CASE EXAMPLE 21 MAKEUP.COM: AN ONLINE PLATFORM FOR BRANDED CONTENT FROM L'ORAL The popular website makeup.com provides visitors with features and videos that provide beauty tips, make-up tricks and advertised products. The site sources content from an edi- torial staff and a network of vloggers. YouTube vloggers share the branded content on their own channel, resulting in an even broader reach for the site's content. But the website also has a sizeable fan base of its own, with, for example, 781,000 fans on Facebook. With almost daily updates, the site caters for an engaged and captive audience of women who are interested in finding educational and fun content that is useful to them. Features involve spotlighting particular beauty products or interviews with beauty experts and industry insiders giving tips on beauty treatments and their favourite products. L'Oral realized that many potential consumers nowadays rely on social media influencers and mobile apps to make their purchase decisions. The company recognized the real potential of a platform for branded content that does more than simply push or promote its products. The website is accordingly designed to offer targeted and interactive content that can be matched to the interests of the visitor, complementing L'Oral's more generic and one-way inspirational adverts. It is in fact not immediately obvious to visitors that the website is run by L'Oral; visitors often only realize the ownership when they scroll to the bottom of the site and see the brands from the L'Oral family listed. But in this way, the website, as a non-explicitly branded content hub, gives L'Oreal the opportunity to show its products in videos and blogs without making it appear to be an overt advertisement. Question for reflection What role do you think the makeup.com website plays in promoting L'Oral products and in influencing the purchase decisions of potential consumers