Armani Beauty is the luxury fragrance, makeup, and skincare extension of the legendary fashion brand. The brand is committed to sustainability and several other philanthropic initiatives. 

As a brand, Armani relies on connecting customers to luxurious, quality products. So It’s no surprise the brand has over a dozen different quizzes and product recommendation tools on their website to help potential customers make informed purchase decisions. Let’s take a deeper look at one of their product recommendation experiences.

The Experience: Luminous Silk Shade Finder

Armani Beauty’s Luminous Silk is a classic product in their line of foundations that comes in over 40 shades. For many customers, identifying the right shade for your foundation can be a challenge, particularly when shopping online. Skin shade can also change regularly with the seasons and sun exposure. Many customers either don’t remember the shade that works for them—or need to find a new shade to match their summer or winter complexion.

Enter, the silk foundation shade finder. This Product Advisor Quiz is available right at the top of the Armani Beauty UK site right below the Makeup dropdown menu, so it’s very easy to find for website visitors.  

This shade-finding experience starts off by asking customers to generally categorize their skin according to a shade range.  Most people can pick an approximate match from this image, and the questions get more specific from here. 

Next, customers are asked to identify their skin’s undertone. The quiz also provides some information to help identify undertone. 

From here, the quiz provides two similar shades and asks customers to self-identify which shade is a better match for them.  Personally, the only difference I see here is the hair color.

And now, the customer receives a result. I’m shade 4.5!  Here’s where it actually gets more interesting. Now I see an action to “Try it On” or “Get a Sample.”  Both of those sound ideal!  Either way gets me closer to identifying which shade would be best for me  – without buying anything. 

 When a customer clicks “try it on,” the quiz provides an option to upload a photo or take a picture with their computer camera to virtually try-on the shade the quiz identified. It’s a great way to combine a quiz with a more topical and technologically advanced augmented reality tool. 

What I like

I really like how they don’t waste time on a  lot of irrelevant information and are very direct about what the quiz entails, how it works, and how it will benefit you. The quiz dives right into the problem of finding a shade. 

Also, the experience is really impeccably designed, as you would expect. There is great contrast, font, and image selection throughout. 

Finally, Armani Beauty really did an amazing job of making the experience valueable.  The offers to either virtually try on the shade or get a free sample give customers more opportunity to identify their best shade — and provide value to the customer before they ever make a purchase. This builds trust with the customer and also boosts engagement to provide more information – such as email, location, and other preferences that can be used by Armani to further personalize and engage. 

Next Steps

I would love to see a way to get further insights about the recommendation  and why it would solve the problem better than the competition. This would short-cut any further research needed. I would also like to see some way to get informed and follow up with other relevant content, sales, or new product launches. 

I would also love to see some further personalization based on my quiz results — what other products, and in what shades, would compliment someone with my shade of foundation? 

Conclusion

The Armani Beauty shade finder is a smooth, streamlined quiz experience that provides a lot of value to the customer before they ever make a purchase. The quiz also helps ensure customer satisfaction and minimize returns by helping customers select the right products for their skin tone and shade.

I think there is an opportunity to provide more guiding information along the way to help customers better self-identify their skin shade and undertone. Following up the quiz result with further product recommendations would also help Armani Beauty capture more valuable identifying information from each customer — and provide a great shopping experience.