The second edition of the 'Digital Beauty Summit' was held on Thursday 6th July at Cinesa Diagonal. This event, which is the prelude to the awards, welcomed more than 200 attendees to learn from leading experts and professionals about the current situation and the near future of the beauty sector in terms of digitisation, this time focusing on artificial intelligence.
The day was directed by Sara Jiménez, PR & Communication Manager of the Beauty Cluster, and began at 9:30 am, with the institutional welcome of Alfonso Álvarez-Prieto, CEO and founder of Scentmate by dsm-Firmenich, and presented at the last assembly held by the Beauty Cluster in April, as a new member of the Board of Directors of the Cluster. With the presentation of Adrià Martinez, Project Manager of the Beauty Cluster, the first of the three blocks of the day was presented: Digital Ecosystem, the future of beauty. Adrià Martínez, in his speech, presented the main strengths, opportunities and challenges presented by AI in the sector and how it is currently being adapted to the beauty and cosmetics sector. He also explained other forms of digitalisation that we are familiar with, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and, of course, the metaverse. He also explained the main concerns surrounding artificial intelligence, such as the impact on the environment, the attribution of intellectual property and copyright, society's concern about employability and security.
Justo Hidalgo, from ADigital, took over in this first block to continue delving into Artificial Intelligence, in this case, from the legislative point of view in the European Union. During his turn, he delved into the concept of Generative Artificial Intelligence, which makes it possible to explain complex concepts and improve the steps to be followed in all processes and systems. Justo Hidalgo specified that in the case of the beauty sector, AI is present throughout the entire value chain. Finally, Hidalgo concluded that AI must be manageable by a human being and indicated the expectations and requests to create a responsible AI.
This first block ended with a presentation by Marta Panera, Head of Marketing & Communications at FOREO, who explained the concept of AI by applying it to the marketing, sales and customer sector. She provided some very relevant data, such as the fact that the use of AI has allowed a 50% increase in lead acquisition and a cost reduction of between 40-60%. Panera also stressed that the objective of Artificial Intelligence is to predict scenarios, make decisions and help us to be more valuable, solve complex problems and adapt to new situations. Marta Panera closed this first block by presenting some cases of retailers that have already incorporated AI in their shopping experiences and with a reflection: "the only option is innovation".
Camila Tomás, Vice President Innovation & Technology at Puig, opened the second block: 'Innovation and tools to compete in a digital world'. During her presentation, 'Chat GPT loves perfume', she invited the audience to reflect on the use of AI, specifically on the famous ChatGPT. Camila spoke about Puig's tool, WikiParfum, which is a database with more than 22,000 references and very powerful algorithms that allow to understand and offer a recommendation to the client with greater accuracy and precision. Alfonso Álvarez-Prieto spoke about how digitalisation and innovation have radically changed the paradigm of the industry, as, for example, in the case of Scentmate by dsm-Firmenich, which allows fragrances to be created quickly, digitally and in a totally innovative way. The CEO and founder of Scentmate by dsm-Firmenich also highlighted the role of digitalisation and innovation as an essential and indispensable factor in gaining a competitive advantage over other companies.
Adam Goswell, LUSH Tech R&D, spoke about the BathBoth, a project that started five years ago, and explained the importance of sensory experiences and the future role of the metaverse, a technology that Lush has already flirted with, and web 3.0. Adam also explained the company's exit from meta social networks and outlined the future prospects for retail, artificial intelligence, web 3.0 and the metaverse to ensure fruitful and unforgettable experiences for the consumer in their own home. Florian Brunet, from DKSH, ended the coffee break by talking about digital transformation and what the main problems of B2B were and emphasised that, although all companies know that they have to reinvent themselves, they are still failing in the how. Florian Brunet explained DKSH's Customer Facing Portal in which they try to improve tracking to improve the B2B customer experience.
After the coffee break, Víctor M. Ruiz Sánchez. Co-Founder & CEO actiMirror became the fifth speaker of this second block to talk about actiMirror. Victor began by surprising the audience with some statistics such as that men look at themselves about 5 times in the mirror and are on average, about 8 minutes a day, while women, although they do it less often, do it for longer. ActiMirror is a mirror capable of detecting skin problems and also detects the values of some skin problems. It compares faces with more than 5,000,000 faces to provide a complete 'skin analysis'. Lara Rodríguez, Client Service Manager at Shoppertec, explained that pharmaceutical influencers have become a formula for success on Instagram for brands, as social networks influence consumers' decision-making more than we think. Lara Rodríguez explained that nowadays, pharmacies have undergone a digitalisation process and more and more pharmacies have their own social media profiles, websites and even e-commerce. Lara Rodríguez ended her presentation by warning of the importance of social networks and of treating a pharmacist as a true influencer, as consumers often obey their recommendations.
The third and last block of the day began with the presentation of Marcos Domínguez, Beauty Vertical Lead, Pinterest Spain & Portugal. In this block, which addressed the role of communication and social networks, Marcos Domínguez explained the importance of Pinterest in the beauty sector. He presented this platform as a safe and inspirational site for brands and the importance and presence of Pinterest at an international level. In 2022, Pinterest was positioned in the United States as the platform that transmits more truthfulness, even above LinkedIn. In the case of Spain, there are almost 11 million registered users and almost 5.1 million talk about beauty on Pinterest, which makes it a great opportunity for brands in the sector.Daniela Munive, Account Executive - Social Media & Digital Strategy Specialist at The Beauty Makers, spoke about the future generations of consumers: Alpha and Zeta. Daniela Munive offered the main key points that all marketing departments should be aware of in order to understand the needs of the younger generation and how brands should adapt to them and get to know them.
Eva Castillo, Digital Product Manager Dermo Division at Dermofarm, on the other hand, spoke to us about another target that is gaining popularity and visibility for brands: the +55. During her turn, Eva also shared the main conclusions of this type of consumers and highlighted that they are looking for efficiency and that they are a very restless target, and obviously, with a higher purchasing power than the younger generations. Castillo closed the round of presentations by explaining the importance of knowing how to adapt the message of the brands according to the channel where the communication and interpellation with the client takes place.
The third block, and in turn, the event, ended at 14:00 with a round table moderated by Ambra Orini, CEO and CO-Founder of the communication agency specialised in The Beauty Makers, and with the presence of Pablo Nueno from Olistic, David Hart, founder of Saigu Cosmetics, Rosa Arcas from SVR and Carlota Pérez from You Are The Princess. All of them are success stories and examples of success in networks being a beauty brand. All those who took part in this round table shared their experience and strategy in social networks and explained in detail what type of content and what strategy the different companies followed. The protagonists emphasised that it is important to create content that is useful and interesting to the brand's users and with which they feel identified. They also talked about collaborations with influencers and how important they are in the case of the beauty sector, as well as their choice.
Once the round table was over, Sara Jiménez closed this second edition of the Digital Beauty Summit, summoning the great majority of attendees to the subsequent celebration of the 'Digital Beauty Awards' at La Pedrera.