It's unavoidable! A blend between online and offline worlds, Digital Store concepts and Digital applications now emerge in many sectors (beauty, wellness, hospitality, food, ready to wear...). The beauty industry is at the forefront, with leading brands in the domain.

Equipped with innovative features such as connected shop windows, interactive POS or sales aid tablets, these new stores are enabled to propose consumers offers which are perfectly tailored to their individual profile and to learn more about their tastes and habits. Robots are also starting to appear here and there. Not to mention all the make-up applications available for smartphones.

For two days MakeUp in Paris will be central to this debate, with a brand new Digital Area at the Show entrance and a series of conferences that will bring together high level speakers. But don't be mistaken! While this emergence of new technologies opens the way to exciting new opportunities it can also generate new legal risks. Especially since last April 14th, at its plenary session in Strasbourg, the European Parliament voted the final adoption of the new Regulation on personal data protection. This much awaited (4 years!) historic text sets the new legal framework, to which all companies, across all sectors, will have to comply by 2018, with, in case of infringement, penalties of up to 4% of their turnover.

MakeUp in Paris inaugurates this year a new "Digital Beauty" area, which will be set up at the entrance of the show. Visitors will have the opportunity to discover digital solutions specifically applied to the field of beauty and make-up and to meet a dozen service providers, that can be very innovative companies in such areas as product design, retail and customer relations, or specialised in digital strategy consulting.

Twelve specialists!

The high point of this 'Digital Mania' on which MakeUp in Paris is putting emphasis, will be a series of conferences that begin on June 10 at midday and will bring together more than fifteen speakers including Laurence-Anne Parent, Senior Partner at Advancy, on the theme "What is the weight of e-commerce in the global cosmetic business? A conference followed by the conference of Deborah L. Weinswig, Executive Director-Head Global Retail & Technology, Fung Business Intelligence Centre. To speak of Digital and customer experience three major players in Make-up applications will then take the floor: Lawrence O'Toole, OTSTC, Sylvain Delteil, Perfect Corp and Alain Bruguerolle, Wisimage. This will be followed by a roundtable themed: "How new technologies are revolutionizing customer experience: make-up applications, packaging, POS, product "on demand", customisation..." A roundtable moderated by Séverine Boutry with the participation of representatives of the following companies: Albéa, I Feel Beauty, LF Beauty, The Nail Revolution / Provaine, and OTSTC, Perfect Corp and Wisimage.

And insofar as this emergence of new technologies is on the one hand, opening new development opportunities for brand retailers, on the other, it generates new legal risks; you won't want to miss the roundtable on "Data, the new resource" moderated by Séverine Boutry with the participation of representatives of the following companies: Linkfluence, KerniX and of Matthieu Bourgeois, Lawyer, Cabinet Simon Associates. Because it seems essential nowadays to fully understand and master these legal risks, at a time when, to stimulate and regulate the digital single market by introducing stiffer penalties, the European Parliament recently adopted a new regulation, which will take effect in a few weeks.

MakeUp in Paris is organized by Beauteam and will take place at the Carousel du Louvre in Paris on June 9th and 10th.