How BPC brands can embrace diverse technologies in a post-COVID-19 context

COVID-19 has changed consumer behaviour in a number of significant ways. In order to meet these changes and listening closely to these advancements, BPC brands have transformed their strategies. Embracing diverse technologies and digital communications has become a key piece of every new strategy in the BPC market. 

Facing a global economic and sanitary crisis that has caused unprecedented market uncertainty and distress, BPC brands are being forced to adapt to new consumer behaviour that decisively relies on technology in order to perform every transaction: from communicating with brands to buying products. 

How diverse technologies have changed the BPC market

Before the COVID-19 crisis, brands were already changing their communication models with consumers due to the rise of digital technology, shifting towards a bidirectional paradigm: brands communicate their message to clients but they respond too, while also interacting with other users.

But after 2020, deeper transformations have ensued: 

• With store closings, implementing efficient digital retail strategies has become essential. In fact, as data collected by McKinsey indicates, most major beauty-industry markets saw a drop of in-store shopping from 85% of beauty-product purchases prior to the COVID-19 crisis. As opposed to this drop, retailers with ecommerce and online platforms are reporting sales twice as high as their pre-COVID-19 levels, although a growth between 20% and 30% is more common.
• In times of uncertainty, users are looking for authentic content and trustful messages and relationships with brands. 
• With social distancing measures in place, digital entertainment and education has become the norm. This is partly why live streaming and digital chats have taken over 

Steps for beauty brands to become leaders in the diverse technologies context

1. Create a community 

Brands can foster open communication between like-minded consumers using technological innovations: from live streaming events to open discussions and interactive content, consumers reward companies that go beyond one-way communication using technologies.

2. Create omnichannel experiences

Omnichannel strategies consist of the capacity to engage with clients and prospects across different communication channels (social media, email, website chatbots…) and still provide personalized, frictionless customer experiences. In a post-COVID-19 world, where diverse technologies reign, brands must embrace those channels that work for communicating with their clients and provide exceptional customer satisfaction across all of them.

3. Innovate and diversify: engage consumers with digital beauty

Experimenting with technology is gaining traction among the most popular beauty brands. From Artificial and Virtual Reality to apps that analyze skin condition and recommend products, it’s about innovating and standing out from the worn-out formulas.

The pace of innovation has accelerated and it’s more difficult for brands to project originality and differentiation. As the time from product design to consumer has been drastically shortened, brands struggle to provide the constant innovation that consumers have learned to expect. 

At the same time, innovation has never been easier to achieve, as long as brands focus on the right trends and suppliers, while also being able to communicate through appropriate marketing strategies.

Take HYDROMANIL™ as an example. 

This active ingredient, developed by Provital, merges health-conscious consumers, botanical beauty trends and was recently re-tested to give a new new focus to its flagship matrix technology in order to generate a solution for today’s BPC market.

HYDROMANIL™ responds to the current diverse technologies trends in the BPC market as it provides immediate moisture and bacterial balance via an exclusive 3D Matrix Technology.

Provital’s 3D Matrix Technology provides a multicapillary injection that captures intensively hydrating compounds extracted from the Andean plant Caesalpinia Spinosa. The technology then releases it sequentially, generating a sustained delivery of the ingredient that provides an optimal level of moisture to the skin, while also inhibiting the formation of biofilm, maintaining the condition of resident commensal bacteria. 

In other words, HYDROMANIL™ and its exclusive 3D Matrix Technology works by releasing galacto-manno-oligosaccharides into the stratum corneum in a sequential way. Meanwhile, it also creates a filmogenic effect on the surface of the skin,  in order to regulate the final effect of combined moisturizing (immediate and cumulative) and maintenance of the skin’s commensal bacteria in its natural condition.

It thus becomes the perfect example of how brands can embrace digital beauty while not closing the door to other important trends such as the natural and clean beauty market demand.