• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 14, 2012

In the afternoon’s first keynote, Sarah Liang Kress, director of interactive marketing, L’Oreal USA, talked about how the cosmetics giant has aligned its mobile strategy with its three main audiences: cosmetological students, professional hairdressers, and consumers. Based on its own data and third-party research, L’Oreal wound creating an iPad app for students to use in class, a smartphone app for hairdressers, and a mobile site to reach the wider consumer audience.

For students at its academy, being issued an iPad and companion classroom app, it led to cost-savings on textbooks and an increase in applications. The smartphone app aimed at hairdressers, led to an increased use of less popular hair coloring products, and 18% sales increase for a new hair color line introduced last fall. On the consumer side, the non-e-commerce mobile site accounted for 18% of all traffic and a 22% increase in salon finder searches. The most popular day among mobile Web users was Saturday.