It is no surprise that Hailey Bieber’s marketing team behind Rhode understood the assignment. This brand could be seen as a lead example for our agency to follow in order to understand the ins and outs of the beauty industry. Time and time again, ever since their launch in 2022, Hailey and her dedicated team have managed to WAW GenZ and make them fall in love with the brand, which is no easy task nowadays where authenticity and quality are expected rather than optional. But how does Rhode, out of all the celebrity backed beauty brands, continuously reach viral success?  

Influencer marketing

Rhode managed to do what only a select few have been able to do; make influencers on TikTok excited about their gifted PR. Hailey and her team utilised TikTok as their main platform to communicate to their audience and made their PR packages interesting and unique, resulting in recipients wanting to post about their products. Consequently, they often have macro- but also nano- and micro-influencers on TikTok with great engagement levels, wanting to post about the brand on their social media. This move is genius considering that 91% of TikTok users in Europe agree that they have learned something new about make-up on TikTok and that globally, ⅓ of users turn to TikTok for discovery, consideration or post-purchase engagement making Rhode present in very important stages of the consumer journey. 

Take the unfinished product samples that influencers and community members got in the mail a few weeks ago. By doing so, they made the community involved in the product innovation and brand development as well as receiving a considerable amount of UGC content. This move shows their audience that they are open to community insights and that they want to be inclusive. 

Another example would be the pineapple cleanser that was hidden within a bathbomb. This had not been previously done and resulted in a lot of social media presence. 

Differentiation strategy

Brands that want to differentiate themselves in a saturated market such as the beauty industry, need to apply a differentiation strategy by clearly communicating the unique value that the brand brings to the consumers.

When a celebrity decides to launch a (beauty) brand, it often benefits from the immediate recognition, awareness and ambassadorship that their starpower provides but a lot of celebrity brands struggle to differentiate beyond this. Lack thereof has already proven in the past, for example Know Beauty launched by Vanessa Hudgens and Madison Beer, to have a difficult time surviving after the launch and ultimately fail.

Hailey could be seen as a textbook example of how to differentiate successfully and stands on three pillars to do so. Firstly, she knew that advertising her products by using the clean, effective and affordable message, would not work. Therefore, she focussed on her star ingredient rather; peptides, that is present in every one of her products. Peptides stimulate the production of elastin, which makes the skin look and feel tighter and firmer. In addition, peptides also stimulate the production of collagen. 

Secondly, Hailey worked together with Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali to have her skincare products’ formulation scientifically backed. Lastly, they have a unique beauty philosophy, namely the clean girl aesthetic. This ideology drives forward everything the Rhode brand does.

Branding 

When it comes to Rhode, you immediately think about one of two things (or maybe both); the clean girl aesthetic and glazed donut. These two terms have trended on TikTok more than we can count, and Rhode managed to utilise this platform as their main source of communication towards their target audience in order to reach them and forever linking these search terms to her brand. Hailey Bieber herself said that the objective of the brand was to make the skin look glazed and “yummy”. With the model and influencer as its founder, the brand gets associated with how Hailey looks and therefore the customer gets the impression that you receive a piece of her every time you buy a piece of her skincare brand, i.e. “cool-/ clean-girl”.

Phone case: finding a need in the market

The new ‘Hailey Bieber Phone Case’ has been everywhere. The founder herself started the buzz around this new gadget when she posted a mirrorselfie on her Instagram showcasing it. Although phone cases in itself are not revolutionary, by attaching her own lip treatment, she is solving her audience’s problem without them even realising they had the problem in the first place. The problem being that girls oftentimes only go out needing their phone and lip product (granted that you use Apple Pay or any variant), and feel the need to take a bag for only two items. With the case, you can easily access your lip treatment without rummaging through your bag and don’t need to take a whole bag when going on a quick errand. 

From a marketing and branding perspective, this phone case is iconic due to the phone case only supporting the Rhode lip treatment and because it is a continuation of their “it-”/”clean-girl” aesthetic.

Campaigns nostalgic feel/ Food marketing

Rhode isn’t the first brand to experiment with food marketing and having products tasting/ smelling like food. Back in the 90’, Lipsmackers made flavoured lip balms that taste like candy and soda and the iconic 00’ brand Too Faced was known for their eyeshadow pallet scented with chocolate, maple syrup,…

It is safe to say that the way Rhode does food marketing is different from its competitors. The brand stays true to its core values by making their campaigns fresh and familiar what truly makes her stand out. Hailey is known for her glassy, clean girl skin and this is synonymous with her brand and campaigns.

When we look at her glazed milk campaign, we feel this previously mentioned familiarity about her pose and the milk. This makes you immediately think about one of the most famous campaigns ever shot in the 90’ featuring Kate Moss promoting milk creating a nostalgic feeling.

Heard and seen 

Rhode uses different strategies to ensure that they are seen and heard by their target audience. For one, they use SMS marketing. It causes the same relationship with their consumers as with email marketing but with a higher opening rate and they don’t need to customise it as much. 

Secondly, they use the platform Klaviyo for their email marketing so that they can customise the emails as they like, to test the emails and to further personalise.  

They also make use of event based marketing such as launch parties to showcast the new products available. These events help you engage the people who attend but it also creates a lot of content due to people posting about it on their social media. This creates brand awareness. 

Lastly, Rhode co-branded with Erewhon to make the infamous ‘Hailey Bieber smoothie’ called the strawberry glazed smoothie. Extensively, it is about Hailey Bieber but indirectly, it is promoting the brand due to the referenced donut glaze look of her skincare in the name of the smoothie. 

Are you a beauty brand looking into the possibilities that TikTok has to offer?
Our Dotters are more than happy to strategize on an impactful action plan with you!