COFFRET D’OR released digital makeup consultation service “COFFmi” equipped with a virtual makeup try-on solution

Makeup brand “Coffret D’or” by Kanebo Cosmetics Co.,Ltd, released “COFFmi”, its digital beauty service, on Sep 17^th 2020. The service allows customers to experience personalized makeup consultation through the LINE App, and includes the “COFFmi CHECKER” feature. The first service of such kind in the world, it introduces Perfect Corp.’s new “AI Face Attribute” solution, which accurately analyzes a user’s facial features in seconds. 

The COFFmi CHECKER uses the results to suggest personalized makeup products from about 7,000 patterns for users to try on virtually. Users can also assess such skin conditions as moisture, oil, spots, and texture to find out the best base makeup products designed for them. Coffret D’or reports that the service was used more than 100,000 times in one week and the number of friends added on COFFmi’s LINE account exceeded 300,000 within two weeks after the launch.

Kaori Kawano and Rikako Tutsumi of the Kanebo Cosmetics marketing regional brand group detail the new Coffret D’or experience and its impact on the user experience: 

How do you integrate virtual makeup into the user’s shopping experience? 

Kawano and Tutsumi: Coffret D’or tries to share brand updates with our customers quickly and seamlessly by using digital services and tools. We have been working on digitalizing our customer communications prior to the global pandemic in 2020. We also needed a place where customers could share their opinions regarding our products easily and regularly, so that we can develop our products with those opinions in mind. So, we started to develop the COFFmi platform to make that possible. It took 2 years to plan and a year and half to develop COFFmi.

Give us an overview of the “COFFmi” service.

COFFmi is the realization of the brand’s hope that each of our customers can find makeup looks and products that are right for them and embrace the convenience of the digital services. We have integrated the virtual try-on experience into the shopping flow at an early stage and allowed customers to try personalized lipstick colors, as well as conduct virtual beauty consultations for users to find personalized tips for base makeup products by analyzing a user’s skin condition. However, our initial online consultations were limited to just a few products and we couldn’t provide the complete consultation experience like we did in our stores. To tackle that, we incorporated “AI Face Attribute” and “Advanced AI Skin Diagnostics” solutions into “COFFmi CHECKER” in order to accurately analyze the facial features and skin concerns of the users and provide product recommendations from the full range of the Coffret D’or product line.

Why did you choose LINE App as the platform for COFFmi?

LINE has become the must-have messaging app in the local market, so it helps us reach wider audiences faster. Asking consumers to install a brand new app is tedious and complicated, so using an existing app that is already widely popular was simply the quickest way to reach consumers. Compared with the previous online webpage campaign called “Pores Checker” which was launched in February 2020, COFFmi has gained 1.8 times higher unique users (UU) and 3.4 times higher page views (PV). Also, the average time spent on site has increased 2.6 times for each user session.

Did you expect the number of new friends on COFFmi LINE account to exceed 300K in 2 weeks since the launch?

Our goal was to exceed 500K by the end of 2020, so it was a good start on the way to our goal.

Get makeup advice anytime, anywhere. My personal beauty advisor.

What factors were the most important to consider when integrating the virtual makeup feature into “COFFmi”?

We thought it was necessary to install the latest AR and AI technology to provide a more accurate virtual makeup experience that customers could use and control easily. The most important thing is the user experience (UX). We made sure that the easy and simple UX was not overwhelmed with too many of Coffret D’or’s elements. Digital tools need to be straightforward and simple so that customers could keep up with them. 

What was the feedback from users regarding the virtual makeup?

We felt it was what the customers needed. Compared with another promotional page on our website without the virtual makeup feature, the number of PV has increased 11.4 times and the average time spent on the page has increased 2.48 times. If you convert this outcome into time, customers have spent about 6,073 hours, or 253 days on "COFFmi." “COFFmi” is also used as a counseling tool in our stores and we’ve heard such feedback as “I can experience almost the same quality and color as the real products” or “It is good to mix and try items and colors that I didn’t even think of trying before.”

Also, there are many stores where testers are not available due to the global pandemic, so the customers could not try our products as much anymore and the personal sessions with beauty advisors were not easy to come by. Due to this, we have gotten more positive comments from customers that they enjoy virtual shopping experiences with “COFFmi CHECKER”.

As a result, the weekly average number of virtual try-ons for Coffret D’or products has increased 4.9 times since the launch of “COFFmi”. Also, compared with another campaign that was launched in March 2020, virtual try-ons have increased 1.3 times. We think this success is due to our switch to LINE app.

Left: The module detects the suitable products and colors for you based on your facial features and skin tone.

Right: The user is able to answer questions about their facial features and shape to get the most customized virtual try-on.

Was there a reaction from the media and also any effect on the sales figures after introducing our technology (virtual makeup solution)?

We think we’re able to provide an accurate personalized experience of our products by introducing Perfect’s technology at the earliest stage. This time for “COFFmi”, we gained more than 150 media exposures and this number keeps growing. Usually, it is said that the sales figures would decrease after the third week of launching the products. However, we managed to retain high sales figures for the products we launched along with “COFFmi”. “COFFmi” absolutely contributed to this result. We’d like to continue to adopt the latest technology developed by Perfect and use it for communicating with our customers in a new, interactive way.

“COFFmi” is being accessed not only from promotions on LINE, but also through QR codes and in-store consultations. Tell us about your OMO (Online Merges with Office) strategy.

We value personal consultations in our stores and we needed to merge the benefits from both online and offline shopping experiences to provide services that meet the consumer’s needs. For “COFFmi”, in addition to pure online usage, we originally designed it to be used in-store as well. However, based on customer feedback that they would refrain from coming to our stores due to recent lifestyle changes, we’d like to provide services that would allow our cosmetic representatives to conduct online consultations with customers who value face-to-face communication.