Benefit Cosmetics Sees “Almost a 14x Uplift in Sales” When Consumers Use Perfect Corp.-Powered Pore Analysis

Situation: Providing Innovative Pore Solutions

Since 1976, Benefit has been at the forefront of making beauty radically feel-good with inventive solutions that pack a punch and serve a smile. Today, Benefit is the #1 Brow Brand Worldwide, with one brow product sold every 1.8 seconds, and is known for iconic products including Benetint, The POREfessional primer and BADGal BANG! mascara. Operating under leading luxury products group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Benefit is in more than 60 countries, with 2,500 boutiques & service destinations (and growing!) and employs more than 5,000 Brow & Beauty Experts around the globe.

Benefit has always been obsessed with pores. It all started back in 2010, when they launched their iconic primer, The POREfessional. It quickly became a Benefit bestseller and since then, their love for pores has only grown. Benefit expanded their POREfessional family in 2023 with the launch of Pore Care, a collection of pore-focused skincare products under The POREfessional franchise.  As an industry leader in pores, Benefit is obsessed with creating innovative pore-focused solutions for their global customers. Whether it’s through, in-person consultations and services from Benefit’s trained aestheticians, through their high-performing products or innovative and digital AI technology, Benefit is laser-focused on providing customers with the right approaches to solving their pore challenges. 

Solution: Perfect Corp.’s  AI/AR-Powered Technology 

Benefit Cosmetics selected Perfect Corp.’s skin analysis technology, which harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) to enable consumers to see their  precise skin condition. Perfect Corp. is the leader in providing AI/AR solutions for the beauty industry. 

It was a natural next step for Benefit to work with Perfect Corp., as Benefit had already found success with its Perfect Corp.-powered Brow Try-On experience. 

To help launch its expanded family of pore products, Benefit worked closely with Perfect Corp. engineers to create the AI/AR-powered Pore Analysis Tool (P.A.T.). The Pore Analysis Tool gives consumers a precise analysis of their pores, with the pore scores linked to suggestions for Benefit’s new line of skin-care products. The effort included training AI for pore-specific characteristics. The result is the first ever application of AI/AR to pore analysis.

Benefit offers P.A.T. from its website, and also promotes the tool through marketing emails and other channels.   

“Our POREfessional is the top selling prestige primer in the US, the UK, and in most every other market that we're in,” says Toto HaBa, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Benefit Cosmetics. “As we prepared to expand from pore cosmetics to pore skincare, we wanted an analysis tool that could precisely analyze pore conditions, to give our consumers the confidence to try our cleansers, face masks, moisturizers and related skincare products.”

Benefit also sees P.A.T. as another step in its continuing efforts to help educate consumers about skin pores, and enhancing pore health and skin beauty.

From the P.A.T. page on Benefit’s website, consumers can use the camera on their  smartphone, laptop, or other device to scan their skin. They can even use the camera to zoom in on areas of concern. P.A.T. provides results as a series of dots and notations measuring levels and degrees of concern like pore size, uneven texture and clogged pores.

Benefits

Benefit Cosmetics has found a number of benefits in working with Perfect Corp.’s AI/AR Makeup Try-On technology, including:

• AI/AR-powered Pore Analysis Tool proved powerful in launching Benefit’s expanded product line
• AI/AR so precise that findings matched panel of experts
• Consumers spend more than twice as much time on site when engaging with P.A.T.
• “Almost a 14x uplift in sales” when engaging with P.A.T.
• Great fit with Benefit’s reputation for leading-edge experiences

AI/AR-Powered Pore Analysis Tool Proved Powerful in Launching Benefit’s Expanded Product Line

Benefit’s Pore Analysis Tool proved to be a powerful asset as the company launched its expanded product line for pore skin care. 

“P.A.T. was really important in terms of our launch strategy,” HaBa says. “We wanted to put a stake in the ground that Benefit was an authority in the pore skincare space.”

The company has extensive experience in the area, especially with its more than 6,000 aestheticians.

“Our estheticians who have long helped consumers shape and style their brow, are working with the skin as well,” HaBa says. “To be an esthetician in the US, you have to go through classes and certification. They are  skincare experts, and our P.A.T. helps to demonstrate our industry-leading knowledge and expertise in this area of skincare.”

AI/AR So Precise that Findings Matched Panel of Experts

Benefit Cosmetics worked closely with Perfect Corp in training the AI and AR powering P.A.T. and the results are impressive.

