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Case Study
L'Oréal
Beauty and Cosmetics

Eye Toward the Future

With more than 80,000 team members globally and 36 brands under its umbrella, L’Oréal is not just the No. 1 beauty company worldwide — it’s also a massive employer.

To attract and keep top talent, the company cultivates a mission-focused environment that empowers and rewards employees with generous benefits and advancement opportunities. Another part of their strategy: Hire young with an eye toward the future. (And so far it’s worked — their CEO started as an intern in the ’70s.) 
They reach their young candidates through programs like L’Oréal on Campus, which offers internship opportunities to college students and connects soon-to-be grads with recruiters at in-person events. But having that eye toward the future has meant realizing that recruitment marketing is changing. So L’Oréal is changing with it, using Facebook Live videos as a new recruitment method, creating and polishing those videos with Switcher Studio — and gaining reach like never before.

“We wanted something that would allow us to do live broadcasts to a high standard but without a professional crew and professional cameras every time.”

Michael Lake, Recruitment Manager for Global Campus Activation at L'Oréal

The Challenge

Michael Lake, L’Oréal’s recruitment manager for Global Campus Activation, could tell that the old ways of recruitment weren’t working.

“The way you attract candidates is changing, and the way you approach recruiting from colleges and universities is changing,” he says. “The traditional way of doing a corporate presentation and talking about how great the company is — or going to a career fair and talking to people who are already interested in you (because otherwise they wouldn’t have stopped by) — is a little bit old-fashioned. It doesn’t allow us to capture what we really want, which is really a very diverse candidate pool.”

Lake, who’s based in London, decided to try using live video in L’Oréal’s recruitment efforts. He wanted to take advantage of their existing reach on social media. So his team hired a professional film crew to stream a live talk on a college campus, and, though successful, it was unsustainable financially. When L’Oréal tried to recreate the talk in another country, they found the film crew costs prohibitive and ended up broadcasting the talk live using a basic streaming app on a single device, producing lackluster results.

Lake began seeking an alternative. “We wanted something that would allow us to do live broadcasts to a high standard but without a professional crew and professional cameras every time,” he says. They needed:

  • An affordable tool that could be managed entirely in-house
  • The ability to use cameras/devices they already owned
  • An integration with their existing Facebook page and audience
  • The ability to add the polish and visual interest expected from the top beauty brand
  • A way to provide true value to viewers in the form of worthwhile content

A Google search led them to Switcher.

The Opportunity

Instead of targeting students with recruitment-heavy messaging, L’Oréal has taken a content marketing approach to reaching candidates — providing educational talks, presented by L’Oréal employees, that are actually relevant to students’ career goals.
“Rather than going on campus and talking about careers and how great they are, we’re talking about things students want to learn about, like digital marketing,” says Lake. This ends up creating value for both L’Oréal and the students, who learn about their industries while getting a feel for what it’s like to work for L’Oréal.
Facebook Live has allowed them to take these presentations, previously shared only through on campuses, and broadcast them to the world. And Switcher Studio lets them do so in a way that’s branded, engaging, and polished. No longer are they limited to a single phone. With Switcher, they can change camera angles, insert text and titles, display slideshows, and add effects, all while streaming live. Best of all, their in-house team can create this professional look themselves with iOS devices — no need for the film crew that costs beaucoup bucks.
“We’re democratizing that value by broadcasting that live. Anyone can watch one of our talks any time forever now,” says Lake.

"We’re democratizing that value by broadcasting that live. Anyone can watch one of our talks any time forever now."

Michael Lake, Recruitment Manager for Global Campus Activation at L'Oréal

The Results

Anyone, indeed. The first campus talk that L’Oréal streamed on Facebook Live with Switcher Studio reached half a million people within its first week. That’s a 3,000% increase in reach compared to the 150 students in the room for the talk — and evidence that their educational approach is resonating with audiences.

“The traditional way gets us in front of 150 people in a room or a few hundred people at a career fair if we’re lucky,” says Lake. “But with this, we can, in theory, talk to anybody. And we can do that in a way that’s interesting, that’s value-added, that’s universally appealing, and also really authentic.”

The ability to make their content available worldwide is beneficial not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of diversity. L’Oréal strives to attract a workforce that reflects the audience they serve — one of different genders, ethnicities, and social backgrounds — which makes livestreaming to Facebook a natural fit. And livestreaming also lets L’Oréal communicate with their viewers in real time, providing valuable educational content while building relationships and their employer brand.

In light of L’Oréal’s success, Lake recommends Switcher Studio to others with an eye toward the future of recruitment and content creation. “They understand that not everyone is super techy,” he says. “They have a kind of foolproof guide for anything you want to do, and they’ll even do one-on-one conversations with you before an event. They are just super supportive, helpful, and friendly.”

He’s committed to continuing to use Switcher and Facebook Live for his recruitment and marketing efforts. “[We] will continue to use live video with Switcher Studio in recruiting and anything else where a two-way conversation is valuable,” he says. “It has made such a difference with accessibility.”

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"But with this, we can, in theory, talk to anybody. And we can do that in a way that’s interesting, that’s value-added, that’s universally appealing, and also really authentic."

Michael Lake, Recruitment Manager for Global Campus Activation at L'Oréal