Wired Wellbeing

We now spend more time at our salon visits than we do with our GP.

From future workplaces to digitally-connected homes, it’s no secret that we’re becoming wired to brands that fulfil our need for smoother, more intuitive wellbeing products and services. In the beauty and fitness sector, innovative entrepreneurs are creating new offerings – from healthcare apps to gym classes – to lure us away from our screens, sofas and coffee shops. Similarly, brands such as Blow Ltd and Perfect 10 offer a speedy beauty fix on demand, via mobile and at the customer’s convenience.

UK leisure time has increased fourfold in the last forty years, with leisure spend having grown faster than retail spend, as consumers prefer mini adventures and retreats, rather than spending days off pacing up and down the high street.

One look at the UK Festivals calendar shows that organisers are catering for new tastes, many of which have jumped on to the boutique beauty and yoga bandwagon. From groovy feel-good brands such as Fierce Grace and Neal’s Yard at the Wilderness Festival, to Croatia’s very own Obonjan island escape, spiritual beauty boosters have gone mainstream. 

Digital Beauty  

Next generation treatments such as Romy’s personalised beauty product dispenser, and uber-prescriptive brands such as Geneu’s pop up at Selfridges, represent customisation at a premium, with innovative apps such as L’Oreal’s Make Up Genius offering an accessible mobile-led experience.

For salon brands and businesses, this presents a challenge: invest in the efficacy of ‘high tech’ solutions for busy urban dwellers or design a salon (or retail) experience that provides an antidote to digital living?

We see three opportunity areas to differentiate a salon experience:

1. Micro Escapism: Choose your vibe – from a chilled Ibiza concept complete with low-level club beats, to an anti-pollution lab – and stick to it. Bringing a sense of the retreat to a salon’s experience comes from an acute sense of place and the ‘edit’ of the detail, rather than overloading the senses.
2. Focus on the Tactile: Scientists emphasise the importance of touch as a source of oxytocin as means of tackling stress and burn-out in modern society.  This remains a hidden benefit to both beauty care and wellbeing strategies, as Fiona Golfar recently commented in Vogue, and taps into our visceral needs to switch off and regenerate. Smart lighting and design are important here to enable customers to unwind and zone out of everyday stress.
3. Go Adaptive: Create responsive offers and services – weather-related, culturally-topical and seasonal treatments that adjust the the mood and needs of customer groups, using Geolocation and beacon technology.  Underpinned by a strong brand story, changing to the mood and needs of your customers positions brands as ‘live’, in the moment and more relevant.

Innovation in beautycare goes further than digital engagement – it’s also creating ‘deeper’ and more immersive experiences with great service. For the new class of informed customer who knows her ashram from her aesthetics, blending a bit of escapism with skincare science could be just what the doctor ordered.