Advertising Strategies Used by Top Peer to Peer Beauty Brands in the U.S. (With Case Studies)

Goals

To establish a general audit on the competitive space for peer to peer beauty brands such as Avon and how they are performing in the industry, the kind of advertising they do, and the overall skincare trends in the U.S today.

Peer-to-peer brands with a strong presence in the United States are Beautycounter, Rodan + Fields, Younique, and EVER. These brands heavily rely on social media to generate sales and brand awareness. Their social media presence is influenced by their sales representatives, who use platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to promote the products.

Beautycounter

Overview and Market Dominance

• Beautycounter is a company specialized in skin care products, which performs most of its sales online.
• The revenue of the company in 2018 was $325 million, which represented a 33% growth compared to the prior year.
• The company has as its main value not using chemicals that might be harmful to people or the environment. This has led them to ban 1,800 questionable chemicals that are considered legal to use in the United States.
• As of 2019, Beautycounter had over 44,000 consultants, which is the name the company uses to identify its sales representatives. Consultants on the top 1% of the company were paid on average $94,718 during the year of 2019.
• Beautycounter was named as the most innovative beauty brand of the world in 2020 by Fast Company.

Advertising Strategy

• In 2019, Beautycounter increased its investment on advertisement and marketing by 25%.
• Beautycounter uses different platforms for its advertising campaigns. The company has a strong presence on social media, with 14,900 followers on Twitter and 376,000 on Instagram.
• The beauty company has also used print advertising. One such example was an ad published on The New York Times in 2019.
• As another strategy used for marketing, the company has named actresses such as Amy Schumer as ambassadors for the brand. The company has also launched campaigns to promote brand and message awareness.
  • Looking Good is Only Half the Picture Campaign
  • In 2019, the company launched a campaign that embodies its philosophy of clean products and activism. The CMO of the company, Margot Brunelle Fooshee stated that: “Because we think our story goes deeper than clean products, we want our campaign to be a movement.”
  • The campaign was launched on the website of the company and other online platforms such as its social media profiles.
  • To add to this, the company published its first print advertisement, and incorporated the campaign to buses, billboards and taxis in both Los Angeles and New York.
  • As a way to further promote its products, representatives of the company offered free lipsticks during the New York Fashion Week.

Rodan + Fields

Overview and Market Dominance

• This company, founded by two dermatologists, focuses on a scientific approach to promote and present its products.
• Its revenue in 2018 was $1.5 billion, and the company was named as the number 1 skin care company in the United States and Canada by Euromonitor.
• The company employs consultants to sell its products online. Consultants often hold virtual events to spread awareness about the brand and the products it has to offer.
• The estimated number of consultants is 300,000. The top 1% of consultants earned $29,056 during 2018.

Advertising Strategy

• The messaging of the brand is focused on selling its products as items that “look lime makeup, act as skincare.”
• The company has a strong social media presence with 255,000 followers on Instagram and 36,780 followers on Twitter.
• Through its social media platforms and their website, Rodan + Fields promotes images showing pictures from customers before they used their products and after. In 2017, this was only 1% of the content they released; however, these posts were responsible for 13% of the total engagement seen on their social media platforms.
• The company has launched different campaigns in the past. One that stands out is the #RFGoNaked campaign.
  • #RFGoNaked
  • This campaign encourages people to post a selfie without any makeup products on.
  • The campaign had a philanthropic components as $1 would be donated to the Prescription for Change® Foundation, which was created by the brand.
  • In 2018, the brand launched this campaign for its 5th consecutive year.
  • Aside from the online promotion, the company held events in Times Square and Los Angeles to increase the number of participants.

Younique

Overview and Market Dominance

•  Younique is a company that focuses its sales of skin care products and makeup on the online market. The business model relies mainly on presenters, which is the name the brand uses for its sales representatives.
• The revenue of the brand in 2019 was $350 million. This was a decrease of $50 million compared to the $400 million revenue reported in 2018.
• The business model has presenters buy an e-commerce site where they can perform their sales. Virtual sales parties are also part of the promotion of Younique products.
• According to its website, Younique has 1,439,246 presenters worldwide. Although there are no company reports on estimated earnings achieved by their presenters, the top presenter generated $2,467 in sales during the month of March 2020.

Advertising Strategy

• The messaging used by the brand focuses on empowering women around the world.
• While the brand a has a strong social media presence with 34,000 followers on Twitter and 237,000 followers on Instagram, its digital presence is heavily influenced by the posts made by the presenters.
• An example of a presenter that generates great activity on Instagram is the account of @youniquebyalexis in which Alexis Michaels, a Younique presenter and makeup artist, promotes the products.
• Although no major campaigns have been launched by the brand itself in recent years, the launch of a new app in 2019 was a major advertising initiative.
• The app is called The Younique Beauty Guide, and it allows customers to see through augmented reality how they will look with the product on.
• Furthermore, customers have access to products that are yet to be launched, allowing them to know beforehand if they are interested in buying them or not.

EVER Skincare

Overview and Market Dominance

• Although EVER is a small skin care brand, it is part of a bigger company, Stella & Dot, and it has become increasingly popular since its launch in 2016. Its parent company, Stella & Dot, reported a revenue of $300 million in 2018.
• This line was launched in 2016, and it used to appeal to customers in the 36-42 years old age range. However, in 2018, the brand started launching products targeted at millennials and younger customers.
• Although the revenue for EVER is not readily available, high-level executives have stated that the revenue of the brand tripled between 2016 and 2018.
• The business model is comprised by EVER specialists or ambassadors, which are the names used by the brand for its representatives. However, the company also offers direct sales through its website.
• The latest available income disclosure of the brand is from 2017. In it, it is stated that Senior Influencers, which comprised 7.4% of specialists at the time, earned on average $8,600 annually. High earners within this category earned $28,500 in 2017.

Marketing Strategy

• EVER makes emphasis on its website and social media on the fact that its products are certified cruelty-free.
• The company has a smaller presence on social media platforms, with 22,400 followers on Instagram. Similar numbers were seen on Facebook, where 21,326 people follow its page.
• EVER uses these social media platforms to promote its products. Furthermore, EVER specialists create Facebook and Instagram profiles exclusively dedicated to selling this brand.
• The company has also launched campaigns to promote the launch of new products.
  • Whiplash Speed Volumizing Mascara
  • This campaign was focused on the millennial audience. The goal was to launch an entire new line of products, with a focus on the mascara.
  • To analyze the results, EVER worked with Influenster, a product review platform in which EVER had a great performance during the campaign.
  • One of the tools used was the release of a promotional video on social media platforms. The total of social media impressions caused by the campaign was 3.5 million.

Research Strategy

In order to provide information regarding market dominance we analyzed indicators such as revenue, number of sales representatives, as well as the social media presence of these brands. Further considerations such as awards and positioning determined by reputable market research outlets such as Euromonitor were also used to select these brands. All of these brands have a peer-to-peer component to their business models, which can be the only selling channel or part of different channels used by these companies.