One of fibona's activities is "Co-Creation with Consumers," in which researchers and consumers communicate directly with each other to develop products and solutions, utilizing S/PARK's facilities and contents.

As one of the "Co-Creation with Consumers" activities, Shiseido Global Innovation Center has been working to think about the future of beauty by welcoming Gen Z consumer girls who will lead the society in the future and companies that understand them well.

*Please also see the following article for more information on this project: Hiroyuki Asahi of Shiseido, the originator of this project; Jutaro Mochizuki, CEO of REDD Inc. who facilitates the creation of opportunities for communication necessary for the promotion of the project; and Nobuhiko Ohtsuki of “spods project”, who is engaged in business collaborations with companies and individuals in a wide range of industries.
Hiroyuki Asahi x Jutaro Mochizuki x Nobuhiko Ohtsuki Future Beauty with Gen Z Consumers

The project, which took place over a six-month period, involved researchers from the Shiseido Global Innovation Center who normally develop cosmetics and those who conduct basic research.

The program had consisted of a series of workshops based on two themes, “Think about future MORI*” and “Think about beauty that makes everyone happy,” in which researchers and Gen Z consumers have directly communicated with each other to identify future needs, develop hypotheses, make ideas, and express these ideas in the form of artworks.

*MORI(盛り): To look a little better/naturally better than you actually are through makeup or hair style, and the way you take pictures and videos.

In this article, we will report on the "Next-generation Beauty Session," a demo day at S/PARK held with the purpose of sharing the suggestions generated during the past six months of activities and furthering those suggestions with the Gen Z consumers who participated in the activities.

The "Next-generation Beauty Session" consisted of an exhibition session to introduce the project's objectives, activity process, ideas and insights, and a talk session to actually interact with Generation Z consumers.

The main part of the first half of the event was a talk session featuring Yoshiaki and Michi, a sister and brother who participated in the "Think about beauty that makes everyone happy" workshop, and Kushima, a researcher at the Shiseido Global Innovation Center, who also attended the workshop.

Yoshiaki and Michi participated in this workshop as representatives of top influencers who have a great impact on Gen Z consumers in Japan. What do today's top influencers feel, what makes them happy, and how are they connected to society? We conducted the workshop with these questions in mind, and through close dialogue and co-creation, we came closer to the values of them.

In the talk session, Shiseido researcher Kushima first said, "I would love to know about your daily life," to which Michi replied, "Recently, I rent a room on an app and stay there overnight to hang out with friends.” Yoshiaki answered, "If I have a day off after a long day of work, I sleep as much as I can without thinking that it is a waste of time. After a good rest, I go to the gym and play ball games." They also showed their social media profiles and explained how they usually relaxes and spends their days off.

Next, they talked about the keyword "treat myself," which was brought up during the "Think about beauty that makes everyone happy" workshop that they participated in. “I'm setting a day when I don't take pictures. When I decide not to take any pictures today, I can forget about work and relax to the fullest," said Yoshiaki.

On the other hand, Michi said, "My treat is going to the cinema, which I love. Since my goal is to go to the cinema, I sometimes find out about an interesting movie there. For example, it is not often that I willingly go to see a Japanese romance movie, but when I go to the theater, and one happens to be showing and I watch it, it actually turns out to be interesting. I think it is a treat for me to have a place where I can experience a variety of things without making any assumptions from the beginning."

During the Q&A session, questions such as "Where do you gather information about beauty on a daily basis?” and " Please let us know if there is a product you would like us to make?” were asked. In response to the question, "What do you wish would happen in the future, 5 to 10 years from now?,” Michi said, “I like 'stability'. I get anxious if all I have planned for the day is play, so my ideal way to spend the day is to 'work and then play with friends'. That's how much I want 'stability'. So I hope the day will come when my skin will also be stable all the time, too."

Yoshiaki said, "My dream is to become a flight attendant, but it’s dry in the airplane. I think moisturizing is important, and in such an environment, milky lotion would be indispensable, but cosmetics are a hassle to get your hands dirty when applying them. So, it would be nice if there was a spray type emulsion. Or if there was something like an air-type milky lotion that would instantly moisturize your face just by passing it through, it would be easy to moisturize and make your skin more beautiful," he said, exciting the audience with her beauty-conscious imagination.

Thus ended the talk session with the two siblings, Yoshiaki and Michi.

Before and after the talk session, there was a presentation by FURYU Corporation, a collaborator in this half-year activity, and people from TWIN PLANET Corporation, to which Yoshiki and Michi belong, talked together with researchers at the exhibition, making the "Next-generation Beauty Session" a place where the circle of collaboration is always expanding.

The second half of the event featured presentations of ideas developed by the four teams (each team was a mixture of Generation Z consumers and researchers) that participated in a series of workshops based on the theme of "Thinking about the future MORI*”

*MORI(盛り): To look a little better/naturally better than you actually are through makeup or hair style, and the way you take pictures and videos.

The moderator here was Kei Fujieda of spods, who also facilitated the workshop for each team. The teams began with an overview of their experience ideas from the researchers, followed by a presentation from the Generation Z participants on their impressions after the workshop.

The participants from Generation Z said, "It was as if our 'what ifs' had come true. We have never experienced anything like this before, so the surprise was amazing.” They were thrilled by the collaborative experiences with the researchers. The experiences presented were all full of dreams and believable possibilities. The diversity of Gen Z's sense of beauty and the freedom of the ideas of the digital native generation were also evident.

Yoshiaki and Michi joined the presentations as listeners. They listened with great interest to the presentations by the participants of the same generation and researchers. When asked for their final impressions, they replied, "It seems very realistic and I want one now!” and “I want to experience this right away!”

This was how the "Next-generation Beauty Session" came to a close. The opportunity to spend a certain amount of time sitting next to each other and communicating about the same theme with a generation with whom they had little daily contact during the past six months of activities must have been an intense experience for both the researchers and Generation Z participants. In addition, through these kinds of activities, there are high expectations that more and more products will be introduced to the world that are in tune with the current trends and will make more people happy. We hope you will look forward to seeing what kind of consumer projects fibona will start in the future.