Fenty delivered a successful launch campaign – their arrival did not come in quietly. They created strong content within owned and paid media, then monopolised upon this with shared and earned content, all with authenticity online and offline through various channels. (Roberts 2017)
The concept and ideals of the brand work alongside the current demand for change in the cosmetic industry, where we see campaigns relative to the beauty revolution getting stronger and stronger. Organisations and brands being called out for not showing real representation of all people, and setting often unachievable beauty standards when marketing to consumers (Argo, Dahl 2017), (Alentola 2017).
This portfolio is going to look through all styles of POES media and its importance used throughout their campaign and how theory relates to the practise in place in different examples across the industry also moving with the beauty revolution.
ABOUT FENTY BEAUTY
The cosmetic brand created by celebrity Rihanna, successfully entered the beauty market in 2017. Rising in popularity against other celebrity products and market-leading companies. “She created Fenty Beauty “so that women everywhere would be included.” Rihanna designed the line to be worn by women all over the globe, no matter their skin type or tone, or their style.” (Shatzman, 2017), (Labouvier, 2017).
It is key to note Fenty’s first successes would be the internal marketing. Having a strong vision and objective is key when creating a successful and quality product. People believe people, and passion is key, if you internally show this as a business it will reflect externally. (Dainora, Ingrida, 2009 p.118-130).
PAID MEDIA
Paid media remains crucial within campaign marketing, although budgets are often under scrutiny within organisations, needing to prove ROI. It is important that organisations don’t forget the content they invest in is often what is recognized as original brand image and content to establish themselves (Bell 2012) (Jacksonville 2011), (DM News, 2015), (Wiley 2017), (Seely, 2015).
Fenty Beautys’ choice of paid media was their owned content (official website and advertisements), then business partnerships and affiliated marketing. (Fenty Beauty, 2017)
Clearly visible within their collaboration with business partners Sephora and Harvey Nichols. Retailers embrace affiliate marketing as the activity can increase exposure, the tactic shows importance within fashion-conscious retailers and allows the brand to be placed in front of the correct consumers (Solent Custom Journals, 2012). Bringing much importance into protecting the brand and ensuring that these partnerships are correct (Fenty Beauty, 2017) (Harvey Nichols, 2017) (Sephora, 2017).
SEPHORA
Collaboration with cosmetic giant to host and sell their brand upon the established websites and within stores was a commercial win. As popular choice with consumers for all make-up needs this partnership was definitely a smart deal to work into the launch campaign.
Sephora holds similar values with their “Sephora on Social Impact” scheme that stands to inspire and teach women further through their support to non-profit organisations and classes for confidence. (Sephora, 2017). It deemed a strong choice and contender as past favourite of owner Rihanna. Additionally they coincide reaching out to the same consumers. (Hamish, Marjorie, 1999) (Drew, 2014).
(Sephora, 2017).
HARVEY NICHOLS
The second partnership with Harvey Nichols ensured UK and selection of international fans were also included in retail store ability. Deemed the smartest choice of international department store as it holds a positive reputation for their beauty counters and exciting events. They boast stores across the UAE and Eastern Asia (Harvey Nichols, 2017).
Not to forget their teaser takeover of the department store’s front five windows in popular Knightsbridge store, took a total of 210 hours and developed over the course of a week. A timelapse video was created and became shared media to over 56 million followers. (Harvey Nichols, 2017).
(Harvey Nichols, 2017).
With a brand aiming to be inclusive of all people it could be argued why Fenty not branch further to cover more countries, but it believes to sit alongside theory importance of choosing correct partnerships to work effectively alongside your brand. So for now these are the chosen store partnerships, alternatively online purchases are available. (Wiley 2017), (Seely, 2015).
OWNED MEDIA
Owned style of media could be argued the most important of POES with strong need for consistency and relevance to the brand image and company’s goals. Owned content sets organisations up for all remaining Paid, Shared and Earned media. (Wiley 2017), (Seely, 2015).
As this is where content may often originate, what may of started off as brand owned material; can very easily be transferred into shared media and owned media definitely influences the result of what you receive from earned content.
