Kylie Cosmetics The success of Influencer Marketing

Kylie Cosmetics is a makeup brand founded by Kylie Jenner in 2016, The brand started by creating a successful liquid lipstick with a lip liner duo to get Kylie's lips.

This product was so popular that it sold out in a matter of minutes making the website crash completely. The objective behind the collection is to create “The Perfect Kylie Look” for her fanbase.

The consumer gets to create their own “Kylie Makeup style’ to look like their idol.The brand is using several communication strategies to promote it, and it’s worth looking at and analyzing these strategies to understand the success of Kylie Cosmetics.

Kylie Cosmetics was one of the first brands that used the strategy of the countdown to present the product on the website.Kylie Jenner targeted the fans that follow her on Instagram to go to the website of the brand and wait for the drop to get their perfect product.

The website was easy and clear and felt like an extension of Kylie Jenner's brand, creating a logo with big lips on it with golden teeth giving a more edgy look to the brand.

People have already connected with Kylie Jenner through her TV show with her family. “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” since 2007. And since millennials and Gen Zs make up most of her target, it was easy for the celebrity to connect with them because she is just like them. Kylie Jenner knew what was aesthetically pleasing for her fans, she knew their needs and she understood them, and she learned with her team how to market to them.

Before influencer marketing was a thing, Kylie Jenner was already doing it, but she didn’t need an influencer to succeed and establish her brand.  She was the influencer; Kylie only needs it to post her product with her face and name on it for it to be sold out. Her strategy worked because her fans were already following her every move, she didn’t need to gain their trust, it was already there. The bond was created for so long.

The content she started posing after founding her brand was a product shot put in a personal photo, behind-the-scenes footage of her creating her products, promoting her collection by using it, and creating different looks. She also created content with big names in the beauty industry, influencers such as James Charles, and others to gain the respect of this industry which is quite competitive and difficult.

Usually, Kylie Jenner ignores controversy because she and her family are no strangers to one, but in March 2019, Forbes named Kylie Jenner a self-made billionaire.

This a statement that upsets a lot of people for two reasons:

1. Kylie Jenner is not self-made, she comes from a powerful family that taught her and gave her a lot of opportunities, sure, she did work a lot for her brand, but she didn’t build it from ground zero.

2. Kylie Jenner is not a billionaire, at least she wasn’t at the time her marketing manager and her mother exaggerated the profitability of her business

Kylie Jenner creates limited editions for her products based on major events in her life or on certain holidays, she created a valentine's collection, a Halloween collection, a collection about her daughter stormy, and finally a collection representing each of her sisters.

This strategy makes people feel that the product of Kylie Cosmetics has a bigger meaning, that they mean something to the influencer, so the consumer gets attached to these events as if they are their own.

And, the brand uses strategies such as pop stores to create an experience of shopping according to the theme of the collection, so the consumer who was hesitating to buy online gets to purchase the product in stores and the fans get to live a beautiful shopping experience.

Kylie Jenner started with makeup. Now, she is trying to enter the skincare industry, an industry a lot more complicated than the beauty industry, is she going to succeed? The answer will be coming soon in another post about the situation of Kylie's skin.

Kylie Cosmetics is a force to be reckoned with but it’s important for a brand not to get comfy in an industry.

The brand needs to be on the same creative level that she started with pushing the boundaries even more.