Georges-Edouard DIAS

14, rue Pasteur,

92800 PUTEAUX

+41798474574
+33663343758 gedias@quantstreams.com
+19143093665 Married, 3 children: 24, 22 and 19

Profile
January 2014 – Present :
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, QuantStreams, Lausanne@EPFL, Switzerland.
Visiting Professor at HEC Paris, Digital Marketing & Big Data (Axa Chair)

Employment history
January 2010 – December 2013 :
Chief Digital Officer, L’Oréal Group, Strategic Marketing Division, Paris, France
• Definition and management of L’Oréal’s Global Digital Strategy,
further cascaded to divisions, brands and countries.
• Coordination of digital teams (500 people WW)
• In charge of L’Oréal Data Strategy:
o Media buying (RTB/Ad Exchanges)
o Omni channel management (E-Commerce/Retail)
• Development of New Business Models based on Digital (India, Africa)
Strategic Committee Member (Conjoncture)

July 2001 – Dec 2009 :

SVP, Internet & E-Business, L’Oréal Group, Strategic Development Division, Paris, France
• Digital retail channel management with over $200 Millions of sales :
(direct online sales, indirect sales through retailers’ websites [Shop in Shop])
• Development of the CRM competence center : Strategy, Programs Implementation,
Loyalty Management (by brands and cross-brands)
• Management of L’Oreal’s Corporate Web Platform : loreal.com/.countries
o loreal.com was awarded the Grand prix Top Com Corporate in 2006, Paris, France
• Set up and maintenance of L’Oréal’s global e-business & CRM platforms, and of
L’Oréal global hosting network (New-York, Paris, Hong-Kong).
18 team members in staff
Strategic Committee Member (Conjoncture)

July 99- June 2001,

L’Oréal USA, New-York
VP, Interactive Development
• Management of L’Oréal USA’s e-business strategy
• Set up, definition and launch of lancomeusa.com E-Commerce website
(first e-commerce website at L’Oréal)
• In charge of web-scoping L’Oréal’s US subsidiary name change
from Cosmair into L’Oréal USA : launch of lorealusa.com
• Monitoring of Internet and Intranet brands activities in the USA.
 October 96- June 1999,
L’Oréal, Corporate Communications Division, Paris, France
VP, New Media
• Creation and launch of L’Oréal’s first corporate website (1997)
o Loreal.com : Grand prix, Biarritz Multimedia Festival, France, 1998
• Corporate Intranet Network set up
• Coordination of L’Oréal’s webmasters activities,
Creation of L’Oréal’s Global E-Business committees (GEC)

April 1994- September 1996

L’Oréal, Active Cosmetic Division, Paris, France
AVP, International Development
• Repositioning of Vichy’s brand and contract negotiation with Vichy’s
brand owners.
• Definition and set up of health skincare centers outside traditional
pharmacies in the UK for the whole division

Mai 1990- Mars1994

L’Oréal, Vichy Laboratories, Active Cosmetic Division
AVP, Marketing Development
• Launch of « Capital Soleil » (first sun care range at L’Oréal featuring
advanced UVA filtration with Mexoryl SX)
o Marie-Claire Price 1993, Cosmétique News Price 1994, Packaging Oscar
• Relaunch of Vichy’s men skincare range(Basic homme)

September 1984 – April 1990

L’Oréal, Consumer Division, Paris, France
Started as Product Manager, later promoted as Product Group Director
• Styling products and toiletries ranges
o Narta, Vivelle-Dop (Lascad)
o O.BA.O (Garnier)

January 1984 – August 1984

Syntex Laboratories, Brétigny-sur-Orge, France
Assistant to the Head of Industrial Operations
• Transfer of the distribution unit

Education
CEDEP at Insead, GMP cycle 57
HEC 83

Languages spoken
Native French, Fluent in English
Written and Spoken German.

