Marketing analytics ‒ a cornerstone of decision-making

Julien Bosseart, Brand Manager at cosmetics giant L’Oréal, brand member of the EDHEC Business Club, talks about how his role has evolved with the growing use of marketing analytics.

You have been working as a brand manager for L’Oréal for five years now. How has your job evolved with the rise of data?

With the rise of data, we are seeing an increase in the analysis we need to conduct on our side, to have a better understanding of our consumers, with more precise definitions of their behaviour and specific characteristics in various regions. This means we also require more granular launch strategies to meet the needs of our consumers.

How do you use analytics to build your marketing strategy?

We use analytics at every stage of our strategy. First, to ensure that the projects we launch are relevant to consumers and to mass-market consumption (we have to make sure we are not launching ‘niche’ products). Second, we use analytics to fine-tune our strategy, to choose which media channels or which consumer media segments we will use to talk to the right consumers and, thus, create a better return on investment. Third, we use them to analyse the performance of our products and implement further actions as needed.

EDHEC Master’s in Marketing Analytics students will also learn about consumer behaviour, textual data, and data regulation. How essential are these skills to your industry today?

They are key. We need to understand how to handle data to make sure we understand the consumer properly. That means we need to be familiar with analysis and key figures and key performance indicators, or KPIs. It's also crucial to have regulatory knowledge, to make sure the way we use data is in line with regulation, and that we can legally use consumer data for our projects and campaigns.

With data becoming central to marketing decisions, which skills do you look for when recruiting for your team?

I'm looking for people who don't necessarily know all the KPIs and indicators but are not afraid of analysing figures. We also need people who are able to step back from the data and take a more global view, to ensure that we don't get hung up on smaller details that may be not that relevant to our communication with mass consumers. Lastly, we need people who are able to translate the data into creative ideas and projects.