MAM
Enough potential in urban India before going rural: L’Oréal Paris
MUMBAI: It was 1993 when French beauty brand L’Oréal Paris made its way to India. An instant hit with the newly privatised economy, the brand has been a favourite of Indian women in the ensuing two decades.
Considered as a young player in India’s cosmetics market, L’Oréal is the fastest-growing beauty company in the company with an annual average of 30.2 per cent and has representation in over 800,000 points of sale. It is the third leading operator in the Indian cosmetics market with a 10 per cent market share in the urban areas, claims the company.
The beauty and personal care market in India is valued at Rs 81,000 core. The India revenue of L’Oreal, according to industry estimates, is currently Rs 3,000-3,500 crore a year. In order to cater to the Indian market optimally, the cosmetics group has, over the years, launched several brands across various product categories.
In order to be up-to-date, L’Oréal follows a combination of traditional and new-age media for marketing and advertising. L’Oréal Paris general manager Raagjeet Garg says that the company looks at television, digital, social media platforms, digital videos, outdoor and other BTL media to connect with consumers.
The brand invests heavily on marketing every year and the number is only increasing yoy to ensure it reaches a wider number of consumers and with a differentiated campaign. Going forward, the company will look at creating more India-specific products.
L’Oréal is trying to shake off the luxury brand image. As a matter of fact, its products start at Rs 3 (for a sachet of shampoo).
In interior India, the brand faces stiff competition from local products but the brand is still pursuing urban consumers since the saturation point hasn’t yet been hit. Garg says, “There is enough potential to get enough consumers in the urban population before we start targeting the rural areas. The objective eventually will be to speak to as many consumers as possible but that will happen in a phased manner and we want to get the urban and tier 1, tier 2 markets first and then talk about the rest of the consumers around the country.”
The L’Oréal Paris brand encompasses the four major beauty categories — hair colour, cosmetics, hair care, and skin care — and includes brands as Excellence Crème, Total Repair 5 hair care, Pure Clay masks, White Perfect, Fall Repair, Revitalift, Volume Million Lashes mascara, Color Riche lipsticks, Superliners and True Match foundations among many others.
With its signature phrase, “Because We’re Worth It”, the brand wants to inspire women to embrace their own unique beauty and reinforce their sense of self-worth.
India being a strategic country for L’Oréal international, it picked the right A-list Bollywood actresses as brand ambassadors – Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor and Deepika Padukone. These women encompass a wide range of target audiences in terms of age group and lifestyle.
The brand also recently celebrated 21 glorious years as the official make-up partner for the Festival de Cannes. Garg says, “I think if the relationship is beautiful, you just want to nurture the relationship and that’s exactly what we do with Cannes. Each year we realise it is only getting better and better.”
The Cannes Film Festival will take place from the 8 to 18 May where Padukone will be walking the red carpet for the second time along with Rai-Bachchan, who will be completing 17 years at the festival. Kapoor will be seen for the eighth time at Cannes along with other spokespersons including Julianne Moore, Helen Mirren and Doutzen Kroes.
Garg pointed out that Cannes association is not ROI driven or to create brand visibility but rather to democratise that beauty is for everyone. The company will soon be making its Cannes collection available at its L’Oréal Paris counters and some e-commerce sites in India.
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MAM
ASCI study uncovers how Gen Alpha navigates ads in endless digital feeds
‘What the Sigma?’ ethnographic report maps blurred boundaries between content and commerce for 7–15-year-olds.
MUMBAI: Gen Alpha isn’t scrolling through the internet, they’re living rent-free inside its never-ending dopamine drip, and the ads have already moved in next door. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Academy, partnering with Futurebrands Consulting, has published ‘What the Sigma?’, an immersive ethnographic study that maps how Indian children aged 7–15 (Generation Alpha) consume, interpret and live alongside media and commercial messaging in a hyper-digital environment.
The research draws on in-home interviews, sibling and peer conversations, and discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors, psychologists, marketers and kidfluencers across six cities. It examines not only what children watch but how algorithms, content creators, peers and parents shape their relationship with the constant stream of shorts, vlogs, gameplay, memes, sponsored posts and ‘kid-ified’ adult material.
Five core themes emerged:
- Discontinuous Generation, Gen Alpha is not growing up alongside the internet, they are growing up inside it. Cultural references, humour, aesthetics and language sync globally in real time, often leaving adults functionally illiterate in their children’s world. A reference that lands instantly for a 10-year-old in Mumbai or Visakhapatnam feels opaque or disjointed to most parents.
- Authority Vacuum, Parents and teachers frequently lose cultural fluency in digital spaces. The algorithm responsive, inexhaustible and perfectly attuned to preferences becomes the most attentive presence in many children’s daily lives. Rules around screen time feel increasingly difficult to enforce when adults cannot fully see or understand the content landscape.
- Digital as Society, Online and offline no longer exist as separate realms, they form one continuous reality. The phone is not a tool children pick up; it is the primary social environment they inhabit.
- Great Media Mukbang, Content flows as an ambient, boundary-less, multi-sensorial stream. Entertainment, advertising, commerce, gameplay, memes and vlogs merge into one undifferentiated feed. The line between active choice and passive absorption has largely collapsed.
- Blurred Ad Recognition, Children aged 7–12 typically recognise only the most overt advertising formats. Influencer promotions, gaming integrations and vlog sponsorships often register as organic entertainment. Children aged 13–15 show greater ad literacy but remain highly susceptible to narrative-integrated, passion-driven and emotionally resonant brand messaging. Discernment remains low across the board in a non-stop stream.
ASCI CEO and secretary general Manisha Kapoor said, “ASCI Academy’s study is an investigation into the content life of Generation Alpha not to judge them but to understand them. Their cultural reference points seem disjointed from those of earlier generations. Insights on how they perceive advertising is the first step towards building more responsible engagement frameworks, given that they are the youngest media consumers in our country right now.”
Futurebrands Consulting founder and director Santosh Desai added, “While earlier generations have been exposed to digital media, for this generation it is the world they inhabit. This report explores not only what they watch but how they are being shaped by algorithms, content and advertising.”
The study proposes four adaptive, principles-led pathways:
- Universal signposting of commercial intent using design principles that make advertising recognisable even to young audiences.
- Ecosystem-wide responsibility shared among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents.
- Future-ready safeguards built directly into children’s content experiences rather than as optional background settings.
- Formal media and advertising literacy embedded in school curricula to teach age-appropriate understanding of persuasion and commercial intent.
In a feed that never pauses, Gen Alpha isn’t merely watching content, they’re swimming in an ocean where entertainment, commerce and identity swirl together. The real question isn’t whether they can spot an ad; it’s whether the adults building the ocean can agree on where the lifeguards should stand.