Leisure and Personal interests

Horse riding.
Hiking and Mountaineering.
Marketing Week (UK) Q&A:
Georges-Edouard Dias, L'Oreal
Digital Strategy March 2012 | By Lucy Handley

Georges-Edouard Dias, senior vice-president, digital business at L’Oréal,

speaks to Lucy Handley about the importance of digital marketing and
social media in reaching different markets around the globe.

Marketing Week (MW): What are the big issues facing

digital marketers now?

Georges-Edouard Dias (GED): I think there is a need for

marketers to think about what their customers need more
than ever before. I often meet marketers from very different
sectors and we tend to share the same types of questions.

Things don’t stop when customers purchase a product,

which is the way we behaved before. Now, purchasing is
the point when you can start to have a conversation with
them. So we believe in social media because the most
important phase for digital marketing comes after someone has purchased and
experienced your product.

MW: How do you monitor social media?

GED: In the US, we get about 250,000 posts every day about our brands, of
which about 20,000 are relevant insights you can dig into. We see it as a free
source of information. We try to screen all the tools available on the global
market because the brands and countries [L’Oréal operates in] expect us to look
at all the providers and work out which is best.

It is also important because we want to have a consistent vision at the global

level. If you have different [monitoring] vendors in different countries, it starts to
be very difficult. It doesn’t always mean that we will have global vendors.

So in China we use [media monitor] CIC, which is purely Chinese. Understanding

the language and culture in China is very important. If you have people analysing
social media from a desk in London, I am not sure it would be as accurate as
using people in Shanghai.
MW: What do you do with the insights you gain from social media?

GED: One of our tasks is to be able to report our social positioning in the market
to our chief executive. So we look at share of buzz and share of voice, as well as
share of search - when someone is typing a word that is relevant to our category,
we look at what our ranking is. Then we put key performance indicators together,
so we have consistency.

MW: Are there financial rewards for using social media?

GED: We have seen cases where brands have been very active socially but we
didn’t get the [financial] result we expected. And the reason was because it
wasn’t the right product or country. Italy is very social, but Germany is the
opposite, for example.

This takes us back to the roots of marketing, which is about intuition, intelligence
and feeling the market, not about reading or statistics or replicating best practice.
It forces us to be more accurate and acute about anything we are doing and
makes my job much more interesting.

MW: You said in a presentation at a Forrester conference last year that

beauty is inherently social. Can you explain this?

GED: People use beauty products to not only please themselves when they look
in the mirror, but it affects how they present themselves to others, and the way
they are recognised in the eyes of others is very important.

For example, we have a brand in the US called Vichy Dermablend, which is for
people with burns. The fact that we are able to provide a tool that conceals
makes them feel comfortable and it will transform how they feel in their social life.

They might be willing to deliver a keynote speech at an event, for example, that
before they couldn’t do, so you see the social role of beauty. That is an extreme
example, but for each of us, the way we present ourselves is very important.

MW: L’Oréal has a new strategic marketing function; can you explain
more?

GED: This is [chief marketing officer] Marc Menesguen’s idea. It made sense to
create some synergies between brands because we had different customers for
different products. Yet some customers of [L’Oréal’s upmarket skincare brand]
Lancôme are also sometimes Garnier customers [an everyday brand].

Our way to develop a business doesn’t mean that everything looks alike. On the
contrary, we understand where the synergies are and from that we can preserve
our brands. Leveraging the [potential customer base] is important, but it is not
done to the disadvantage of the customer.

It is also about the compromise between global and local, creating metrics where
everything is intersected. Having a chief marketing officer position has helped us
harmonise our metrics.

Also [it is easier to have] discussions and understanding between our big
network partners at a global level, working with big clients such as Tesco,
Walmart and AS Watson, which is a very important group [it owns Superdrug in
the UK and numerous beauty retailers in Europe and Asia].

One of the roles of the chief marketing officer is to make sure that each L’Oréal
employee is trained on the new vision, on the new focus on the customer and the
customer lifecycle.

