While countless cosmetic products and beauty brands exist, one in particular has captured and retained the attention of savvy Millennial consumers. Glossier is a cosmetics brand founded by Emily Weiss.
Weiss, a former intern at Vogue who also made a cameo appearance on several episodes of The Hills, has established a cult-like following through Glossier’s social media channels.
Glossier was launched in 2014, several years after Weiss created Into the Gloss a beauty blog site for women. An effortless aesthetic coupled with real-world beauty advice is what initially attracted users to Into the Gloss.
Glossier products came about through Into the Gloss. “I realized there was a disconnect” between the leading beauty conglomerates and their customers, said Weiss to TechCrunch in an interview. “Though many women seemed to have an affinity for certain products, they didn’t necessarily know anything about those brands’ values or communicate with them in any way.” Weiss spied an opportunity to rectify that by “building a company around what women want, not just from a product perspective but from an engagement perspective, from a distribution perspective, and from a values perspective.”
The success of Glossier comes down to the way the company launches products and interacts with its audience.
“We’ve never launched two products in the same way. With Wowder, we basically did what maybe no brand would normally do. It became a treasure hunt, where our fans were like, “What is this Wowder that we see all of our favorite makeup artists and YouTubers using? Where is Wowder coming from and why can’t I buy it? I’m Googling and I can’t find it.”
Using social influencing principles like creating a sense of scarcity–by making it difficult for customers to find out where to purchase new products, yet showing them all over social media–and consensus–by having make-up artists and YouTubers post about products– has helped Glossier build up their large and devoted following.
But Glossier also uses one other major branding tactic. They co-create products with their customers, like their perfume Glossier You, which will launch in October. Not only have customer been intricately involved in the creation and sent of the perfume, but Weiss hope customers will play a areg role in marketing it as well. She says, “we’re sending samples in every single order that goes out [the month before the perfume launches]. Hopefully, our customers will smell it and take pictures of it and make content around it. So Glossier customers are really becoming co-creators in our campaign of actually bringing this fragrance into the world.”
From 2015 to 2016 Glossier experienced a 600 percent year growth, Into the Gloss now attracts about 1.5 million visitors monthly, and with names like Wowder (face powder) and Cloud Paint (blush), girls are Googling Glossier’s trademarks trying to sleuth what their next release might be–expect to hear more about this brand in the future.
