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South Africa has long been an important entry point for the African market, making the news that L’Oréal Paris is to partner with South Africa Fashion Week (18 to 20 April) a statement of intent.
L’Oréal Paris takes over from Mac Cosmetics as the week’s official makeup and beauty sponsor this season and will debut its celebratory, empowering Walk Your Worth catwalk show on 19 April. The brand has had a presence in South Africa since 1963, but the two-year deal with South Africa Fashion Week is a signal that it intends to step up the pace.
“The partnership with fashion shows has always existed,” says Bola Balogun, brand strategist and founder of Lagos’s Glam Brand Agency, which has worked with brands such as Mac Cosmetics, Estée Lauder and Lancome. “Doors are opening, and brands are asking more questions about [backstage beauty].” Mac Cosmetics, which has had a presence in Africa for over a decade, has sponsored fashion weeks across the continent, including Lagos Fashion Week, Balogun notes.
Global beauty brands are serving up competition to African beauty brands because they sense a significant opportunity. The beauty and personal care market in Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to hit approximately $14 billion this year, up 10.5 per cent on 2023, according to Euromonitor. Market leaders include South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Angola. The top three conglomerates are Unilever, L’Oréal Group and Procter Gamble, says Euromonitor.
The enduring appeal of African brands should not be underestimated. “Smaller and niche brands, particularly those designed by African women for African women, often cultivate a devoted following, which may pose potential threats to larger players navigating the A-beauty landscape,” says Euromonitor consultant Rubab Abdoolla. She notes that there’s opportunity for brands to create products specific to the needs of African consumers while incorporating the ancient ingredients that are familiar to them.
Over the past 12 months, L’Oréal Paris has been gaining momentum online in South Africa, according to Varvara Blazhko, vertical manager of beauty at Similarweb, a digital marketing intelligence company. Total traffic to L’Oréal Paris’s e-commerce site in South Africa increased 76 per cent year-on-year during the fourth quarter of 2023. It has a young customer base in the market, with Gen Z and millennials (18 to 34 years old) accounting for 43 per cent of all site visits in 2023, according to Similarweb.
Africa’s youthful population holds potential. Many young Africans are well-travelled and have a broad knowledge of the international beauty market, says Balogun. “This is a youthful continent. It’s a continent that is creative. It’s a continent that loves beauty and loves fashion,” she says. “That fashion connection can actually be next level because people are looking to connect emotionally, and in Africa [brands should] connect to something that is relatable to the people they’re targeting. Fashion is perfect for that.”
L’Oréal Paris has come to the same conclusion. “There’s a niche that is really into fashion and beauty, and we would really love to push that in Africa,” says Issima Oniangué, general manager of L’Oréal South Africa, adding that the alignment with South Africa Fashion Week is a key strategic move. “We also have fashion weeks here in Africa, so why don’t we do our fashion week and embrace it — instead of going to Paris to be a part of it.”
Getting it right: From products to local teams
The business model for entering the African market requires plenty of reflection, with the conversation around diversity and inclusion in beauty slowly expanding beyond shade inclusivity. L’Oréal says emerging markets, which include Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, now account for 50 per cent of the group’s total sales. “Emerging markets continue to go from strength to strength… and are turning into a real growth engine for the group,” CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said in February.
An internal structural change at L’Oréal in 2021 involved breaking up its Africa and Middle East (AME) team. The new Sub-Saharan Africa division was initially focused on South Africa, its largest market on the continent, and has since expanded into Kenya. Nigeria is up next.
The regions need to be treated independently, says Oniangué. “The group decided to split the zones because they understood that having such a huge region coexisting in the Middle East was not making any sense,” she continues. “We decided to develop in the whole region from South Africa. The goal was really to have Pan Africans, people who understand the culture and the needs of the group, doing it in Africa for Africa.”
Product ranges require a wide variety of skin tones. “We noticed that some of the brands that are doing very well here have all the different shades,” says Balogun. “Having those shades would be one of the biggest game changers coming into a market like this.”
Euromonitor’s Abdoolla supports a specifically African approach. “Serving African consumers, who are presently neglected by many cosmetic companies, is a crucial component,” she says. A step further is to ensure that the product is suitable for the local environment. “The products themselves need to be adapted to the local hot and humid climate so that consumers can wear them for prolonged periods of time without it changing colour, texture or causing skin irritation.”
Building a winning marketing strategy
Brands must also nurture the market, regularly creating buzz and excitement among their customers. In 2022, Fenty Beauty launched in eight African countries, including Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Namibia. But activations and region-specific product launches and campaigns have been thin on the ground. In 2023, the first major influencer event was held in Durban, South Africa.
The need to nurture the market explains the imminent arrival of L’Oréal’s star-studded Walk Your Worth runway show in Johannesburg. It’s the first time the brand has staged the event outside of Paris. “It’s very important for us to come into the country with a very strong plan,” says Oniangué. “The first step for us was having a Pan-African spokesperson in the L’Oréal Paris family, and then build out a strong plan from there.” The brand has named South African actress Thuso Mbedu as its first African brand ambassador.
For this iteration of Walk Your Worth, L’Oréal Paris is partnering with South African couturier Biji La Maison, who has dressed celebrities including TV presenter Bonang Matheba and Zozibini Tunzi, winner of Miss Universe in 2019. She is creating 37 looks: seven menswear and 30 womenswear. The line-up at the show on 19 April will be full of celebrities and influencers — all South African personalities.
It’s a mutually beneficial collaboration, Biji Gibbs of Biji La Maison says. “If I wanted to do my own show at South Africa Fashion Week it would be extremely expensive, I would’ve had to go out and look for sponsors,” she explains. “As a brand, you want to have a brand collaboration where your brand identities align. There has to be a synthesis between the brands.” A mutual desire to make women feel empowered and look beautiful also unites her and the French beauty brand, she adds.
International brands often fall short by not embracing influencer marketing to its full potential in the continent. “Influencer marketing is picking up in the region and yet we see that not all big brands are leveraging the power that micro-influencers have on product usage and adoption,” says Abdoolla.
That means reaching out to African talent. “If premium brands are coming to Africa, guess what, you have to use our celebrities, you have to use our influencers. You have to use campaigns that will relate and connect with us,” says Balogun of Glam Brand Agency. “You cannot use the same strategy that you’re using in Europe or Asia — it won’t work.”
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