When aesthetic ability becomes a hard currency, young people start to pursue spiritual upgrading.
The instinct of young people to pursue "beauty" has erupted
Staying at home binge - watching TV shows, putting on headphones to listen to pop music, or lying in bed scrolling through short videos... Do you think this is all of the cultural and entertainment life of contemporary young people? Far from it.
This generation of young people is increasingly dissatisfied with monotonous and repetitive entertainment activities and gradually pursues more advanced aesthetic experiences.
The sightseeing - style tour groups are on the decline, while in - depth cultural tours have become popular; KTVs are facing a wave of closures, and young people are fond of attending live music shows and watching on - site performances; Inferior web games have been eliminated from the market, and 3A games are booming...
Perhaps this picture can better depict their spiritual and cultural life: observing the actors' performances up close in a small theater, going wild at a music festival with their favorite bands, buying an affordable ticket to a stand - up comedy show to listen to people's witty complaints about life, or having a weekend "aesthetic spa" at a themed art exhibition... Rich, vivid, and exciting, young people's whole being is calling for novel and high - end cultural activities.
Image source: Visual China
According to the "2024 Emotional Economy Consumption Population Insight Report" released by MobTech Research Institute, paying for emotional value and interests has become the primary reason for young people's consumption, accounting for more than 40.1%. Under the influence of this consumption boom, affordable cultural performances such as stand - up comedy shows, music festival live shows, small - theater dramas, and musicals, which focus on a small - scale sense of presence and interactive experiences and have an average price ranging from 100 to 300 yuan, have become new popular channels for young people to obtain aesthetic pleasure.
All kinds of cultural and entertainment activities are ingeniously vying for young people's attention. Recently, a special live show deeply hit the aesthetic sweet spot of Generation Z - the "Gravitational Force of Beauty · L'Oréal Sound Wave Festival" held by L'Oréal Group in the continuous rain at Fudan University on March 28th.
This music feast invited two popular bands and singers with hard - to - get tickets - Summer Vapors and Meng Jia. Often regarded as one of the bands most frequently put on repeat by young people, in the comments of Summer Vapors' songs on NetEase Cloud Music, countless young people have recorded their youthful memories and emotions with words like "sea breeze" and "sunny day".
Similarly, Meng Jia is also very popular among Generation Z for her lively melodies, excellent singing skills, and cool style. She is a leader of youthful trends.
With these two "youthful atmosphere - makers" on site, one can imagine the excitement.
Not to mention, the heavy rain added an extra boost to this live show. Summer and heavy rain are naturally associated with youthful memories. The white noise from the rain actually stirred up more enthusiastic cheers from the students on site. They captured the wonderful moments of the live show through the gaps between the crowd and umbrellas. Some students even commented on social media after the show: "After attending the music festival, I can't oppose L'Oréal."
This music festival by L'Oréal not only pursues a lively atmosphere but also attaches great importance to fitting the theme through inter - act videos, stage design, and content arrangement, using music as a medium to empower aesthetic education.
In the trend of aesthetic upgrading, music festival live shows are becoming more and more competitive. Not only the music itself, but also the singers hope to create more memorable moments for young people with ingenious stage designs. Mao Buyi presented a "Song Selection Report" using PPT at his concert in Shenzhen, imitating internet jargon; G.E.M. had short inter - act mini - theaters at her concerts, using concise stories and animations to echo the theme; Wang Sulong would wear a "Plain Dragon" costume related to the theme before each concert and pretend to be a staff member to surprise the audience.
Similarly, L'Oréal has also put a lot of effort into content arrangement. The theme of the "L'Oréal Sound Wave Festival" is "The Gravitational Force of Beauty" - all things coexist and beauty is shared. Since ancient times, the pursuit of beauty has been engraved in the instinct of all mankind. In line with this aesthetic impulse in human DNA, the music festival set three major themes: "The Birth of All Things", "The Voice of Youth", and "The Ascent of Innovation". The selected music ranges from the gramophone era in 1947 to the digital age, including popular music with extremely different styles from different countries and regions, which together interpret the gravitational force of beauty existing among all things.
Each piece of music can bring back a story of an era. Since its establishment, L'Oréal has engraved scientific innovation in its DNA. From entering China and connecting with the new youth to seeking innovation and change in the new century, its entire development history is re - presented through music. In recent years, the huge beauty ecosystem outlined by L'Oréal has also generated a gravitational force with innovation and change. L'Oréal always believes that young people are the innovators of tomorrow and the key force in shaping the future of the beauty industry.
As a Fortune Global 500 company, L'Oréal attaches great importance to connecting with young people. This time, Nicolas Hieronimus, the CEO of L'Oréal Group, also came to the scene and interacted with young people in the form of a music festival for the first time.
In his opening speech, he said, "The 'Gravitational Force of Beauty' is also the driving force for the development of the beauty industry. As beauty consumers' demand for innovation and brand value is increasing day by day, the beauty industry will attract top talents like a magnet to explore the 'new continent' of beauty with us. Whether it is beauty care for men or the elderly; beauty technology, augmented beauty, or sustainable beauty... There are too many exciting beauty fields waiting for us to explore and conquer."
This sincere call to young innovators is also a microcosm of L'Oréal's transformation into a beauty technology company in the past decade.
The mutual attraction between beauty and technology
As a Fortune Global 500 company and the world's largest beauty group, L'Oréal has always attached great importance to the combination of beauty and technology.
In traditional stereotypes, technology always seems high - end, cold, and distant, while beauty is closer to ordinary people and closely related to everyone's life. Combining beauty with technology may seem like overkill. However, in L'Oréal's view, beauty and technology are not in conflict but are a natural match.
