Estée Lauder partners with Adobe to streamline AI-powered digital marketing

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) has partnered with Adobe to integrate Firefly generative AI into its digital content production for marketing. The collaboration aims to enhance efficiency, save time, and boost consumer engagement by leveraging AI-powered creative tools across ELC’s brand portfolio, which includes Mac Cosmetics, Clinique, and Jo Malone London.

“Adobe Firefly Services APIs surface decades of Adobe innovation across our foundational AI models and applications, such as Photoshop and InDesign, to assist with daily tasks that are crucial but can often be repetitive and time-intensive,” says Varun Parmar, general manager at Adobe GenStudio and Firefly for Enterprise.

“ELC has shown a compelling and practical application of generative AI, which allows design teams to focus more time on their craft and ideating eye-catching creative for its portfolio of nearly 25 brands.”

AI-driven content creation

With an increasing amount of online platforms for brands to market on, digital campaigns are requiring an increasing number of formats. As scaling production becomes more important, this prompts the rise of AI solutions.

According to an Adobe survey, nearly two-thirds of marketers expect content demand to quintuple between 2024 and 2026. ELC aims to streamline its content creation efforts by embedding Firefly in Adobe Creative Cloud workflows.

The integration of Firefly Services provides capabilities such as Generative Expand, which resizes and optimizes visual content for multiple marketing formats. ELC aims to ensure that its brands can rapidly produce tailored content and digital ads for social media and e-commerce while ensuring the content remains creative.

With an increasing amount of online platforms for brands to market on, digital campaigns are requiring an increasing number of formats.Scaling content

ELC says its digital marketing strategy must maintain its brand identity while delivering localized and personalized campaigns. However, since generating high-quality content at scale can strain creative resources, the company hopes that incorporating AI into its workflow will reduce time-consuming design work while preserving artistic integrity.

“Maintaining mindshare on digital channels such as social media is important in the competitive beauty industry, but often the content requirements for each platform stress our ability to deliver new campaigns,” says Justin Edwards, VP of Global Digital Creative and Brand Image at Mac Cosmetics. 

“We believe Firefly will remove hurdles that currently prevent our designers from focusing on their craft.”

Optimized efficiency

Beyond generative AI, ELC is also updating its Digital Asset Management system to improve the efficiency of its visual content creators. The company has adopted Adobe Experience Manager Assets as a cloud service to house its image, logo, and pattern library.

The system was designed to make searching for visual content more efficient and less time-consuming. It also aims to provide insights into content performance, which speeds up campaign execution.

“At ELC, we need to keep pace with a changing environment where an increasingly large share of transactions is happening through digital channels,” says Yuri Ezhkov, VP and creative center of Excellence at ELC.

“Adobe’s generative AI technologies allow our teams to operate more nimbly and focus on creative ideation.”

Within the increasingly digital beauty industry, AI-powered solutions are positioned to play an essential role in marketing practices. ELC is one of many brands rushing to incorporate AI into its business strategy.