Dive Brief:

• Beauty company Coty has created a new visual skill for Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo Show called Let's Get Ready, which takes a user's personal attributes such as hair, eye and skin color and gives "on-demand, occasion-based look planning," according to a Coty press release.

• The skill is capable of delivering looks based on more than 2,000 unique combinations of hair, eye and skin color, according to the release. The skill can provide curated looks, visual tutorials and quick tips, as well as recommendations for products from Coty's Consumer Beauty portfolio, which includes brands such as Clairol, Rimmel, Max Factor, Bourjois and Sally Hansen.

• After users have created a "look," they can add any of the products to an Alexa shopping list. The skill can also be synchronized with a user's Facebook calendar to proactively suggest looks for upcoming events, the press release stated.

Dive Insight:

Though designed for optimal use on the Echo Show, the new skill is being made available on all Echo devices (Obviously, Echo Show users will be able to both see and hear the skill's advice.)

Since the Echo Show launched in the spring of 2017, we haven't heard too much about visual skills designed specifically with the device in mind, with the exception of video skills from broadcasters and video content creators. Coty's Let's Get Ready is the type of skill Amazon would probably like to see more of, as it is not only a visual skill from a non-video consumer brand, but also one that uses Alexa's shopping capabilities.

Coty's in-house marketing technology group, called Beamly, designed the new skill in cooperation with Amazon and Amazon developer partner OPearlo. The partners said they used extensive consumer insight and engagement, social listening and trend scanning to develop the capabilities of the skill.

Beauty brands and retailers have thrived in the last couple of years while other companies catering to different market segments have been trying to dodge the retail apocalypse. In doing so, they have leaned heavily on new technology developments to strengthen their customer experiences. Coty's move into visual Alexa skills is more evidence that beauty companies should not be expected to hit the brakes on those efforts anytime soon.

For Amazon's part, a new beauty-related skill for the Echo Show could help the e-commerce giant gain a better understanding of the beauty sector in general, a segment that may be on Amazon's short list of markets it wants to disrupt.