*This challenge is limited to undergraduate and graduate students in participating countries. Please view this document to see if the country in which you study is eligible.
The Mission: Build a plastic-less future in the beauty industry.
The Brief: Create an innovation that reduces or eliminates the use of plastic by inventing new circular business solutions, and by changing middle-class consumer behavior.
Overview
Our planet is currently facing increasing environmental threats, with waste disposal being one of the severe issues.
Studies have shown that on average, 50% of the environmental footprint of a product is linked to its packaging. This is why plastic, which represents close to 60% of the material used by the L’Oréal Group to produce its packaging (104,000 Tons in 2018), proves to be a major issue for L’Oréal.
The L’Oréal Consumer Products Division, company’s biggest business unit, consumes around 81,000 Tons of plastic per year. Although this number is marginal in comparison to global plastic consumption, we know that we can do better. In 2018, The L’Oréal Group has joined the Ellen Mac Arthur “New Plastic Economy” Alliance as a core-member (we worked with EMA for several years), committing to enter a circular economy model. The key goal is to reach 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable plastic packaging by 2025.
How it Works
The Prize
L’Oréal will pay for the top team of each country to fly to the World Finals in Paris, France. Each team will present their innovation to top L’Oréal executives. The winning team will be chosen based on the following criteria:
Criteria | Weighting |
INNOVATIVE | 30% |
USEFUL | 30% |
FEASIBLE | 20% |
SCALABLE | 20% |
The winning team will have a unique experience with the Intrapreneurship Award! The winning team will get the opportunity to work at Station F, the largest start up campus in the world, and at L’Oréal as L’Oréal employees. There will be a deadline to begin the program before October 1st 2020.
Winners will become the pioneers of their Brandstorm idea and transform it into a real business model. Over the period of 3 months, they will boost their idea with the constant coaching and guidance from L’Oréal experts and finally defend their business model to top executives and internal investors.
Additionally, winners will gain the opportunity to participate in One Young World summit: A global forum for young leaders and a unique platform to network with other young individuals from every country and sector, sharing ideas to develop solutions to address urgent global issues and create positive change.
Your team compound can be changed until the registration deadline in your country. All team members must study in the same country.
PART I: BRIEF CLARIFICATIONS
Your innovation must combine all the aspects of the brief’s pillars below.
Reduce or eliminate the use of plastic:
Context: In recent years, there is less tolerance to the plastic materials. Assuch, the demand for responsible and sustainable packaging has increased. New materials are emerging on the market, being recycled plastic materials, or alternatives to plastic, such as cardboard bricks carton or other materials of renewable origin. The zero waste trend is growing in several countries and is forcing the reinvention of single use packaged products to help build waste free routines.
Your challenge: Improve the environmental profile of the existing products. See ‘product assessment tool’ in resource pack for more details. Define a plastic less strategy for a cosmetic CPD range, based on either reducing significantly the use of plastic, replacing plastic with a more sustainable material, or inventing reusable packaging formats based on a circular model.
Find new business solutions:
Context: L’Oréal is already working within an ecosystem of partners to benefit from the best technologies. For example, L’Oréal co-founded a consortium with Carbios to encourage the industrialization of the enzymatic bio-recycling technology.
Your challenge: Your innovation should consider the existing ecosystem of retailers / key stakeholders, and open new opportunities / partnerships for L’Oréal. Your innovation should consider the holistic environmental footprint of the product, from a life cycle analysis perspective: you should take into account impacts across the life of the product, from the extraction of the raw materials, to the production process, the distribution, and the end of life.
Change consumer behavior:
Context: We know that the end-of-life of our products is responsible for a big part of the product’s footprint, and that consumers’ habits are key in reducing it (For example with a right recycling and sorting practice).
Your challenge: Your innovation must drive consumers to get and adopt sustainable behaviours. Include a 360 communication campaign to constantly educate existing consumers and to attract new consumers.
PART II: BUSINESS ASSUMPTIONS
Target group: Middle and upper middle class consumers. See resource pack for more details.
Brand: Your innovation can be based on one brand in CPD.
Category: You need to cover all product categories (For example skincare, haircare, make up etc) for the chosen brand.
Market: Your innovation should consider the situation in emerging markets as priority. Bear in mind it should have the potential to be scaled up.
Point of purchase: According to the innovation proposed, you have to develop the commercial strategy to launch it and make it a success (retail channel and communication strategy). See resource pack to learn all channels in CPD.
Budget: You have no constraints in terms of budget, but do consider the long-term profitability of your idea, as well as the fact that CPD is a mass division, with the purpose to give access to sustainable beauty to the highest number of consumers.
Timing: The practical realization of your idea should take maximum 24 months.
Other factors: Take into consideration the latest trends in sustainability areas. Meanwhile, your strategy and innovation should fully align with L’Oréal’s sustainability commitment ‘SHARING BEAUTY WITH ALL’ Program. See resource pack for more details. Your strategy and argument of ideas should be based on both data from internal resources and your own research.
STEPS OF THE COMPETITION
Step 1: Online registration
To register Participants should:
Once registered, Participants will have the opportunity to use the Platform to register a mentor of their choice to support them throughout the steps of the Competition. Mentors will be approved and validated in each country by the local BRANDSTORM manager (Participants will refer to their local BRANDSTORM manager for further details regarding the eligibility of the mentors).
When completing the official registration form, the Participants will be asked to accept the Official Rules. Failure to accept the Official Rules will prohibit the completion of the official registration forms. Participation in the Competition is subject to each Team's online acceptance of the present L’ORÉAL BRANDSTORM Official Rules and the signature of the appropriate local documentation relating to the assignment of intellectual property and images rights, if any.
Release of the case:
The release date may vary depending on the selection process chosen by the countries. For example, if a country is running the Hackathon selection process, the release of the case will be postponed to that date.
For the majority of countries, the case will be released on the countries Brandstorm pages on October 8th, 2019.
Additionally to the case, Participants get access to confidential data and materials to help them execute their pitch.
Stage 2: National Selection:
The national selection may consist of several different rounds (including both online and offline methods) each having different requirements. Please refer to the local country page for more information.
Countries will select one winning team but have the right to not qualify any teams based on the decision of the national selection jury. An additional runner-up team may be selected depending on the country.
Stage 3: World Finals
The National winners will be invited to join the World Finals held in Paris on the 23rd -24th of June 2020.
The Teams will be invited to pitch the main idea of their project through a ten (10) slide presentation maximum.
The presentation has to be submitted online through the Platform and in a 16 x 9 format.
Each Team has to present their idea in a five (5) minute maximum presentation. Afterwards, there will be five (5) minutes of discussion, where the jury will ask questions related to the idea for the Team to answer.
The exhaustive list of required materials for the fair will be given after the National Selection.
The official required materials must not be printed by the Teams themselves.
L’ORÉAL and/or affiliate cannot be in any way held responsible should the Stage 3 winning Team and/or any of its Team members be unable to travel to France to participate in the World Finals.
The travelling expenses (flight tickets and/or train tickets, transfer costs between airport/train station and the hotel or offices) and the hotel accommodation will be covered by L’ORÉAL. L’ORÉAL will be in charge of the booking and payment related to the travelling expenses.
Teams will not be reimbursed for materials or resources used in the preparation of their presentation, or for any expenses related to trips to L'ORÉAL.
