When inclusive marketing makes money: Fenty Beauty case study
Source: Fenty Beauty
Remember when Fenty Beauty came out? People noticed. Beauty lovers everywhere suddenly had Fenty on their lips. And it isn’t for the reason you’d expect… Yes, people love Rihanna – the face of the brand. Celebrity brands do garner a great deal of attention. But there’s more to Fenty Beauty than Rihanna.
As a brand, Fenty Beauty did something revolutionary. They spoke to all women, everywhere, with their inclusive marketing strategy. They championed diversity and changed the beauty industry.
Ask people which makeup brand first offered up 40 shades, and they’d think Fenty. But this isn’t true. Yes, most makeup brands offered 10-20 shades when Fenty came onto the scene, but brands like Mac Cosmetics had been delivering a full spectrum of 40 shades for a while.
So why do people think Fenty is the first? Simple. Because Fenty chose to market their diverse shades to their diverse audience.
Fenty’s commitment to inclusivity has created a seismic shift in the beauty industry, and that’s no exaggeration.
Inclusive marketing is the core reason behind Fenty Beauty’s outstanding success!
About Fenty Beauty
Fenty Beauty is a makeup line created by music icon, Rihanna. According to Fenty Beauty, Rihanna was inspired to create the brand after years of experimenting with beauty products and finding most were lacking. She noticed they didn’t cater for all skin types and tones. Her wish? For everyone everywhere to feel included. For women everywhere to have makeup created for them. And so, Fenty Beauty was born.
Fenty Beauty’s foundation range focuses on skin tones that are considered ‘difficult to match’ by the industry, while offering formulas that work for all skin types. They also dedicate themselves to creating universal shades in their other products, such as lipsticks and blushers.
Fenty’s success story
Fenty is a record-breaking brand.
Fenty Beauty became the biggest beauty brand launch in Youtube history. They made $100 million in just 40 days after launching, and were named one of Time Magazine’s best inventions of 2017.
In their first year, they made more than $550 million in revenue. This new brand wasn't just playing with the big brands. They were beating them.
How did Fenty Beauty stand out in a saturated $532 billion market? They did the unexpected. They marketed to women, showing them as they are, instead of presenting them with an ‘aspirational’ (and unattainable) image of thin, caucasion and conventionally beautiful with no disabilities.
Celebrity status or inclusivity?
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by Rihanna.
Sceptics of inclusive marketing may lean on Rihanna’s status as a celebrity. Celebrity brands tend to do well, since celebrities come with an existing audience. Can we not, therefore, attribute Fenty’s success to Rihanna’s fame and established fan base?
When you compare Fenty to other celebrity brands, it continues to come out on top. No other celebrity brand has attracted this much attention and success. In its first year, Fenty surpassed other celebrity-founded brands, including the beauty brands of Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashan and Jessica Alba ( they made $100 million in just 40 days).
It’s also worth noting that Fenty Beauty made Rihanna a billionaire, not her music. That’s saying something!
The birth of the “Fenty Effect”
Fenty Beauty offered a whopping 40 shades when they launched. And now, they offer 50! But that’s not all.
Their marketing features women of different skin tones, and they display their makeup products on a range of real skin tones. If you purchase a product online, you’ll see what the product looks like on light, medium and dark skin tones. They don't just ‘have’ beauty for all, their entire marketing shows beauty for all.
By making these decisions, Fenty Beauty set a new standard for beauty and marketing. In the past, makeup marketing would intensively focus on thin caucasian women; they’d promote eurocentric beauty standards and exclude their wider and diverse customer base.
Fenty Beauty broke the mould.
After witnessing Fenty’s success, cosmetic companies everywhere – from large and established brands to indie startups – have extended their shades and have started using diverse models in their branding.
Of course, there’s more to inclusivity than the number of shades you offer. It’s about how those shades are distributed. Jason Li and The Pudding collaborated to measure the inclusivity levels of foundation shades from Fenty and Makeup Forever. Both Makeup Forever and Fenty had 40 shades during the time of their investigation.
It turns out, Fenty had an even distribution of shades, with shades available on the lightest and darkest sides of the spectrum. Makeup Forever, on the other hand, had 31 of their 40 shades in the light to tan range, and just a few in the darker shades. Fenty offers a true spectrum of shades, without favouring light shades over darker shades. To be inclusive, makeup brands need to stretch to accommodate darker shades too.
Fenty didn’t just drive makeup brands to reevaluate their shade range. Following Fenty Beauty’s launch, L’Oreal Paris hired Neelam Gill to become the first British-Asian model in a campaign. NARS also hired Naomi Campbell in a beauty campaign – her first ever, despite the decades she’s spent in the industry!
Source: Fenty Beauty
What we can learn from Fenty
It’s simple to just say, be more inclusive. But how? How did Fenty create an inclusive marketing brand?
1. Show, not tell.
They showed us inclusivity. Initially, Fenty didn’t use the word ‘inclusive’ in their marketing, They simply showed their products were for everyone. They didn’t need to write that they had a full range of shades. Their marketing featured people of different sizes, colours, abilities (and now, genders too).
Fenty makes diversity visible in all their marketing materials.
Tip: If you want to implement the Fenty Effect, use a diverse range of models and influencers. Using diverse stock photos is an easy way to begin being more inclusive. To learn more about using diverse stock photos, and where to find them, click here.
2. Make sure inclusivity extends to the product you’re marketing
It isn’t all about marketing. The product itself has to align with your commitment to inclusivity. Alongside the expansive shade range, Fenty have created products using formulas that work for most skin types, and have created universal shades too. Inclusivity isn’t just a marketing strategy, but a value they’ve embedded and committed to.
3. Inclusivity makes money and gets you attention
Fenty Beauty made a surprising amount of money and has grown a loyal customer base. Their decision to be inclusive led to positive change in the beauty industry, showing how powerful it can be to just include your target audience.
A study by Heat shows that brands with inclusive ads saw an average stock gain of 44% in a seven-quarter period, and brands with the highest diversity scores show an 83% higher consumer preference.
Not convinced? The results can be repeated. Alongside Fenty Beauty, Rihanna has an inclusive lingerie line called Savage X Fenty. Savage X Fenty has a valuation of $3 billion dollars and has experienced a revenue CAGR of 150% each year.
Like Fenty Beauty, Savage X Fenty speaks to all women and aims to help everyone feel beautiful and sexy.
4.You don’t have to get it right all the time
Business owners are sometimes afraid of taking steps towards being inclusive, in case they get it wrong and cause offence.
Despite the praise Fenty receives, the lingerie brand did make a mistake by using sacred Islamic texts in the Savage X Fenty lingerie show. However, Rihanna decided to take ownership for the brand’s mistake and apologised to the muslim community, preventing those dreaded calls for cancellation.
Here’s the thing: audiences expect authenticity and responsibility from brands. When apologising, it’s important to take responsibility, to apologise directly to the communities affected and to rectify your mistakes. Don’t do what H&M did (not sure what we mean? Read about H&M’s poor apology here).
Inclusive marketing isn’t about being perfect and politically correct at all times – it’s about making the effort to acknowledge and speak to your wider audience. That’s all.
We can help you transform your marketing…
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Let’s make your marketing inclusive, so you can enjoy greater attention, customer loyalty and sales.
If you ever doubt the power of inclusive marketing, just remember the “Fenty Effect” and Fenty’s fortune. Inclusive marketing can take your business to new heights.
