The Cosmetic Promotion Assistant employs the MeituGenius AR colour cosmetics trial system and was designed specifically for HTML5.
It can generate virtual makeup effects in just a minute and let users trail over 20 styles, such as glossy, satin, metal, diamond, and velvet effects using the AR makeup editor.
The system can also make recommendations such as suitable colours and styles based on the user’s facial features.
Products available for trial include lipstick, foundation, blush, eye shadow, brow pencil, eyeliner, mascara, and other wearables like sunglasses.
Additionally, MeituGenius can help brands to understand users’ habits to improve marketing efficiency and achieve a more efficient use of stored data.
According to the firm, the system can be supported by multiple platforms, including social networking websites such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
Brands and retailers can include purchase links in the trail to redirect consumers to an official or third-party website.
The company claims the Cosmetic Promotion Assistant is the first free digital makeup trial solution provided to beauty companies.
Boosting make-up sales
Head of Meitu overseas business Eagle Lee told CosmeticsDesign-Asia that it has received more enquires about its services since the outbreak.
“Intelligent AR makeup trial is the trend of the cosmetic retail industry for its obvious advantages in marketing, especially during the period when it’s inconvenient for users to go to the offline stores.”
He said that the Cosmetic Promotion Assistant tool would ultimately relieve sale and promotion pressure by lowering costs for brands.
“It’s a forever free plan without production cost, which means brands can easily access it and promote products on it. Secondly, it improves efficiency by offering all colours of a product to users at the same time. Thirdly, users can share products directly to other platforms, which will be a sustainable promoting channel for brands even after the pandemic.”
The pandemic has been especially hard on the colour cosmetics category as a majority of people have been advised to isolate themselves at home, removing the need to use any make-up.
Those who are able to go out also have little reason to use make-up, given that most of their face is covered with a mask.
Additionally, trying on make-up physically can extremely important to consumers to determine shade matches or colour suitability.
“The trial is a very important process for beauty retailers’ marketing. Customers would like to check the real effects by trial when purchasing makeup products on the offline stores. However, because of the coronavirus, customers are avoiding offline shopping and turning to online services where the makeup trial service is absent most of the time,” explained Lee.
With this tool, Meitu hopes to help brands bridge this gap and improve the performance of the make-up category all together.
“Meitu believes that with the launch of an online virtual makeup trial, the sales of makeup products would be recovered soon. For customers, seeing the effects of products applied on their face in real-time would be a direct stimulation before making a purchase decision,” said Lee.