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15 Mar

Shiseido’s Cutting-edge Approach to Innovation

Over the past 45 years, Shiseido has won more top awards from the International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists — 29 finally count — than another company. But it surely’s not content to rest on its laurels. After opening a $400 million Global Innovation Center in Yokohama, Japan, in 2019, the corporate has reinvigorated its approach to R&D with a consumer-centric, multipronged strategy with actionable insights at its core. Called S/Park, the power has 17 floors and over 600,000 square feet of space. It’s a physical manifestation of Shiseido’s recent approach, with the primary two floors given over to public space. Here, consumers can drop by the café for a bite to eat, learn more concerning the company’s history via interactive exhibits...
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12 Jan

Indie Brand Abstraction Takes a Vintner’s Approach to Fragrance

PARIS — Just steps away from Paris’ last working vineyard, there may be a recent liquid being vinted under the hill of Montmartre. Perfumer Sebastien Plan recently opened Abstraction Paris, an atelier for an exclusive series of scents by that name, that are matured in a cellar, inspired by winemaking traditions. Plan trained at natural fragrance and flavors supplier Robertet, and held positions at Cosmo Fragrances International and L’Oréal, where he frolicked sourcing ingredients equivalent to jasmine. There, Plan noted the harvest varied depending on 12 months, producer and terrain — essential points for wine. Nonetheless the massive fragrance firms generally select the plants making essentially the most uniform blends that remain consistent over time. “I believed to myself, ‘What a pity,’ because...
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7 Dec

Function of Beauty’s Approach to Personalized Hair Care –

Function of Beauty’s chief executive officer Alexandra Papazian addressed the evolution of customization, sharing how the brand is using personalization to create efficacious products and a sustainable business model. She also discussed the corporate’s expansion into retail.   The hair care brand, which was founded by two MIT grads and a cosmetic chemist in 2015, “creates a completely customized regimen and a completely customized formula” based on a proprietary algorithm customer quiz, explained Papazian. To this point, Function of Beauty has developed 3 million unique formulations and Papazian said it's capable of manufacturing upward of 27 trillion.  The brand’s business model goals to satisfy consumer demand for targeted hair products, as NPD reports nearly 50 percent of consumers are willing to pay more...
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9 Nov

Bridging the E-commerce Language Gap: Lily AI’s Revolutionary Approach

When Purva Gupta emigrated to the U.S. from India and did some online shopping here, she found herself surprisingly frustrated. Why was it so hard to seek out the precise form of dress she was searching for? Considering it is likely to be an immigrant problem resulting from a language or cultural barrier, she did some hefty local research to “test her hypothesis.” But after speaking with greater than 1,000 women, she confirmed there was definitely a disconnect between how consumers experienced and perceived products, and the way brands and retailers described such products. This compelled her to create an AI-driven solution that bridges the merchant-consumer gap. WWD caught up with Gupta to debate Lily AI, which she cofounded with chief...
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