Beauty Brands and Gaming: Fenty Beauty
The innovation lab specialises in sharing in-depth analyses of key areas that would typically fall under the sector of marketing. These are an accumulation of insights and emerging industry-specific trends summarised to suit the interests of our readers, with the intention to encourage innovation within the digital space. It will cover everything new and next that is bound to affect consumer interests and behaviour across fashion, retail, beauty, wellness, luxury, food and drink, media and youth. These are written from the lens of our Founder, Prisca Moyesa.
Rihanna and her Fenty Beauty team innovate non-stop. Fenty Beauty and its Founder/CEO have been a case study for Moyesa & Co. for years. We admire her business model and have had the honour of watching her grow into a marketing maven by making new and innovative things happen — even if a small number of them were killed quite quickly. Let’s get started, shall we?
Fenty
Before we dive into the core topic, gaming and the hero image, let's explore how Rihanna rose to become a top-of-mind legend in recent years.
Fenty Beauty introduced multiple shades of foundation at a time when brands were ignoring the desires of consumers. Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty understands the importance of time; how crucial it can be to a launch strategy and how that can resonate better for the business over launching it on a random whim. Fenty Beauty launched with the intention to create a brand story and etch in the minds of a global audience. But they didn't stop there. Fenty Beauty’s run continued when they launched social media campaigns that represented women that were actually buying their products. (Pro Tip) When raising or raised, the customer needs to come first for that is what is bound to impact the bottom line, and get you and your team to hit those KPIs. By investing in Rihanna, LVMH understood the assignment.
Content and Commerce
As if the content that aimed to represent women, men and non-binary people wasn’t enough, the website was clearly designed with intent. From its interactive homepage capabilities to its shade finder, the content was designed to convert. This reflects why she was able to her brand name to Generation Z, the target cohort for her next few endeavours.
Brand Building is a Contest of Strengths
For small business owners reading this, or startups founders playing comparison games — stop right there. Let’s address the journey. Yes, Rihanna had a head start. But her head start comprised of product releases (singles), visual content (music videos), global exposure (performing/tours), press (magazines covers without complaint in a time where Grammy-nominated singer Doja Cat hates them, lol!) and consistency, even when she was faced with challenges. If you can build resilience on all those fronts, you’re a multimillionaire already, and will for sure find your company gaining traction and going public. (If that’s what you want)
Fenty Meets TikTok
Fenty Beauty launched before TikTok went global, but it wasn’t shortly after… and from reading this, you should gauge how passionate Rihanna and her team are about innovation. So it is no surprise that the Queen of Pop and Beauty invested in TikTok house. A place where creators, those who have spent time and energy creating content for the brand and many others, would have the chance to use the space to produce more organic content without the burden of the cost, at their leisure. PR stunt? Perhaps, but it proved to be a valuable resource for Gen Z who by the nature of their age, have limited resources. Rihanna shared, “I just wanted to create a platform for the next wave of content creators. I think our generation is the sickest, the illest, and the most creative. I can’t do it alone, so to join in with the people who are influencing the world and my community and my generation, this is a hub.” It’s safe to say that this was the beginning of her official partnership with the cohort.
Product Launch: Skin
Carrying on the theme of consumer alignment, Rihanna launched Fenty Skin, but this time Fenty Beauty desired to attract a new set of consumers. Men. By introducing self-proclaimed and GQ-proclaimed Pretty Boy A$AP Rocky, Rihanna went direct-to-consumer and launched an inclusive campaign that sent the internet into a frenzy.
But this wasn’t enough. Rihanna wanted fans to know how important research and development was in this area.
Unless you aren’t already familiar with Rihanna’s promotional style, here is another example.
Rihanna in our words, “gets it”. It is generic and dull to not play with different concepts and scripts. Rihanna bridges the gap between fun, informative and educational, and calls on her friends for the ride.
“Rihanna Smells So Good”
That takes us to our next case study, Fenty Eau De Parfum. Rihanna decided to play on brand advocacy and used her celebrity friends to promote her latest endeavour, the Fenty fragrance, and what’s better than celebrity social proof? Rihanna entices viewers into the private, but now public, knowledge that because she smells great, her taste would amount to a great product.
“She Can Beat Me, But She Can’t Beat My Outfit” — Rihanna
Rihanna was born to create. Let’s take her other endeavour with lingerie brand Savage x Fenty, which we believe wiped out 20% of Victoria Secret’s market share, and that does not surprise us. Just look at how she promoted her partnership with Amazon prime for the latest Savage x Fenty show.
Source: badgalriri (IG)
Her ability to keep trying and forge new rules is what sets her apart, and we want to encourage more brands to do the same.
Play with the unconventional, use social media and different content formats to storytelling, bring the founder in on the experience and A/B test along the way. Iterate as you go and outsource the support if you cannot guarantee it in house. A fresh perspective may just be what you need. *cough cough*
Fenty x Riot Games
Present-day, Rihanna has walked into the world of gaming. We explored this in our summary of the Vogue x Google business summit and it is no surprise that the fashion, music and beauty maven Rihanna is bringing a new in-game partnership into the mix. At a time when virtual experiences are on everyone in fashion’s lips, digital clothing and skins are taking the industry by storm. Brand awareness give businesses longevity; and top of mind awareness is a psychological marketing hack that legacy brands have been tapping into for centuries. Clearly, Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty doesn’t want to miss out. So they’re going all in on it.
Their latest partnership is with Riot Games — the team (gaming developers) behind Fortnite and League of Legends have launched an animated series on Netflix. Traditionally, superstars of Rihanna’s calibre would want their face to be at the forefront of the big idea, and although Rihanna’s voice is featured in the series, she uses a smart yet unconventional method to get Fenty Beauty on the streaming service. According to High Snobiety, Fenty Beauty “curated beauty looks across Riot Games and content, aiming to highlight the multifaceted and diverse beauty landscape that celebrates beauty in all of its forms — including animation.” If you ever wondered what an effective yet smart marketing strategy looked like, this is it.
To support the launch, Fenty Beauty kicked off an offline experience in Los Angeles of which involved a series of VIP beauty experiences and gifting for fans at Riot Games’ campus, driving awareness in another remit of marketing. Highsnobiety also shared, “given that makeup often serves as a character-defining feature, the brand could play a hugely important role in bringing the look of video game avatars to the next level” and we concur. By merging the physical and digital world, brands, according to Fenty Beauty are “pushing the boundaries of collaboration both in and out of the game.”
The Metaverse
We previously mentioned The Sims in my metaverse article, and love how they once partnered with MAC Makeup to release makeup looks, and collaborated with custom creator Ebonix to create nail designs that mirror her custom content (CC) pre-partnership. We admire how the CC community is evolving by introducing real-life fashion and beauty styles to gaming. See below.
In summary, Rihanna is simply giving things a go that makes sense to her brand trajectory and aligns with the interests and behaviours of the audience.
We share this because innovation is at the helm of what we do, but also so that readers understand the different facets of marketing. It’s all-encompassing. It may not need to be a podcast, or a social media post, but it certainly could be the strategy and go-to-market launch of a new product, partnership or service that takes the brand to another level.
That’s how broadly we work and think. If you would like to learn more about how we can help transform the mindsets and ideas coming out of your business, quote the title of this article to hello@moyesa.co and we will be in touch.