L’Oreal Commits Up to $30 Million for New York Innovation Hub

L’Oréal is betting on the U.S. market. A few meters away from its Hudson Yards offices, the French beauty group is adding a new asset in New York with the operational objective of bringing together content creation, professional channel education and innovation testing with consumers, three fronts that today condition the speed of the beauty business.

The hub, located at 20 Hudson Yards, is on the site of the former Neiman Marcus store in the complex’s mall. In contrast to its offices, the space stands as an infrastructure for producing, training and testing new launches without leaving the immediate perimeter of its headquarters.

The investment, of up to $30 million, coincides with the completion of a two-and-a-half-year renovation of the adjacent headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards. That intervention has expanded the headquarters by 38,000 square meters to around 45,000 square meters.

One of the pillars of the new space is the L’Oréal Academy, aimed at hairdressing training and strengthening the professional business at a time of pressure on salon costs and rates. The company seeks to sustain the value of the service with more specialization, more recurrence and a homogeneous technical standard.

L’Oréal has invested between $25 million and $30 million in its new space in New York

The program brings together education from several brands in the hair portfolio, including Matrix, Redken and Kérastase, and incorporates the legacy of Redken Exchange, a training platform that began operating in the 1990s. The offering includes classes and certifications in a variety of areas.

The second component of the space is a block of twelve studios designed to produce content and campaign materials in an integrated manner. The aim is to concentrate in a single space the production of social media pieces, creator activations and content for the group’s FMCG and luxury brands, from Maybelline New York to YSL Beauty.

In parallel, the hub incorporates a technical center that consumers can access by invitation to test launches and new products. The idea is to accelerate the innovation-to-market cycle, bringing testing closer to the heart of the operations and marketing teams based in New York.

L’Oréal closed the first nine months of the current financial year with sales of €32.8 billion, 1.2% more than in the same period of the previous year, up 3.4% on a like-for-like basis. Between July and September, the company posted sales of €10.334 billion, 0.5% more than in the same period of the previous year.