Science-Based Hair Care Brand Living Proof Enters the Metaverse – WWD

Living Proof takes on the Metaverse.

The science-based haircare brand has partnered with immersive e-commerce platform ByondRX to host a virtual storefront where consumers not only shop for Living Proof products, but also explore the brand’s research and development lab in an AI hair quiz participate and visit Living Proof Salon.

“Living Proof is so deeply rooted in science and innovation, but I think that history gets lost sometimes,” said Alexis Tedesco, chief marketing officer for the brand, which was founded in 2005 by MIT professor Robert Langer and venture capitalist and entrepreneur Jon Flint . “Our showcase is sort of about pulling back the curtain and giving our consumers a glimpse of our world – and our world starts in the lab.”

Throughout the space, visitors can read consumer testimonials, win discounts and receive free samples, learn about the brand’s hair bonding technology launched last year, and purchase products tailored to their needs based on their hair needs. quiz results. A sustainability corner as the final stop highlights the brand’s partnership with TerraCycle and how consumers can recycle Living Proof products.

“The strategy behind the storefront is to not only give people the opportunity to learn about our products, but to actually help them identify the regimen they need – the virtual consultation is a priority,” Tedesco said.

Living Proof’s hair quiz, launched in 2022 in partnership with AI platform Revieve, combines front-end personalization through a series of questions with a diagnostic tool that assesses hair needs via a consumer-submitted selfie. The brand reports an average 22 percent increase in order value for customers who take the quiz compared to those who don’t.

According to Tedesco, the quiz – and its in-store presence – is an important continuation of the brand’s “retail-first” (as opposed to salon-first) approach through which Living Proof aims to make it ever easier for consumers , to win competent advice for a suitable, individual hair treatment.

“We are in a kind of test-and-learn phase. Certain industries like fashion can more easily dive straight into the true metaverse; For us, it’s about taking a measured approach, seeing what resonates with our community, and using that to inform our future spacecraft decisions,” said Tedesco.