Pierre Fabre

The brand

Pierre Fabre is France’s leading dermo-cosmetic group, with brands that include Avene, Klorane and Ducray. With a strong pharmaceutical heritage and decades of skincare expertise, the group wanted to deepen its understanding of China’s fast-moving beauty market.

The challenge

Pierre Fabre’s leadership team needed strategic intelligence on China’s digital and eCommerce landscape, with actionable insights from the frontlines rather than generic market reports. They asked for a comprehensive masterclass covering current platform dynamics on Douyin, Tmall, JD, Xiaohongshu and WeChat, real-world case studies showing what is actually working in beauty, emerging trends such as live commerce, AI-generated content and CRM, and practical learnings they could apply to their own China operations.

Our approach

Rather than theoretical frameworks, the masterclass was built around six live case studies from the China beauty market. The line-up covered strategic campaign development with Proya, digital sales channel activation with Collgene, eCommerce platform strategy with Estee Lauder, offline marketing initiatives with Lancome, customer relationship management with Lancome, and IP collaboration marketing. Alongside the cases, we unpacked key trends shaping the category: Recession Glam, live selling, blind boxes and collectibles, and Beauty SOS strategies.

Results

Pierre Fabre’s team left with actionable strategic frameworks, including the “3D Digital Growth Model,” competitive intelligence on international and local brands, stronger cross-functional alignment, and immediate application opportunities for their China business. Reference data points from the session included Proya converting 83 percent of social buzz, Collgene growing 47.6 percent year on year across a 35 percent shelf eCommerce, 40 percent livestream and 25 percent social content mix, Estee Lauder growing Tmall contribution from 8 percent to 28 percent of total GMV over ten years, and Lancome’s “Annual Collectible” campaign estimated at around 200 million RMB annually.