Background 

Lancôme purchased the Domaine De La Rose estate in Grasse in 2020 to create sustainable products for their new range of fragrances, which aligned with their “Sustainability” goals. Three films around this new rose estate have been created, which would be globally showcased to promote Lancôme’s brand and hopefully boost the launch of the new Absolute fragrance. While these films were available in other regions, they have not yet been released in China. Consequently, Lancôme was seeking Labbrand’s assistance in conducting a sustainability market research to assess Chinese consumers’ perceptions and reactions to these films before their official release on Chinese social media platforms. 

Challenge

Sustainability has remained a vague and formal concept associated with environmental protection and resources/cost saving for most Chinese consumers. The key research objectives not only included an Investigation of Chinese consumer’s reactions to Grasse’s communication films, product & brand perception but also a deep understanding of how they would link sustainability with luxury through film messages and how Chinese consumers would expect sustainability potentially to help Lancôme better resonate with Chinese consumers. 

Solution

Labbrand adopted the qualitative research methodology to explore the Chinese audience’s perception of Lancôme Grasse communication films and understanding of sustainability. Labbrand was able to illustrate a vivid universe of Lancôme from a consumer lens by virtue of planet projective exercise and gained solid answers from the evaluation of each video through the EPC method (the emergence, preference, and consistency) in focus group discussion with consumers. The market research also had a deep dive into Consumers’ attitudes to sustainability and its manifestation in the beauty category.  

Result 

Through the sustainability market research, it was found that Episode 1 stood out by most Chinese consumers and was in good shape to launch with the balance of sustainability & luxury. With recommendations for further improvements on video content provided by Labbrand, the test result helped Lancôme to launch a more resonating and compelling video to boost a refined and natural brand image in China’s market. Moreover, the sustainability perception of consumers moving from functional benefits to emotional value identified in the research played a crucial role in optimizing the strategic direction for Lancôme to demonstrate eco-friendly efforts and connect with luxury tonality.