“From the beginning we knew that the precision of P.A.T. had to be exceptionally high,” HaBa says. “One of the rigorous things we did when we were developing our pore analysis tool was to compare the results of P.A.T.’s pore detection with a clinical panel of skin pore experts. We sent high-resolution photos of the same faces we scanned to a lab in Paris, where experts mapped out with dots the pore conditions they detected. We then compared their findings to our own AI/AR-powered pore analysis and the results were striking. P.A.T. had the pore analytic powers of our experts.”

Consumers Spend More than Twice as Much Time on Site when Engaging with P.A.T.

The power of P.A.T. is demonstrated with the fact that consumers spend more than twice as much time on site when engaging with P.A.T.

“Since deploying P.A.T. on our website we’re definitely seeing an increase in engagement,” HaBa says. “When engaging with P.A.T. consumers more than double the amount of time they spend on the site.”

HaBa credits the precision of P.A.T. and its educational role for the expanded time consumers spend with it.

“Benefit has always made educating our consumers about pores a key element in our sales strategy, and P.A.T. fits nicely into the educational role,” Haba says. “Our consumers can see precisely whatever issues they might have with their pores. That makes a big difference when they can see an analysis of their own face.”

“Almost a 14x Uplift in Sales” When Engaging with P.A.T.

The precision with which P.A.T. provides consumers with their own personalized pore analysis, coupled with Benefit product  recommendations for each pore condition, have increased sales.

“Once our consumers engage with our pore analysis tool, we see a pretty marked increase in sales versus a site visitor who doesn’t engage with the tool,” Haba says. “We’re seeing almost a 14x uplift in sales when consumers engage with our Perfect Corp.-powered Pore Analysis Tool.”

The strong sales response has proven to be a pleasant surprise for Benefit. 

“We never intended P.A.T. to be a direct conversion tool,” Haba says. “We created P.A.T. for educational purposes, to help consumers see their exact pore conditions and to choose the right product. P.A.T. is working very well.”

Great Fit with Benefit’s Reputation for Leading-Edge Experiences

Benefit has always been an industry leader, so found it a natural step to pioneer the introduction of AI/AR to pore analysis.

“From an internal standpoint, P.A.T. immediately had our people excited as it showed we were once again introducing something new and innovative,” HaBa says. “Benefit has always been known for bringing to market fun and unexpected innovations. It's part of our brand DNA. So it was natural for us to be the first to harness AI and AR for pore analysis. Bringing P.A.T to market really fit in terms of telling our brand story overall, and then from a customer standpoint we are helping our consumers identify their own pore issues and find the right product to enhance their pore skincare.”

Perfect Corp. “A Great Partner for Us in Creating Our AI/AR Innovations”

Benefit Cosmetics, which first worked with Perfect Corp. in creating its Brow Try-On experience, finds Perfect Corp. to be a strong partner for creating AI/AR innovations.

“Benefit is very forward thinking in terms of using every tool to help our customers, with technology being one of those tools,” HaBa says. “Perfect Corp. has done a really good job of sharing its roadmap with us, which sparks ideas in our minds on how we can better serve our customers.”

Benefit also values the expertise Perfect Corp. continues to build in AI and AR. 

“One of the great things about Perfect Corp is how much they have embraced AI in terms of training models and innovation,” HaBa says. “From our Brow Try-On to P.A.T. Perfect Corp. has leaned into AI models to better identify the features on the face, and to map things more precisely. Perfect Corp. continues to lead with  their AI tools. And I think that's where the future is going to be. Perfect Corp. is a great partner for us in creating our AI/AR innovations.”

About Perfect Corp. 

Perfect Corp. is the leading SaaS AI and AR beauty and fashion tech solutions provider, dedicated to transforming shopping experiences through empowering brands to embrace the digital-first world. 

By partnering with the largest names in the industry, Perfect Corp.’s suite of enterprise solutions delivers synergistic, technology-driven experiences that facilitate sustainable, ultra-personalized, and engaging shopping journeys, as well as equipping brands with next generation of consumer goods.

Perfect Corp. offers a complementary suite of mobile apps, including YouCam Makeup and YouCam Perfect, to provide a consumer platform to virtually try-on new products, perform skin diagnoses, edit photos, and share experiences with the YouCam Community. 

To learn more, please visit PerfectCorp.com.

Data Source: GA4 with data for US Market Only - all pages 3/1/2024 to 7/31/2024.  Data pulled for 1,782 PAT users vs. 972,676 Non-PAT users.