With technology improvement and the number of Internet users’ dramatic increase in the past decade, many company has started marketing their products or services to consumers through Internet. Lancome has demonstrated a successful example of on-line marketing.
In 2010, Lancome hired Michelle Phan, a popular makeup-artist “vlogger” who creates makeup tutorials and uploads them on youtube. Michelle Phan is the number 1 most subscribed female vlogger on youtube with subscribers over 1 million, and her videos have been viewed over 3 billion times.
Lancome saw a marketing opportunity in Michelle Phan’s youtube subscribers. It asked Michelle Phan to be its spokeperson, and use its makeup products in her tutorials.
I believe Lancome chose Michelle for a few reasons:
1. Michelle Phan is popular on youtube. (In Lancome’s macroeconomic marketing environment, it decides to develop new marketing strategies using technology. By having Michelle Phan using its products in on-line tutorials, Lancome can reach world wide internet users and therefore improve its brand’s global popularity)
2. People believe in Michelle Phan’s expertise. (Subscribers are likely to purchase the products that Michelle uses in her tutorials becuase of their cognitive evaluations on Michelle’s expertise)
After Lancome signed Michelle Phan, its makeup products sales have significantly increased. No matter how much advertising Lancome has paid for over the past year, their name has been circulated around the globe faster and with more pizazz than any television commercial, by Michelle Phan’s tutorials.