Look Fab Studio

A couple of days ago, I was walking along Bloor West, just east of Avenue Road in Toronto when I noticed the store front for the Look Fab Studio, with a window treatment that promised personalized beauty advice from professionals at P&G Beauty. I had seen people walking around with these white bags with pink stickers that boasted “LOOK FAB”, so I decided to see what it was all about.

The first question out of my mouth as I walked in the door and found myself confronted with the Look Fab Team, was how much it cost for the consultation, and I was told it’s free, which was kind of exciting considering they were giving out retail size samples. I was then told there were four stations to the Studio: the essentials bar that was all about the body, the color lounge that dealt with makeup, the skin boutique that focused on skin care and the style studio which was all about hair.
The first station the promo girl launched into a very quick description of a new Venus razor, Crest White Strips and Gillette Body washes. I received a body wash and razor, and then moved to the face station that was focused on Olay products. This promo girl rattled off descriptions of different products and gave out little samples of night cream. Then it was on to the Cover Girl station that was featuring the TRUBlend line, Outlast lipstick and their new Lash Blast Mascara. I received a mascara, and was told to move onto hair. They had set up a salon like station with different Pantene products, Perfect 10 hair color by Nice’n Easy and styling tools. There weren’t any samples in this station but you could hypothetically style your hair if you really wanted to.

As I was leaving I was kind of confused by the whole process. Each girl just delivered the script for each product, but never really showed what the product actually did. You also didn’t get the opportunity to play with the samples much, especially in the makeup section. Or, let’s say I wanted to buy something I thought was really great, there was no way to buy it. The studio seemed like a lost opportunity for P&G. You have a captive audience, why not capitalize on it? These people are interested, and probably would buy something. I also thought it was going to be personalized, which didn’t happen in my experience, and some of the girls didn’t even know the details of products they were promoting. I was happy I got a razor and mascara and it was an interesting marketing attempt from P&G, but it was kind of a weird experience. Apparently it’s moving across Canada, and the next stop is Calgary.
Here’s the link if you want to read more: http://www.lookfab.ca/stylestudio.php