How brand SHISEIDO breathes life into OMO strategy

Brand SHISEIDO, since its inception in the 1870s in Ginza, Tokyo, has long been hailed as an unrivalled pioneer of innovation. Brand SHISEIDO Hong Kong consistently sets the gold standard for excellence to innovate. As the first market to employ an online-merge-offline (OMO) strategy, the brand SHISEIDO Hong Kong has continually propelled the beauty industry to new heights and established the market as the epitome of best practices and visionary leadership. Its success can be attributed to its data-driven strategies and commitment to customer-centricity, which have become the lifeblood of the brand and brought the OMO strategy to life.  

While customer-centricity becomes a motto for many brands, brand SHISEIDO embraces its Japanese heritage of Omotenashi hospitality – wholeheartedly anticipating needs and caring for customers. This dedication to exceptional care for the customers underscores the importance of brand building as the heart of brand SHISEIDO's strategy. By going beyond customer expectations and making data a meaningful and impactful tool, the brand SHISEIDO aspires to constantly push the envelope of customer-centricity and bring OMO strategy to life. 

Exploring OMO possibilities with experimentation  

Since the pandemic, the brand SHISEIDO has started experimenting with an OMO strategy to address limited footfall in the stores. The brand replicated the magic of an in-store beauty consultant, which was an essential touchpoint for recruiting new users, through personalised and interactive online experiences, while tailoring messaging across offline channels to fit the new normal. The campaign collected valuable first-party data and paved the way for experimentation in terms of ad format and messaging.   

For SHISEIDO’s 150th anniversary, the brand SHISEIDO further explored OMO possibilities and introduced SHISEIDOVERSE – Hong Kong’s first web-based beauty metaverse. Consumers can engage in a spectrum of activities, including gaming, entertainment, education, events, gifting, and shopping in this metaverse, where every consumer action gives brand SHISEIDO a deeper understanding of the customers. Therefore, the campaign successfully brought Omotenashi spirit to life through data and balanced sales and brand equity building.  

Recently, the brand SHISEIDO took OMO implementation to the next level. In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Gloria Ho (pictured), vice president, Shiseido Hong Kong, emphasised the importance of online and offline experiential integration in creating memorable and unique customer experiences, particularly in the post-pandemic era. The success of this integration relied on the insightful interpretation of data, innovative use of technology, and the unwavering commitment to exceeding customer expectations.  

The winning ingredients of OMO: Data, technology, and customer-centricity    

With more and more first-party data, and stronger partnerships with Google and META time after time, brand SHISEIDO has made the best use of OMO strategy and focused on marketing automation for its CRM programme back in April, reviving a 126-year-old heritage legendary product SHISEIDO EUDERMINE through a campaign partnering with POPFEST in West Kowloon Cultural District.   

“Our data revealed that many of the brand’s high-predicted lifetime value customers are music lovers, and they enjoy outdoor gatherings. Therefore, we created a first-of-its-kind holoportation experience for customers to interact with our brand ambassadors to understand more about brand SHISEIDO and our new product,” Ho said.  

To effectively execute the trilogy of these OMO campaigns, brand SHISEIDO emphasised the perfect unison of data, technology, and customer-centricity. Only by bringing these three factors together could the brand create a one-of-a-kind OMO experience that no other brands can compete with, driving consumer engagement and loyalty nowadays, Ho added.  

Delivering efficient impact by marketing automation    

In a world of uncertainty, mass personalisation is essential for effective consumer communication.  

“While we used to reach out to our customers at different touch points manually, we now set a CRM journey which is fully automated. The system is able to tailor make customised messages and ensure that we can engage customers in all touchpoints,” Ho added.  

Furthermore, marketing automation not only improves customer relationship but also enables the brand to allocate its investment more effectively, ultimately delivering marketing effectiveness and efficiency.  

“We firmly believe that customer-centric innovation and data-backed, digital technology advancement are the keys to creating unparalleled experiences exclusive to brand SHISEIDO,” Ho said. By breathing life into its OMO strategy, the brand SHISEIDO continues to redefine the beauty industry in Hong Kong and beyond.  

This article is done in collaboration with Shiseido Hong Kong.