Premium Beauty News - In your speech at the Centifolia congress, you presented the first steps of a collaboration with Native American people - "Men who care for the forest" - and a exchange model that could be called a "win-win" model". Despite this very worthy cause, don’t you feel you could get involved "more locally"?
Xavier Ormancey - Yves Rocher has always encouraged local sourcing and especially Breton sourcing. 50 years ago, M. Rocher created in Britain an economy in connection with his business with the setting up of plants, with the organic farming on 55 hectares of more than 20 species of plants (chamomile, arnica, cornflower, matricaria, etc.) generating in the end more than 10,000 jobs in the region. The anchor point of the business is certainly Britain where our "roots" definitely are, but we also have "wings" that lead us to work in other countries worldwide.
In a necessary approach of continuous improvement, Yves Rocher wants to use its plant sectors as levers to participate in biodiversity conservation and local development. We actually want to replicate the development model locally applied on our Breton site in La Gacilly to the other sourcing spots in Mali and Madagascar, for example. Yves Rocher has always been strongly determined in supporting the people and the local economy both in Britain and around the world.
Premium Beauty News - The Centifolia congress highlighted the principles of collective intelligence, do you work with these concepts of co-creation?
Xavier Ormancey - Within the company, a really close proximity exists since the research, communication and marketing teams are in the same building and share in particular the same coffee machine. In addition to formal interactions, meetings can therefore also occur in other places. Contacts are direct and permanent which also fosters co-creation.
It is clear that scientists need to think about women who buy the product and they also must be able to feed marketing teems as a co-creation partner. Jobs must be decompartmentalised.
Premium Beauty News - How does the customer realize that in buying a Yves Rocher product she is buying an "authentic" product that also makes sense?
Xavier Ormancey - The customer is buying performance, efficiency, and pleasure through the sensory aspects of the product. But above all, the ethical dimension has been deeply rooted in the brand’s DNA for 50 years. The Foundation Yves Rocher - Institut de France has existed for 20 years and supports a number of actions.
For the brand’s 50th anniversary, as part of the program "Plantons pour la Planète" (Let’s Plant for the Planet), the Foundation has committed itself to plant 50 million trees across the world within 5 years. Behind the product the price of which also enables a broad accessibility, there is a sense that each customer can see. And we have 30 million customers worldwide.
