Coty has launched the first at-home hair color Action for the Google Assistant on Google Home smart speakers and smartphones. The ‘Clairol Color Expert’ provides consumers a hands-free voice activated guide to the entire at-home hair color process – from finding the right shade at the shelf to applying color, re-application and aftercare at home. This step-by-step service is perfect for first-time and repeat colorists and is easily accessible – just say “Hey Google, talk to Clairol.”

The Clairol Color Expert builds on Coty’s digital innovation strategy, which focuses on insight driven, consumer-first and category level solutions to consumer problems through emerging technology and new platforms.

Fred Gerantabee, Coty’s Vice President, Digital Innovation, said, “In beauty, service is the new product, and for consumers, the real value of a product is not just what’s in the box, but the expertise and service that comes with it. We worked with Google, who helped us identify insights around known category challenges combined with how (and where) beauty consumers are using voice assistants. By delivering Clairol expertise through the unique Google Assistant ecosystem we are able to transform the at home hair color experience and truly help Clairol consumers feel confident that they will get better results with a lifeline and expert at every step of their journey.”

The Google Assistant is a key player in the rapidly growing voice market, available on more than 500 million devices, across Android phones, iPhones, smart TVs, Chromebooks, and on smart speakers such as Google Home and a new category of devices called Smart Displays. It serves as an ideal platform for a beauty assistant given its depth of reach, especially amongst 18 to 34-year-old women who buy at home color. The ability for millions of women to be able to access a personalized hair color assistant across different touchpoints and devices – whether at the shelf via their smartphone or in the home on their smart display or speaker – is an important advancement for the at home hair color category where consumers often feel overwhelmed by the challenges associated with coloring their own hair.

Clairol’s Color Assistant was built by Beamly, Coty’s in house MarTech agency, and Voxly Digital, a leading Voice developer.