Roblox runway: L’Oréal's innovative approach to Paris Fashion Week

Beauty behemoth L’Oréal’s annual Paris Fashion Week showcase will take place on October 1 by the Eiffel Tower and will be streamed shortly after via Roblox, a first for the brand. Titled ‘Walk Your Worth,’ the event will see the likes of Elle Fanning, Kendall Jenner, and Soo Joo Park (all L’Oréal ambassadors) walk the runway to celebrate sisterhood, female empowerment, and the relationship between beauty and fashion. While legacy brands regularly turn to social platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to livestream their seasonal collections, they usually overlook Roblox, a streaming hotspot that is popular with the next big-spending demographic – Gen Z. With over 66 million daily active users, the digital environment’s thriving user base is an opportunity brands can’t afford to neglect, especially those looking to fortify their virtual presence. Sparking buzz across TikTok is one thing, but making waves in the world of Roblox is a whole other ballgame. As for L’Oréal, the storied cosmetics label is looking to expand its consumer demographic. Tapping into Gen Z’s colossal spending power – a number currently estimated to sit at around 360 billion, according to Bloomberg – is on every competitor's radar, prompting L’Oréal to think outside the box when it comes to capturing young spenders’ often wavering attention. For example, the conglomerate’s hair care division, L’Oréal Professionnel, has already invested heavily in the gaming sector with its interoperable avatar hairstyles collections, and L’Oréal entered into a strategic partnership with Ready Player Me in November last year. “L’Oréal Professionnel is one of the leaders in the haircare market in real life, so we thought ‘let's take that mission to the virtual world and become the leader of the virtual hair care category as well,” Virgile Brodziak, managing director at Wunderman Thompson, the marketing communications agency behind L’Oréal Professionnel’s avatar hairstyle series, told Jing Daily earlier this year. After cracking the fashion week calendar, when it comes to making a mark in what’s widely considered the next gold mine for retail, L’Oréal is in it for the long run.

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Roblox runway: L’Oréal's innovative approach to Paris Fashion Week