MW: Are you doing any online activity to cross-sell your products?

GED: Yes. In China, for example, we partnered with publishing house Women of
China to produce a website called eLadies. That is a name that doesn’t sound
right in the UK, but for China it is. There, all our brands explained their
contribution to beauty in their own way.

We’ve also recently created a club in the US, for the Hispanic population in
partnership with [TV network] Telemundo. It’s a deal to create content for our
brands on TV for [Spanish soap opera shows] telenovelas.

People are crazy about these series, so we created the Club de Noveleras
website, which organises events for viewers to meet their favourite actors and
get some sort of reward.

MW: How could you apply digital techniques to developing countries such
as India?

GED: We try to serve our customers as best we can and try to understand why
they are doing things. For example, we know [in the Western world] that using a
sachet of shampoo isn’t the most pleasant experience, so there is no reason why
it would be different for an Indian guy. So you have to understand why people are
behaving differently from you.

Part of using sachets is the price point [some Indians are paid weekly rather than
monthly so they are more affordable] and their big concern is not to waste it or
use too much. Of course they want a more pleasant experience but in their
mindset, it also gives the exact dose they need.
So the idea is to find a way that we can make the sachet affordable for them,
where they can have a [physical] bottle but pay as if they were using sachets.
They can pay by instalments, for example, perhaps via their mobile phone
credits. In India, there are more mobiles than computers or TVs, and it’s is the
best way to secure your money.

Applying technology to an established market is the best way to secure your

market share.

Dias’ Priorities
Marketing Week (MW): What’s your focus for this year?

Georges-Edouard Dias (GED): Digital is a strong enabler to aid the

development of our brands and if we do it right, we can really push our growth.
There is huge potential for our brands because of new markets and new types of
expression.

Digital allows for a direct link between the brand and customer, which means you
learn because you have feedback and you can grow your relationship with
customers.

MW: How do you make sure you keep up-to-date with emerging trends?

GED: Be curious and keen about making discoveries, then you keep up with
things. Also, the network of people you know can alert you [to trends].

Discover things that people have not looked at before. For example, I wanted to
understand the [digital business] model in Africa. In South Africa, I met a
company called RLabs, which practises ‘re-insertion’ through digital. It takes
people who might have been using drugs and helps them find a legitimate
occupation, which might be a new business enabled by technology.

I met someone from Orange at The Africa Council [who said] that in Lagos,
Nigeria, they have 4G [rather than the slower 3G], so don’t suppose that in
Nigeria there is [only] old [mobile] equipment. You must understand that you view
the market through the eyes of the western guy. If you aren’t curious, you will
always be taken by surprise.
Georges-Edouard Dias sets out three big digital tips

When looking at social media, consider your social estate. Look at each
brand, what your customers think, where they are. For example, skin and
haircare brand Kiehls was created in 1851 by Dr John Kiehls in New York’s
East Village. He wanted to serve local people around the pharmacy, so it
was about neighbourhood beauty. The brand now focuses a lot of attention
on locality advertising, such as Facebook Places or Foursquare, so it
translates well because of the original mission of Kiehls serving the
community. It is the fastest growing brand at L’Oréal.

My first concern as the global guy is about being consistent. Each brand
should find its path in the digital world. Each has its own ways and there
are countries that are very social. So, for example, in Italy, the people are
very socially active. In Germany, they are less so.

Technology makes people smarter. There is a real power in using digital

as a source of different thinking. We have to focus on who our next billion
customers will be and where they will come from. Africa is going to be
much more important. But only 1 billion people have a credit card in the
world and only 1.6 billion have a bank account. So when we are talking
about serving the next billion customers, we have to think about people
who are ‘unbanked’. But those people who are unbanked have something
in common/ they own a mobile phone. There is a higher penetration of
mobiles in South Africa than in the UK. Mobile is the most personal link
you can create with your customer.