Fenty Beauty boasts the following certified brand pages across these variety of social media platforms shown with vanity metrics in table 1. Alongside their main website used to sell and market directly, combined with a mailing list providing consumer’s up to date knowledge, offers and events should they wish to opt in.
| Social Platform | Vanity Metrics |
| 344,911 Followers 4.9 Star Review Rating (2.2k reviews) |
|
| 2.8m+ Followers | |
| 207k + Followers | |
| Youtube | 120k + Subscribers |
Table 1. Fenty Beauty Media Platforms
EARNED MEDIA
Rihanna already holds an A-List celebrity status, announcing Fenty Beauty to her 56m + following helped created a strong organic audience as a starting point for the brand (@BadGalRiRi Instagram, 2017). By including influencers throughout the brand’s launch helped expand audiences further, an invaluable strategy in today’s marketing world. “Good organic search marketing works by building permanent traffic sources for your website — guest posts on other websites, valuable content assets hosted on your site and so on. If you write a successful guest post on a high traffic website, you’ll continue receiving referral traffic for as long as that blog is still live.” (Will, 2016 *Digital Impact)
Studies show campaign strategies including earned media typically snowball investments as creating a valued viewpoint with consumers. Where beauty marketing is oversaturated, people are more likely to take the recommendation of a friend or other ordinary people such as influencers – “these people have cannot be underestimated, and it is turning the marketing world on its head. With the help of influence‐measuring tools such as Klout, brands are able to target these “Citizen Influencers” who offer a direct and credible link to potential customers.” (Bell, 2012).
However in a generation where you can now make a career in influencing others, it does make you wonder with new advertising regulations coming in, whether this strategy will continue to be as effective (Walden, Bortree et DiStaso, 2015 p526). But at current in practise it is proving brands, especially Fenty who have seen great exposure in this strategy.
(Instagram, 2018)
SHARED MEDIA
Fenty Beauty’s campaign is inundated with shared media, from a video live streamed at the launch party, to all owned content being shared and re-posted by influencers into reviews and product tutorials. This campaign has had a huge positive impact due to the amount of shared material.
Now although shared media relies very much on vanity metrics system, the impact figures have been tremendously high with 1,403,442 views upon the 28 minute launch video posted by influencer “Mitchel”(@Mitchell, Youtube, 2017). Or the Fenty Beauty hashtag on Instagram boasting over 600,000 posts (@Fenty, Instagram, 2017).
ROI would be near impossible to measure through all these separate channels as many are not owned, arguable by many that using influencers in theory should show flaws in business strategy (Bell 2012), (Crumpton, White, 2016). However with these platforms performing so positively through reviews and viewable metrics, it is easy to see why Fenty and other brands will continue to encourage this.
As stated consumers buy from other consumers, a positive influencer review will give much more credibility in a brand than one from an official source (Gannon, Prothero, 2016) – with Fenty taking it further by featuring select influencers across the brand social media platforms, showcasing them in video playlists or tagged photos, therefore re-sharing the influencer’s content. It is evident to see that they saw great importance in influencers.
(@Fenty Beauty, Youtube 2018).
LAUNCH CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW
Fenty Beauty’s launch campaign correlated with their brand objectives – of creating an inclusive brand. They went and did just that, not only through their products but also within the marketing strategy.
By creating owned marketing content such as the brand video and promotional images, featuring models of all colours and race (Muller 2017). To then placing variety of influencers as key stakeholders and promoters in sharing and reviewing products online and event attendances throughout the process (BuzZoole, 2017).
They created a credible and exciting launch that did just what the company’s internal objectives set out to do, to include everyone. In table 2 below, there is an overview of all POES media that was used within the launch campaign.
| Paid Media | Earned Media |
| · Store Contracts with Sephora
· Store Contract with Harvey Nichols · Advertisement Banners · Official Brand Video Advert · Paid Influencers |
· Reviews
· Press Releases · Organic Followers upon Social Media Platforms |
| Shared Media | Owned Media |
| · Youtube Video Content
· Launch Event Content · Blogger and Influencer Content |
· Social Media Channels
· Brand Website · YouTube Video Creations · Official Brand Video Advert
|
Table 2. Fenty Beauty POES Media
THE BEAUTY REVOLUTION
This is a generation that cares more about authenticity and truth within marketing, and we can see many brands of the beauty industry evolving with this, wishing to encourage confidence instead of insecurity from deemed unachievable beauty standards to an average person (Austen, 2006).
