L’Oréal announced its Russia division debuted the new L’Oréal Russia Academy in the heart of Moscow. A training and education facility primarily dedicated to beauty professionals such as hairdressers, beauty advisors and pharmacists, the academy will also host an evaluation center to help order to satisfy the needs of Russian consumers. Additionally, L’Oréal is strengthening local beauty products and services in Russia by training more than 20,000 beauty professionals every year. The project aims to offer 100 training sessions every month and represents an investment of almost €3.5 million.
"The training academy and our evaluation center demonstrate our commitment to innovation and education. I feel confident that this investment will allow us not only to further develop the beauty market but to respond even better to the expectations of Russian consumers," said Claudio Cavicchioli, managing director of L’Oréal Russia.
Present in Russia since the 90s, L’Oréal founded its Russian affiliate in 1994. Today the branch is present all over Russia, offering 23 international brands in mass market locations, hair salons, through selected retailers and in pharmacies. In 2010, L’Oréal Russia opened a production plant in the Kaluga region to produce shampoo, hair conditioner and hair color for L’Oréal Paris and Garnier. Today L’Oréal Russia employs more than 1,100 people.
And every year, L’Oréal Russia invests in the professional training of more than 20,000 beauty experts, ensuring hairdressers, colorists and other beauty professionals in salons, pharmacies and beauty counters across the country are up-to-date in their professional skills, aware of the latest beauty trends, and able to provide the best possible beauty expertise to Russian consumers.
Because Russian consumers have their own specific routines and requirements when it comes to beauty, the evaluation center aspect of this investment aims to understand the expectations of those Russian consumers and to develop products tailored to them. L’Oréal uses three types of evaluation: consumer evaluation, expert evaluation and instrumental evaluation.
Using these three synergetic evaluation approaches, the objectives of the Moscow R&I evaluation center will focus on:
- increasing the understanding of consumer and beauty routines to find specific product needs that could translate into product development ideas, better adapted to local consumers;
- improving local skin and hair knowledge, through instrumental characterizations;
- defining product profiles using expert evaluation; and
- measuring product efficacy through instrumental evaluation and consumer perceived performance through consumer tests.