Some traditional companies that seem to have little to do with technology are actually the key forces driving technological change. Ford introduced the assembly line into automobile production inspired by the assembly - line operation in slaughterhouses; Coca - Cola accelerated the popularization of refrigerators in ordinary families... These traditional brands took the lead through technology and became industry leaders.
Similarly, L'Oréal's founder, Eugène Schueller, majored in chemistry, which was the most popular scientific research direction in the early 20th century. He invented a safe hair dye in 1909 and continuously expanded his research team in the following 50 years, hiring more than 100 chemists to participate in the research and development of cosmetics.
This is Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal
This century - old beauty enterprise has been striving to transform into a beauty technology company. Its annual R & D expenditure exceeds 1 billion euros (about 7.3 billion RMB). In 2023, the expenditure was 1.289 billion euros (about 10 billion RMB), almost doubling compared to a decade ago. In 2024, the era of the rapid development of AI, L'Oréal's determination is even more obvious. In May 2024, L'Oréal set up a giant exhibition stand of more than 30,000 square meters at the Viva Tech (European Innovation and Technology Exhibition) in Paris, showcasing a series of product achievements combining beauty and technology. The slogan is, "Beauty for Each, Powered by Beauty Tech".
These exhibits reflect L'Oréal's infinite expectations for the combination of beauty and technology. For example, the Paris L'Oréal Beauty Genius, a one - stop personal beauty assistant driven by generative AI; the innovative hair dryer L'Oréal PRO AirLight Pro, which uses infrared light technology to improve hair quality; the Lancôme Advanced Génifique Beautifying Device, which promotes the penetration of cosmetics into the stratum corneum; and L'Oréal's skin tissue engineering technology platform, which can simulate the complexity of human skin...
Many products incorporate up - to - date AI elements. Now is the era of the explosion of new - style AI technology. DeepSeek has brought about an AI revolution, and embodied intelligence has become extremely popular. All industries are involved in the storm of change, exploring the possibility of "AI +" industrial expansion just like the former "Internet +". "AI" is also a popular industry among young college students. With endless creativity and ideas, they are looking for the next node of change in technology companies.
L'Oréal's transformation into a beauty technology company and IT young people's search for new "AI +" ideas have achieved a mutual attraction.
At the end of the L'Oréal Sound Wave Festival, L'Oréal officially launched the 2025 L'Oréal China "Interesting Youth" program, which includes the first - ever Beauty Technology Hackathon "Tech for Fun", a competition specially designed for "IT talents". This is the first hackathon by L'Oréal Group and the Chinese beauty industry targeting IT - major college students, and it is also another signal for L'Oréal to gather Chinese young innovators to explore the digital future of the beauty industry.
This hackathon focuses on four main areas of beauty technology innovation: "Innovative Experience Experts", "Content Inspectors", "Data Deconstructors", and "Risk - control Guardians", corresponding to four major tracks: "AI beauty solutions", "AI content review", "Business intelligence analysis", and "AI security and reliability".
This is not just a simple competition of works or brainpower. L'Oréal hopes to select and integrate top - notch industry and academic resources through this competition to provide a growth platform for young innovators and establish a connection with the industrial frontier in advance.
The entire competition system is more like a series of academic workshops to promote the growth of young talents. L'Oréal has offered a 200,000 - yuan talent reward. After submitting their works to the innovation space, the participants will go through a two - month popularity battle. Sixteen teams will be selected based on the number of likes their works receive, and 15 teams will also be selected by the professional jury to advance to the finals.
The finalist teams will participate in a one - day one - on - one mentor workshop in June and present their works and conduct road - show defenses in July. As a beauty technology company, in addition to the bonus and incentives for industry - academia - research cooperation, L'Oréal will also provide special image - transformation services such as beauty and skincare courses and product packages, specially designed for beauty technology talents.
The hackathon follows the concept of "Tech for Good", believing that with the support of technology, beauty can better serve people's pursuit of beauty. Through a series of measures to empower IT talents, L'Oréal hopes to maximize the imagination of young innovators and jointly complete the "beauty + technology" blueprint.
22 years of empowering innovation in line with the times
Empowering young people and establishing connections with them has always been L'Oréal's constant pursuit.
This is the 22nd year that L'Oréal has continuously organized the "Interesting Youth" project. In 2003, the "Interesting Youth" project started in response to the Western Development Strategy. It joined hands with the China Youth Development Foundation to launch the "True Emotion Interaction" campus charity sale for school - aid activities, bringing its high - quality products to campus charity sales at discounted prices and using the funds raised to help college students from poor families continue their studies.
Over the past 20 years, the "Interesting Youth" project has innovated its activity forms every year, always empowering new youth in the most "IN" way through three major dimensions: "positive public welfare energy", "innovative and interesting", and "elite leadership".
In 2009, L'Oréal provided an "employment and entrepreneurship fund" to support young people's dreams; in 2021, the project fully embraced digital transformation, opened an online charity - sale store, and introduced the live - streaming model, providing a real "O + O" business practice environment for young people while doing public welfare; at the technological change node of digital leapfrogging, in 2024, the "Interesting Youth" college public - welfare program was officially upgraded to the "Interesting Youth" empowerment platform, aiming to provide support for more young people of different ages and backgrounds and help them grow.
In the first year of its renewal and upgrade, L'Oréal kept up with the times, added the "Tech for Fun" beauty hackathon as a major track, and supported the China College Students Public Relations Planning and Entrepreneurship Competition.