Messaging is your brand’s north star
We attended BeautyMatter’s NEXT50 Summit in LA last week, and every talk, in every session, highlighted storytelling as the most critical strategy in successful beauty growth and scaling.
Founders and strategists from beauty brands of all sizes agreed: The key to a successful brand is being very clear on the story you’re telling, and very comfortable telling your story over and over again. When you lead with story, and keep that story consistent across all channels, everything remains connected. Siloing messaging or tonality by channel is death. A consistent, holistically executed story is key.
Sephora’s Carolyn Bojanowski, EVP of Merchandising, called out rookie mistakes new brands make when joining the retailer, noting that successful brands clearly establish what they won’t stray from and get quiet to really know themselves. It gets loud with the other voices in the room. Your brand must have a north star, or you’ll get lost very quickly.
Frank Freeman, VP of AI and Digital Disruption at Unilever Prestige, spoke at length about AI, offering calming words in a volatile time. The beauty industry is unique because it has a human/emotional component that must be nurtured. You cannot ignore it. Beauty requires it. That has been a consistent thread throughout the history of beauty, no matter how media and technology change. Story is what keeps humanity at the core of your brand. That humanity is what beauty consumers crave.
Nichola Tucker Gray, the CEO and co-founder of Kate McLeod, shared how their brand scaled demonstrably through story. She stressed the need to deeply understand how your community functionally and emotionally uses your product and then craft aligned messaging hooks that are looped through every aspect of your brand experience. This thinking—and their new messaging hooks—allowed the brand to tap into new communities and expand its audience, growing its business 75%+ after sharpening its messaging.
The Lipstick Lesbians talked passionately about how consumers are experiencing more confusion, fatigue, and a craving for education than ever. (“Why are there so many blushes? What makes them different? Why should I care?”) They stressed: It is collectively better for the entire industry if we amplify education and differentiation in messaging. To buy into your essence, consumers need to hear the story from you. They want to see the person behind the brand and know why that person thinks the brand they created is meaningful.
Three Ships Beauty co-founder Connie Lo mentioned how Three Ships used to talk about the brand through points of difference, but their audience didn’t know what they stood for or what they offered. Developing a clear reason to believe and establishing what they will and will not say about the brand changed everything. Creating one cohesive Three Ships universe, grounded in a central story, was pivotal to their growth.
Connie also reiterated how founder-led storytelling builds trust and connection (their founder ads get double the click-through rates). Consumers are so jaded and have so much distrust; founder stories really help address that disconnect, especially when founders are vocal about their own brand in their personal accounts.