Jorge Cosano spoke to Global Corporate Venturing about his new role overseeing AMI's corporate venturing, and how media and product will cross over in future.
Jorge Cosano, formerly a business leader at cosmetics company L’Oreal’s US-based Incubator for New Businesses, has joined US-based publisher American Media (AMI), where he will oversee its corporate venture investment activities as its chief strategy and innovation officer, he told Global Corporate Venturing.
Cosano joined L’Oreal in 2006 as a brand manager for Giorgio Armani Beauty before moving up the ranks. His new position will see him oversee AMI’s strategic outlook as it invests in innovative companies in order to move beyond its core as a magazine publisher.
“My role is to help the company define and execute the strategy that is going to take it from a traditional publishing group to a multi-platform media company,” Cosano explained, adding that this would also involve “partnering with new technology and media startups and venture funds specialised in the media as a strategic partner, and via corporate venturing strategic investments.”
AMI will target early stage companies as part of a general innovation strategy, and in addition to financial investment, will seek to bring expertise to startups, along with the capability to scale up their operations. Businesses can also access AMI’s large audience, which Cosano said comprises 45 million unique views each month.
Speaking about his time at L’Oreal, Cosano said that beauty is at heart as entrepreneurial as technology, and that any make-up artist or hairdresser has as much capability as a programmer to start a brand and launch it into a business. Because technology has advanced, health and beauty startups can promote their products online, instead of through a retailer, and can promote their brands through digital and social media instead of paying for an expensive media campaign.
“However, in beauty there is not the [venture capital] infrastructure existing in technology to support entrepreneurs,” Cosano said. “The idea was to create this innovative incubator for new business as L’Oreal’s corporate venturing group, which could partner with these entrepreneurs in beauty to help them escalate brands as strategic partners and investors.”
Moving on to where media and beauty intersect, Cosano stated that technology has blurred the lines between the two. A beauty product can exist not only as a cosmetics brand, but as a media and sometimes a retail brand. Similarly, a media brand such as a magazine or a TV show can branch out to incorporate a sellable product.
“I think there is now going to be acceleration in disruption and innovation in these spaces – media, products and retail,” Cosano said. “This will be particularly true in categories like health, fashion and cosmetics because these sectors are passion points for consumers and the barriers of entry in media and retail has been reduced considerably thanks to technology.
“We are going to see a transformation in how brands are built in this space, which I think will rely less and less on traditional access to retailers and heavy media investments. You are going to see people working more in a direct consumer business because it makes sense now they have the bridge to go to consumers.”
