• To promote a proper understanding of the mechanics of marketing, L'Oréal is providing its new employees with a personalized, online training program designed by L’Oréal and StratX.

• The Marketing Basics Seminar is an international initiative tailored to local needs that combines e-learning and personalized coaching.

The Marketing Basics Seminar, a new form of training for L’Oréal employees, is more than a simple e-learning tool. The novelty of the program lies in the combination of several types of training, from e-learning to personal support from the learner’s manager. With 4 complementary steps stretching over 6 weeks, the aim of the seminar is to ensure that all new marketing employees and others who are likely to need this knowledge—communications executives, management controllers, and recruitment executives—receive the same level of training throughout the world.

• Learn. The first step, Learn, consists of a number of online training modules designed by StratX and L’Oréal with several different entry levels that teach all the basic elements of marketing (market research, segmentation, positioning, pricing, advertising…).
• Practice. The second step, Practice, gives participants the chance to test their knowledge by playing a business simulation game developed by StratX for L’Oréal called Athena. The game recreates the conditions of the cosmetics market and puts the learner at the helm of a fictitious company.
• Validate. The third step, Validate, brings in a StratX marketing instructor who benchmarks and provides feedback on the decisions made during the game in an online class where learners from different countries can compare notes.
• Apply. In the fourth and final step, Apply, the line manager steps in and assists the learner. Together they apply the new knowledge to the product or brand they are responsible for.

Philippe Louvet, Corporate Development & Training Director at L'Oréal, says, “There’s no substitute for human support, exchange and dialogue. The work we do is based on expertise built up over a long period of time, and we have to pass on our know-how to new team members”. Feedback from new hires is excellent. To date, more than 250 young marketing employees have completed the Marketing Basics Seminar. For Christophe Lajouanie, Director of Knowledge Management, L'Oréal Corporate Marketing, “It’s just a start, because the flexibility of the Marketing Basics Seminar program will enable us to regularly enhance the content and support changes in the marketing profession in the coming years”.