L’Oréal India, the transformative beauty leader has announced the appointment of Gaurav Anand as its chief digital and marketing officer(CDMO). As per the terms of the new role, he will be a part of the India management committee and will lead and integrate the consumer insights, data, strategy, media and consumer advisory functions to enable L’Oréal’s digital-first brands to deliver accelerated growth on online platforms.
Referring to the brand’s legacy and welcoming Anand on board, Amit Jain, managing director, L’Oréal India, said, “The Indian consumer is making a rapid shift towards omni channel. As a beauty tech company, L’Oréal India is addressing this evolving landscape by deploying new technologies to enhance our products and customer experience for a new O+O world. This new role is our commitment to strengthen the role of digital at the core of our business strategy. With his proven track record of accelerating disruptive business growth, Gaurav is best placed to scale our digital marketing efforts to harness new capabilities for the company.”
On taking up the new role, Anand said, “As a marketer, it’s been interesting to watch what L’Oréal has done for the Indian beauty market in the last 27 years, bringing many first-to-market innovations and products. Future possibilities lie in collaboration and I am looking forward to working with our industry partners to chalk out a strong consumer and data focused growth story for L’Oréal.”
Gaurav Anand, an alumni of University of Oxford stepped into the marketing industry as CRM Consultant at Accenture in 2005 later moving to Procter & Gamble where he performed several roles. He joined P&G as Country Business Delivery Leader for Air Freshener brands UK & Ireland and led Business Turnaround for Febreze, in UK (+30% over expected) with a small scent extension, by turning it into the year’s best initiative go-to market (in the category). It won Product of the year award in UK (2010) and was reapplied across P&G Japan, America, sold in to Tesco, Sainsbury, Morrison, ASDA a ‘scent camps’ based listing to secure brand listing ahead of volume share. He also drove category firsts such as scented prints and in-store scent dispensers, off a moderate marketing budget for the initiative. He spearheaded Business Turnaround of newly acquired Ambipur business in UK, (from three years of business decline), via effective overall portfolio management and a new marketing launch plan. This was first time that a P&G acquired business grew in its very first year. He was later elevated as SK-II New Market/Channel Development Manager Aus, US, UK, India, UAE. And in 2013 he was promoted to Global Digital/CRM Brand Manager SK-II (Premium Skincare).
In 2015, Anand joined Facebook as Sales Lead- FMCG Industry- South East Asia, where he maned the top global FMCG advertisers in SEA driving disproportionate adoption of facebook as an essential media channel in SEA, 2X faster than their global adoption and changed the media mix and planning for the top advertisers in SEA, leading to higher business impact by tripling their use on Facebook as an essential advertising channel. He has been instrumental in creating a scalable model for both digital savvy and digital enthusiast clients by tailoring narrative to suit their stage of digital adoption and specific market business needs. He also created a framework to design mobile ready creatives, which helped video advertisers find the best way to drive impact via mobile advertising. Anand has been involved in designing a TV + Digital reach and frequency planning tool to optimise for cost and impact across different platforms to best drive Omni channel media planning for partner agencies. Anand joins L’Oréal from PepsiCo Europe where he led the snacks business for central Europe and digitisation of sales strategy for Europe.