However (Earl, 2017) questions in her article whether just making someone feeling liberated and empowered in one’s own skin is perhaps getting them comfortable and settling rather than creating a drive or belief of what they are capable of? That brands should do more than to make people feel good but instead to believe in themselves to create real empowerment.
Either way it shows that many want change. There are now more campaigns showing the importance embracing body image and an empowerment campaign in the beauty industry. (Appnova, n.d.).
DOVE #SPEAKBEAUTIFUL
Many recognise Dove’s marketing campaigns celebrating all different women in their natural beauty. 2015 launched #SpeakBeautiful campaign. They wanted women to compliment and empower one another. Launched with a high profile advert during the Oscars. People utilised the hashtag more than 168,000 times and produced over 800million impressions across social media channels involved.” (Fifteen, 2017).
(Dove, 2017)
ALWAYS #LIKEAGIRL
To argue Earl’s (2017) viewpoint that beauty advertising should be empowering not feel good, was apparent to present this campaign.
Always – not your typical cosmetic beauty brand but created an impact digital campaign named ‘Like a girl’. Research found many girls did not feel like they belonged in sports, but that girls who did partake in sports teams saw much more confidence within themselves. With common social stigma that some sports are not suitable for women and phrases of doing actions poorly “like a girl” – they took this and turned it around to empowering women, building emotional links and starting mass conversations across social media platforms (Fifteen, 2017).
This campaign received 85m views globally across 150+ countries and won a Black Pencil award in 2015 for creating superb response and change in social attitude. “Prior to watching the film, just 19% of 16-24s had a positive association toward ‘like a girl’. After watching, however, 76% said they no longer saw the phrase negatively. Furthermore, two out of three men who watched it said they’d now think twice before using the ‘like a girl’ as an insult. (D&AD, 2017)
(Always, 2017)
HOW WILL BEAUTY INDUSTRY MARKETING EVOLVE?
Inclusive and empowering ad campaigns are starting to break the mould of the beauty industry. For too long it has been argued that these advertisements make women and girls feel pressured by the standards portrayed in beauty market, promoting unachievable results and affecting confidence for those who strive for these perceptions (BBC, 2017) (Cooper, 2016). Unilever who own Dove and other brands have made a pledge “”The time is right for us as an industry to challenge and change how we portray gender in our advertising.” Many more brands, such as ModCloth, are also pushing for advertisement reform to portray real women in advertising.” (Cooper, 2016).
Regarding marketing strategy it is believed the industry will continue to move towards Influencers promoting products. “As a result, several brands at Estée Lauder Cos. have undergone significant shifts in budgets, with a larger-than-ever portion allotted to digital strategy, from paid search to content to influencer activations. Estée Lauder has significantly cut back on its traditional media spend to focus on digital, and Smashbox walked away from traditional print media altogether two-and-a-half years ago.” (Strugatz, 2016).
But where does that leave marketing and public relation professionals? It has been discussed that PR and owned marketing remains apparent to deliver owned material, company goals and messaging alongside shaping origins of content for the brand. (Messner & DiStaso, 2008) (Walden, Bortree et Disaso, 2015, p526)
EVALUATION OF FENTY BEAUTY’S LAUNCH CAMPAIGN WITHIN THE COSMETIC INDUSTRY
“People connect with and buy the brands that share similar points of view or values they have. These brands have big ambitions and they make a positive and emotional connection with their consumers. That’s why purpose-driven brands are succeeding.” This quote from D&AD (2017). Really helps to sum up How Fenty Beauty entered the cosmetic market with such force in positive light.
They saw an opening for creating quality, pretty and desirable products for everyone and excelled where many other brands had missed a trick. By being inclusive of everyone, for not only their products but also their marketing – inviting everyone to join in the launch. They became loved by many and will continue to take on the beauty market.
(Fenty, 2018)
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