New technologies are influenced by the appetite of younger generations: Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z see no distinction between how they express themselves in the real world and how to behave virtually. Their reaction is leading to deep transformations, with marketing and brands shifting from a social media perspective. The difference between social media and virtual dimensions is becoming undeniable, and the best value to analyse the big change is engagement. “Today in social media you are lucky if you have 3 to 6 seconds of someone’s attention on a platform like Instagram or TikTok; meanwhile, if you look at virtual spaces, the average engagement is 13 minutes”, highlighted Dina Fierro, Senior Vice President, web3/Metaverse Group at Shiseido Americas.

A common link between social media and new digital spaces is the role of creators. Today 72% of advertisers in the US are shifting their investments to creators and influencers marketing rather than celebrities. Creators help brands share new categories and values, and these conversations are highly impacting beauty, as well as people’s perception of their health and values. “When we consider creators' economy in gaming and virtual spaces, creators are having a disruptive impact: they can help sell huge quantities of products, arts, and services because they can capture younger generations and find new codes which deeply differ from old-school beauty stereotypes”, said Fierro. In such a scenario the main rule to follow seems to be authenticity. As highlighted by Fierro, “virtual communities are very sensitive to products and marketing tools, and creators and brands must find a common strategy to offer a qualitative and valuable experience to participants. Virtual worlds will be less driven by algorithms and at the same time more spatial and participatory, allowing co-creation and reciprocity”.

While allowing more people to interact and share values, the virtual world is giving extreme opportunities for personalization and highly individual experiences. “The beauty industry is one of the first to train models to different approaches, archetypes, skin types, complexions, and ages. It is a real opportunity for the beauty industry to take a leadership role: it is an incredibly diverse, multi-cultural, and multi-age space”, highlighted Robin Raskin.

The same optimism was shared by Valerie Vacante, VP of Solutions Innovation at Dentsu, who took part in Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna last March as a speaker. “Gaming platforms like Fortnite and Roblox give players the ability to create their avatar and show up in the way they want to be represented, probably more so, with fewer barriers than in the physical world. Gaming has come a long way giving more people from various backgrounds and abilities accessibility to creativity, connection, confidence, and play. “    

“For 80% of boys the first avatar is female”, echoed Rachel Weiss. Starting from her experience in L’Oréal, Weiss underlined that “there is a lot of research in making AR deal with different hair types, and there is still a lot of work to do just in the capturing of the individual’s features and transform them into technical and digital representations”.

Dina Fierro put under evidence the fact that there is still lots to do to make diversity and inclusion become real: “Large language models are trained on the existing content on the internet, yes this is not necessarily the most diverse and representative of all consumers. Brands need to ensure that diversity and inclusion are considered thoughtfully in the creation of those models”.

When looking at the future, it seems clear that there are great expectations of benefits coming from AI, but many social changes need to happen, too. For sure the line between health, wellness, and beauty is blurring, as well as the difference between physical and digital, thanks to more and more non-traditional technologies showing up. 3D and AR will bring more immersive experiences for consumers, but brands need to generally educate their teams to understand how to enrich their customers’ personal experiences. To do that, new roles and responsibilities must be created in our industry. Inside companies, efficiency could be improved by 30 to 40% by using AI, and it would be possible to have more time and budget to pace with competitors. AI can generally reduce time wasted between creation to execution. “AI is changing customers’ support”, highlighted Valerie Vacante. “According to data provided by META, there are over 1 billion messages sent each week on social platforms, and 50 million go unanswered every day by brands”. Vacante reveals how Dentsu’s latest innovation, Intelligent Messaging is revolutionizing the way brands interact with consumers, offering seamless AI-powered conversations from in-store scans to voice commands and chat, ensuring every touchpoint is personalized from product discovery to brand loyalty. Through AI and tools such as Intelligent Messaging brands could make responses become automated, support their human resources, and communicate with their consumers.

“There are many ways to use AI responsibly”, echoed Rachel Weiss, “but it is fundamental that companies keep testing, learning, and educating their staff, so to avoid putting someone at risk as a consumer”.

“We need AI becoming more predictive so that it can develop some more creativity”, closed Robin Raskin. This is the mission of high-tech departments and experts working in the beauty industry: through AI they will have the opportunity to develop new proposals, lead physical products into a virtual reality, and build new codes and languages.

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