THG Ingenuity announces N America deal with L’Oréal

THG’s complete commerce division Ingenuity has announced a new deal with French beauty giant L’Oréal. It will see Ingenuity managing the direct-to-consumer (DTC) activities for two of L’Oréal Groups’ luxury division brands in North America. 

The deal between L’Oréal International Distribution and Ingenuity will “leverage Ingenuity’s complete commerce solution of technology, operations and marketing to power direct-to-consumer growth of Shu Uemura Art of Beauty in the USA and Canada, and Biotherm in the USA”.

It added that L’Oréal will “benefit from core platform features built for the beauty consumer including sampling, loyalty and subscriptions”. The rollout is expected to complete this year.

It’s interesting that such a huge company with the capability to power its own DTC operations has chosen to follow this route for two major brands.

Annie Gregoire, the General Manager of L’Oréal International Distribution in North America said: “L’Oréal International Distribution’s mission is to build brands in the North America zone in an agile and efficient way, leveraging the expertise and manpower of external partners to amplify the acceleration of our portfolio’s brands. 

“This partnership with Ingenuity is the perfect example of that mission coming to life within a DTC environment as we will be benefiting from their fully integrated services and their personalised, consumer-centric e-commerce expertise.”

It’s a big vote of confidence in Ingenuity, which hasn’t grown as fast as some THG shareholders would have liked. Only this week, THG reported the division’s revenue falling 8.8% during the latest quarter (down 8.4% currency-neutral) at £155.7 million.