and Field Marketing, L'Oreal

Vital Statistics:
Age: 39
Lives in: Montreal
Office based in: Montreal
Tenure at L’Oreal: Ten years
Size of team: One plus outsource supplier support team of 6

You’ve been doing events at L’Oreal for a decade now. Over that time, how has your role evolved?
Field marketing used to be an afterthought. But with the proliferation of the media, my role changed. Then it became more “Let’s do event marketing because it’s trendy,” and approximately five years ago, we began shifting dollars away from traditional advertising towards field marketing programs as part of our strategic marketing mix. As we proved the value of our events, my role totally transformed from being an executioner of programs to playing a more strategic role within each brand team. It is now my role and responsibility to help each brand team devise short-term and well as long-term strategies designed to engage consumers on different levels.

So you’ve made the leap from tactician to strategist?
Yes, but it’s been a long road. Finding our place within the mix—combined with the emergence of the web and retailers’ ever growing appetite for trade spend dollars to fuel volume—has made things more competitive internally. Today, what you see [us doing] is the result of many years of trial and error…I’m not saying we have things down 100 percent, but we’re getting pretty close. One thing is certain, I have to constantly fight internally to maintain my fair share of investment in field marketing by constantly challenging our methods and demonstrating ROI.

What’s your definition of experiential marketing?
It’s the ultimate one-to-one experience between the brand and consumer. I think that having that one-to-one connection with consumers is not only memorable but the most impactful way to reach out to consumers. If done incorrectly it can turn off the consumer—but when done properly, it can convert the consumer into a devoted brand ambassador.

If you’re in the automotive industry, you can achieve this by strapping the consumer behind the wheel and taking them for a memorable ride. Likewise, in the cosmetics industry, it’s all about creating a personal sensory experience. There’s nothing like sitting a consumer in the right brand environment and really giving them the goose bumps experience.

What does that mean for L’Oreal? Product trial?
It is a common fact that trial is the best way to introduce and/or to convert new users to your brand—but our challenge is: how much are we willing to spend to acquire a new consumer? In the health and beauty market, there is a threshold. My biggest challenge is to constantly demonstrate to the brand teams the added value of one-to-one sampling versus other mediums such as the web or direct to home. Let’s face it, it’s always going to be a challenge to compete on a cost per sample basis, but depending on the complexity of the sample, event marketing sampling can be a great complement to a greater sampling strategy.

So what types of events does L’Oreal do and how is the way you approach events changing?
We’ve used a number of different platforms over the years to support all our CPD brands. Community, street, mall, pop-up, cinema, festival, sponsorships. To put things into perspective, over the course of the past five years, we have executed more than 150 programs, hired and trained more than 2,500 brand ambassadors and intercepted more than 4.5 million consumers. To date, L’Oreal Canada’s consumer products division has been the most innovative and dynamic player in the health and beauty category in Canada… leading such notable competitors as P&G and Unilever.

Any certain approaches that help make you stand out?
The power of our brands help us stand out. We’re lucky in our business—we’re able to develop multi sensorial platforms designed to engage our consumers through touch and trial. So when you input a consumer into our brand experience and measure retention and future purchase intent with call backs for example—our scores are usually extremely high. Our latest Garnier platform hits that mark bang on (agency: MG Design and Match Marketing). People walk in with straight hair, and they walk out with funky dos complete with a multi segment sensorial brand experience. We make sure every single consumer is properly cared for. And we really reinforce the notion of service—personalizing everyone’s experience.

So what’s next?
Well, that’s a big question. In the scope of doing thing bigger, better and stronger, we need to focus on executing bigger and more relevant event marketing programs that are strategically integrated across all touch points.

Secondly, we need to do a better job at local area marketing. More specifically, [we need to] work in close collaboration with local retailers and our trade sales forces to properly leverage community based programs to build incremental volume at retail. And to generate consumer recall after the event… see it, get it, buy it!

Last but not least, [we need to] continue to invest in our CRM strategy by developing VIP preferred offers to all consumers who have been part of the L’Oreal experience.

Tell us about you? What do you do in your free time?
I’m a sporting guy at heart. I enjoy skiing, x-skiing and hockey. In the summers, it’s sailing, windsurfing and mountain climbing. Staying active keeps me on edge—I like to work hard and play hard. I find that sports really give me the release that I need, time away from work so I come back fit and rejuvenated.