L’Oréal USA × YW3 × ZeroSpace
BeautyV3rse: The Future, Made Real
In June 2023, L’Oréal USA commissioned YW3 to explore the next generation of brand storytelling at BEAUTYV3RSE, its innovation and learning summit: a founder-led keynote, and a separately commissioned Innovation Salon experience where employees controlled Kiehl’s heritage character Bones in real time. A keynote about the future. A live demonstration of what was already possible.
The brief
Innovation is more powerful when you can experience it. L’Oréal USA brought together its digital and marketing leaders to explore the next dimension of beauty, influence and content creation. The challenge was not simply to introduce emerging technologies, but to show how they could create new opportunities for storytelling, production, consumer engagement and the long-term value of brand IP.
YW3 was commissioned on two fronts. First, a lead innovation keynote challenging conventional thinking about branded content. Second, an interactive Innovation Salon experience that made emerging production technology tangible to employees.
Kiehl’s Bones, a century-old brand character already being developed through a YW3 and ZeroSpace innovation partnership, was the perfect practical application.
YW3 delivered
Executive KeynoteInnovation StrategyExperience DevelopmentImmersive ProductionMarkerless Motion CaptureInteractive ContentCreative Technology
The engagement
Two commissions. One idea. Summit context: hundreds of L’Oréal leaders in the room, and thousands more on the global livestream.
- 30 minexecutive innovation keynote
- 2commissions: the keynote and the interactive Innovation Salon experience
- LiveKiehl’s Bones, driven in real time by markerless motion capture
The proposition
Explain the future. Then put it in their hands.
YW3 was hired to explain where brand storytelling was going, and, in a separate engagement, to demonstrate an application of that future. The keynote was not a sales introduction to a booth, and the booth was not a novelty. In 2023, while these production workflows were still emerging, the two worked together: strategy on stage, proof in the room.
Executive educationCharacter IPReal-time production
Executive thought leadership
Brand storytelling at the speed of culture.
YW3 CEO and Founder Jason Bitensky was invited to lead a 30-minute innovation keynote, an independently commissioned speaking engagement, on the changing economics of branded content and a new generation of creator-led storytelling.
Joined on stage by Kylie Tansey and ZeroSpace founder Jon Kreutzer, he challenged brands to think beyond campaign-by-campaign production toward content ecosystems built around talent, ownable moments, evergreen assets and emerging technology, with practical looks at virtual production, motion capture and immersive experiences. Central to it was ROIP: the return brands create when their intellectual property keeps producing new content, experiences and opportunities.
The interactive experience
From audience to animator.
While the keynote explored the future of content creation, the Innovation Salon let participants experience it. Building on YW3’s character-development work with Kiehl’s, YW3 and ZeroSpace created an interactive mixed-reality experience featuring the brand’s skeleton, Bones.
Using Captury’s AI-assisted markerless motion capture, delivered through ZeroSpace’s real-time workflow, participants controlled Bones with their own bodies, no motion-capture suit required. As they moved, Bones moved.
The longer return
Create it in the room. Show it on stage.
The experience connected live participation with a real production workflow: material captured in the Innovation Salon was prepared for the afternoon keynote, bringing the salon into the executive presentation.
Bones had lived in Kiehl’s heritage for generations. Here, a character being developed for digital storytelling became the center of a physical, interactive brand experience, the principle behind ROIP: existing brand IP as the starting point for new content and new experiences. The broader character work continued in Kiehl’s Bones & Bonito.
The takeaway
The future wasn’t just on the screen. It was in the room.
Through an executive keynote and an interactive experience powered by ZeroSpace, YW3 connected strategic thinking with an immediate practical application. A legacy Kiehl’s character became a vehicle for real-time interaction, emerging production technology became accessible to a room of marketers, and the conversation about reusable brand IP became something participants could experience for themselves. The strategy was on stage. The proof was in their hands.
YW3 delivered
- Executive Keynote
- Innovation Strategy
- Experience Development
- Immersive Production
- Markerless Motion Capture
- Interactive Content
- Creative Technology
- Client
- L’Oréal USA
- Featured brand
- Kiehl’s
- Strategy & experience
- YW3
- Technology & production
- ZeroSpace
- Markerless capture
- Captury
- Event production
- HEVÊ
- Date
- June 29, 2023
More B2B Brand Experience
Your leaders need to see the future, not hear about it. Let’s put it in the room.
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