Why are there so many Celebrity Beauty Brands?
In this report I want to look at the idea of Celebrity Beauty Brands. Who is creating these brands? Who is a Celebrity? Are there actually more Celebrity Beauty Brands lately? What makes Celebrity Beauty Brands Successful? Are all Celebrity Beauty Brands Successful? For all this and more, keep reading!
Who is Creating These Celebrity Brands?
There are a lot of brand incubators and large corporations that start beauty brands. They have money to spend on employing or contracting the right people and they have connections in the industry. But the people behind starting these brands generally don’t make for an especially good brand story. So, to manufacture authenticity and build instant trust with consumers they get a celebrity or influencer on board to be the front of the brand and build the brand story around this celebrity.
There are also celebrities and influencers that decide to create their own Beauty Brands independently, this is less common.
Who is a Celebrity?
Recently there has been backlash within the beauty industry, with many saying that Celebrities should stop creating Beauty Brands. But with the rise of social media, the lines have blurred on who is and is not a celebrity. When we talk about celebrity beauty brands, who do we include? Clearly, we are including mainstream celebrities like Brad Pitt and Jared Leto who both started their own skincare brands recently. What about “influencers”? Or in other words people that are famous from social media. Does it matter what they do on social media? It seems many of the complaints are that the celebrities starting brands don’t know anything about the industry.
Who Can Create Beauty Brands?
So, what about people that are famous for creating content related to beauty? For example, Nikkie Tutorial starting her brand Nimya. Or what about people like Jonathan Van Ness, whom is both a hair stylist and famous from the Netflix’s hit show Queer Eye. He recently started the haircare brand JVN, does that get a pass because he’s a hair stylist? What about Isamaya Ffrench, who is famous for being a makeup artist and recently launched her own makeup brand Isamaya. Is it okay for celebrities to launch beauty brands if they are famous for a related field? Or is it if they have a personal interest? How do we determine who is genuine?
Why Celebrities?
Why are we singling out celebrities and not other people that don’t know about the industry? Like various businesspeople that start beauty brands. I also think we should recognize that no matter your background, even if you are an industry insider, no one creates a beauty brand on their own. Founders do not need to be experts in every part of running their business.
New Celebrity Skincare Brands
Of these new Celebrity Skincare Brands, the ones I believe have the best potential to succeed and stay around are Hailey Bieber's Rhode and Scarlett Johansson's The Outset. They have received the most positive response so far.
Are There More Celebrity Beauty Brands Lately?
Over the last months we have heard people talk about there being more new celebrity brands than ever, though when looking at the numbers it seems that celebrity brands peaked in 2021. I think a lot of the recent frustration that we are seeing recently is due to some of the latest ones feeling unusually contrived. I’ve seen the biggest frustration expressed about Brad Pitt’s brand Le Domaine. Brad Pitt has previously expressed in interviews that he doesn’t really care about skincare. Similar sentiments have been expressed about Jared Leto's new skincare brand Twentynine Palms.
Celebrity Beauty Brands Launched in 2022
Celebrity Beauty Brands Launched in 2021
Celebrity Beauty Brands Launched Per Year
Celebrity Skincare Brands We Don't Talk About
Celebrity Skincare Brands on Instagram
What Makes Celebrity Brands Successful?
We can see from brands like Florence by Mills, which has an incredibly engaged fanbase, that matching the brand well to the fanbase of the celebrity is important. The brand is perfectly targeted towards teens.
Just having a celebrity attached to the brand isn’t enough to be successful. Though there are some benefits that Celebrity Beauty Brands have.
Humanizing the Brand
One reason celebrity brands are doing well is not just because there’s a famous person behind them, but more simply because there is a person behind them. We trust people a lot more than we trust companies and we trust familiar people more than we trust strangers. We also see a lot of brands with visible founders behind them doing well.
Money
Whether the brands are created by corporations, brand incubators or funded by the celebrities themselves it’s fair to say that these brands are as far from boot-strapped you can get. With a huge budget, brands can hire a dedicated team with the best people to develop amazing products and work with the best design agencies. They can afford amazing custom packaging off the bat and can afford huge marketing campaigns. Brands with these kinds of resources are perfectly set up to do well even without the celebrity attached to them.
Connections
Having the right connections does a lot for setting brands up for success. It can get brands into the biggest retailers at launch and get coverage from all the most important media outlets. While of course the celebrity name helps here, it can make the brand more news worthy and retailers are easier to win over. Having a well-connected and experienced team is not exclusive to celebrity brands though. There are great PR agencies and retail specialists that help brands get into retail. If your brand is good enough there will be media that wants to cover your releases and retailers that want to stock your products.
Successful Celebrity Skincare Brands
What About Celebrity Makeup Brands?
There seems to be a lot less controversy around Celebrity Makeup Brands compared to Celebrity Skincare Brands. In fact, many of them have been very well received by consumers. It can be that these brands come off as more authentic.
New Celebrity Makeup Brands
Successful Celebrity Makeup Brands
Some of the most popular Celebrity Makeup Brands are Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, and R.E.M. Beauty by Arianna Grande. One thing they have in common is that they all have packaging designed by the same NYC based design agency “Established”.
One way that they differ is that Fenty was created under Kendo Brands, a brand incubator owned by LVMH and R.E.M. Beauty was created by Forma Brands, a brand incubator owned by General Atlantic. Meanwhile Rare Beauty is owned by Selena Gomez herself and she is currently listed as the CEO.
Celebrity Makeup Brands on Instagram
Are Celebrity Beauty Brands Here to Stay?
I think people are starting to realize that the barrier to entry into the beauty industry is not as low as one might think. While creating a product and selling it from your own website, the market is incredibly saturated. It really takes all the parts coming together to even be viable as a beauty brand, even when you have a huge budget. People are tired of white label products that chase after all the trends with nothing new to offer. It’s not enough to have a famous face behind your brand if you can’t answer why they are there.
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