LANCOME Lancôme X Farmer BOB pop-up store

Awkward. To push its summer Hydra Zen–style hydration line, Lancôme’s marketing looks a bit overstretched: Lily Collins campaigns plus 50+ “robot stores” branded as summer hydration stations in department stores, malls and cinemas across Beijing, Shanghai and more.

At Shanghai Film International Cinema Metro City, the station resembles a typical beauty pop-up with greenery. Scan a QR, follow Lancôme WeChat, enter your phone for a code, then the machine “randomly grabs” a serum sample—once per number. In a 10-minute watch of 50 passersby, only five stopped; two thought it was a ticket machine, two killed time before the film, one came after seeing a Weibo ad.

In Beijing Hanguang, besides the station, a “garden lab” lets guests VR-pick herbs. Sister brand La Roche-Posay similarly pushed tech with My UV Patch stickers that change color under UV. L’Oréal China’s 2015 sales were RMB 14.96 billion—#2 market globally after the U.S.—but growth slowed from 10% (2013) to 4.6% (2015).