As part of the collaboration, the New York-based firm will build an online learning platform for digital marketing professionals at L’Oréal, with the aim of enhancing its strategy in this field and training its entire marketing workforce in the future.
“Our mission is to place digital at the core of our business so we can personalize our relationship with consumers, to send them the right message at the right time in the right context for them,” says Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer L’Oréal.
“This is why investing in our talent and constantly improving our digital capabilities is a strategic imperative for L’Oreal.”
Avoiding brain drain?
At a time when consumer goods firms are seeing a ‘brain drain’ of unrivalled proportions as executives appear to be moving to Google, Amazon, Facebook, and the-like, L’Oréal will have General Assembly set up an ‘Essentials of Digital Marketing program’, designed to educate marketing teams on the latest trends, tactics, and new technologies in digital marketing.
As part of this, all L’Oréal employees will now have access to more than 70 interactive e-learning modules to expand their skillsets by learning about digital marketing best practices and new areas of opportunity.
The French firm’s marketing, digital, communication and retail teams will also be offered workshops covering ecommerce, precision marketing and social media which will be adapted and localized by country.
The training will be deployed in 10 pilot countries this year including France, the US, Russia, and Brazil; and over the next 18 months, L’Oréal aims to train the entire marketing workforce of nearly 7000 L’Oréal employees around the world.
“L’Oréal has set a powerful precedent for other employers by equipping their team with one of the most promising models of education, ensuring they’re well-equipped to be leaders in the emerging landscape of digital marketing,” comments Jake Schwartz, Co-founder and CEO, General Assembly.
The bigger picture
L’Oréal states that this is all part of a larger program driven by Rochet and her team, which aims at upskilling employees and placing digital strategies at the core of the business.
In addition to the e-learning program, L’Oreal’s marketing teams are trained through hackathons, sales and retail specialists are offered e-commerce workshops and top L’Oréal executives benefit from reverse mentoring sessions led by talented young digital marketers at the company.