The shift to data-driven marketing is changing the way we all do business. It is a powerful tool that enables us to cultivate more meaningful relationships with our customers – all of whom expect more value, more services, more engagement, and more conversations with all of our beauty brands. This is what makes our 7,000-person worldwide marketing team so invaluable to L’Oréal’s success.
We’ve always invested in the growth and development of our employees, and last year committed to building an online learning platform for our digital marketers through a customized education program with General Assembly. By arming our marketers with the most innovative tools and trainings, we are simultaneously upskilling our talent while transforming the company’s digital capabilities.
As we previously announced, this means that L’Oréal’s marketing teams have access to programs covering e-commerce, precision marketing and social media. And, with our growing focus on data in the way we approach marketing to our customers – we felt that we needed a data-driven approach to the learning and development of our marketing employees as well.
In order to achieve this, we collaborated with General Assembly and a consortium of the world’s leading marketers including Google, UM Worldwide and Priceline to create a new assessment-based training model that quantifies and measures an individual’s areas of core competency within digital marketing.
The way we’ve started to leverage this assessment at L’Oréal is to help identify areas for improvement or opportunity within our team. Thus far, nearly 500 L’Oréal employees have taken the assessment.
From the results, we’ve found that each of our marketers is unique in his or her talents. While some excelled at digital advertising and marketing, others needed improvement in multichannel marketing or data calculation. In order to help them build clear customized roadmaps for their careers, we’ve worked with General Assembly to develop specific skills trainings, such as the “Digital at the Core” program, which currently has over 100 participants registered and is one of a growing number of personalized learning modules which will explore user experience design, consumer data, and precision marketing, among others.
So far, our marketers have embraced these trainings with enthusiasm, and are even calling for more.
As we answer that call, and continue to invest in our digital marketing engine, we want to encourage others to do the same. The assessment can be applied in various ways – from a tool to help streamline recruitment to a benchmark for understanding the strengths and needs of an entire team.
Establishing a set of skills and continuing to find unbiased methods to assess key competencies in digital marketing skills underscores our dedication to ongoing career development of employees, while contributing to the overall success of the marketing engine that drives the largest beauty company in the world.
Learn more about assessments at General Assembly.
Marie Gulin-Merle, Chief Marketing Officer, L’Oréal USA
A L’Oréal veteran with over 15 years of strategic digital and integrated communications experience, Marie Gulin-Merle was appointed Chief Marketing Officer at L’Oréal USA in 2014. Reporting directly to L’Oréal USA CEO, Frédéric Rozé, Ms. Gulin-Merle is responsible for driving new marketing models, innovations and strategic partnerships across the company’s portfolio of more than 30 iconic brands. From content creation and distribution to enhancing consumer engagement through data and cross-platform analytics, Ms. Gulin-Merle is passionate about developing the creative platforms and tools needed to place the consumer at the center of L’Oreal USA’s business.
Maeve Coburn, Vice President of Learning & Transformation, L’Oréal Americas
Maeve Coburn is a chemical engineer turned long-standing executive with L’Oréal where she serves as Vice President of Learning & Transformation and is a member of the U.S. Executive Committee. Her focus is on top executive development and organizational culture change in addition to next generation marketing and digital capabilities. Her passion for marketing began at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and continued at L’Oreal, where she is a champion of upskilling L’Oréal employees. Maeve embodies and influences L’Oréal’s core culture, ensuring that the world leader in beauty stays at the forefront of innovation and creativity.