Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

L’Oreal Goes Looking for Ladies on the Xbox

The Xbox 360 is a huge hit, and Microsoft is using it for more than just videogames: Redmond is using the gaming console to invade your living room, where it will serve up movies, TV shows and all sorts of other video goodies.

That makes the device intensely interesting to all sorts of media and marketing companies, who figure it’s a good place to reach lots of Halo-playing dudes.

And, according to L’Oreal, it’s a pretty good way to find women, too.

Really? Really. The cosmetics giant is launching an app for the Xbox 360 Platform, where users can get fashion tips, watch video tutorials and buy product. Conde Nast’s Lucky magazine will help build out some of the content, which will be updated regularly and will run for at least a year.

Nothing unusual here, except for the platform: “The Next Level” is the only “female-centric” app to launch on the Xbox so far.

It shouldn’t have been the first, says Jacqueline Corbelli. She runs BrightLine, the interactive marketing shop that built the app for L’Oreal. She says Microsoft’s data says that, in the U.S., a full 40 percent of its 20 million Xbox Live users are female.

“I’ve known it for a little while, but I was surprised when I first saw it, too,” Corbelli says.

If BrightLine and L’Oreal are right, then look for a flood of imitators.

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google