Garnier, a skin and haircare brand of the L'Oréal Group, has been using a number of digital agencies on a project basis over recent years, including Digitas and CanCreate.
This pitch was called because Garnier wanted to be "a lot more serious and professional" about working with a strategic digital partner, according to R3's Greg Paull, the company's pitch consultant.
Garnier has not used a long-term digital agency before this, with past digital campaigns being mainly product-focused and tactical in terms of execution.
R3 reviewed more than 30 digital agencies in Shanghai before narrowing down the shortlist to four agencies in the final shootout, evenly spilt between local and multinational.
The winner of the three-round pitch that started in November last year was Wangfan, a local agency that recently became part of the digital arm of Publicis Shanghai.
Its clients include Puma and Shanghai General Motors, but no clients in the beauty industry. That, however, worked to the agency's advantage.
Hong Yao, digital manager of Garnier China told Campaign Asia-Pacific that Wangfan provided a fresh boost to the pool of digital ideas. In contrast, the agencies that lost out were beaten because they "presented a rigid and ossified way of thinking".
Wangfan CEO Bill Wang also revealed to Campaign Asia-Pacific that his team tapped into research resources from its new parent Publicis Shanghai, which happens to be the creative agency for L'Oréal in China.
Wangfan has now been awarded a first project on a trial basis, and a one-year contract will be considered at a later stage. In this first project, Wangfan will focus on piloting an interactive campaign for the Garnier Men series, as well as the conception and redesign of Garnier's official Chinese website.
Hong added that the pillar in Garnier's digital strategy at the moment is search engine marketing, due to the effectiveness of monitoring tools. "We want to 'catch' interested consumers and turn their interest into brand loyalty right from the get-go, from the first point of contact in their search process," she explained. Young Chinese consumers between 18 to 30 years old are the target audience.
In addition, Hong expressed little confidence in mobile marketing due to the lack of successful case studies in the Chinese market. As for social media marketing, she said tracking and measurement are issues, especially with the upcoming real-name registration rules acting as a barrier to how active online users will get in the near future.
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