A.S. Watson innovates AI-powered skincare solutions with L’Oréal’s ModiFace in Asia
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A.S. Watson, the world’s largest international health and beauty retailer, is proud to announce the regional launch of “Skinfie Lab”, an innovative skin analysis tool that creates highly personalised skincare product recommendations based on customers’ selfies. Skinfie Lab is first launched at Watsons Hong Kong and will be rolled out to Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia by early 2023.
The launch of Skinfie Lab in Asia is the latest development by A.S. Watson to deliver a truly O+O (Offline plus Online) customer experience. It builds on the successful launch of an AI-powered skincare advisor at Superdrug in the UK last year. Customers love using the tool, and conversion rates doubled.
According to Freda Ng, Chief Digital Officer (Asia) of A.S. Watson Group, “We believe that Skinfie Lab will change the way customers shop skincare - with only a selfie.”
“We’ve been using cutting-edge technology to innovate and develop new solutions that help deliver seamless O+O shopping experiences to our customers. We’re thrilled to launch Skinfie Lab in Asia, a pioneering tool that makes it simple for customers to find just what their skin needs.”
AI Empowers Personalised Recommendation from Over 10,000 Products
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse customers’ skin and create a highly tailored skincare regimen for them, Skinfie Lab has been jointly developed by A.S. Watson and ModiFace, L’Oréal’s AI and AR company. It was created with dermatologists and based on 15 years of research. The AI-powered Skinfie Lab has been built and validated using over 16,000 selfie images and able to detect a range of facial attributes from a customer’s selfie, including acne, fine lines, pigmentation, enlarged pores, wrinkles, radiance, skin firmness and overall skin condition.
Customers can simply take a selfie and answer a few simple questions on their mobile phone about themselves. Skinfie Lab then generates a personalised, in-depth skin analysis, as well as a bespoke list of product recommendations from all products available in Watsons eStore. The skincare routine it covers spans cleansers, face masks, toner, serum, eye cream, moisturiser and sunscreen.
Ng continued, “Many customers want to better understand their skin and choose the best products to include in their skincare routine, but often they don’t know how. Now, all it takes is a selfie. Skinfie Lab can help beauty beginners who are looking for advice in developing their own skincare regimen, as well as beauty enthusiasts who are looking for highly personalised recommendations that draw on the latest trends and products.”
AR-Powered ColourMe Reaches 40 Million Try-ons
The virtual make-up trying-on tool ColourMe, also developed by A.S. Watson and Modiface, has proved hugely popular and successful. Since its launch in 2019, there have been 40 million try-ons in Watsons Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines.
ColourMe uses augmented reality to instantly and virtually show customers how they would appear with different looks, as well as making product recommendations. Conversion rates have increased up to 5 times among ColourMe users.
Ng added, “Both Skinfie Lab and ColourMe are helping customers to find the skincare and makeup products that best suit their needs. Leveraging AI and AR solutions, we can create new O+O customer experiences that are engaging, personalised to beauty lovers, and make shopping with us a real pleasure.”
About A.S. Watson Group
Established in Hong Kong in 1841, A.S. Watson Group is the world’s largest international health and beauty retailer, operating over 16,300 stores under 12 retail brands in 28 markets, with about 130,000 employees worldwide. In the fiscal year 2021, A.S. Watson Group recorded revenue of US$22 billion. Every year, we serve over 5.5 billion shoppers via our O+O (Offline plus Online) platforms, providing tech-enabled retail experiences to customers offline and online.
A.S. Watson Group is also a member of the world-renowned multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, which has four core businesses ‐ ports and related services, retail, infrastructure and telecommunications – in over 50 countries.
Please visit www.aswatson.com/our-company/o-and-o-strategy/ for more information.
*Campaign Asia-Pacific “Asia’s Top 1,000 Brands” survey 2020 of over 8,000 respondents across 14 markets in Asia-Pacific Region
