Case Study: Fenty Beauty

Rihanna portrait courtesy of Fenty Beauty

Fenty Beauty has had enormous success since its launch 4 years ago, and has revolutionized inclusivity in the beauty industry. In this article we'll take a look at how Fenty has managed to be so successful.

Company Background

Fenty Beauty was launched by Rihanna of music industry fame in 2017, and grew exponentially since then. Today, Forbes estimates Fenty Beauty to be worth $1.4 billion.

Fenty launched with a range of foundations and lip glosses, as well as a primer. Today, it has nearly 90 different products for the face, cheeks, eyes, and lips.

Target Audience

Fenty Beauty was launched with the goal of creating a beauty line that was accessible to people of all skin tones and types. In particular, Rihanna decided to focus on skin tones that were traditionally hard to match.

According to Ipsos, at least 6 in 10 women reported feeling frustrated when trying to find a foundation that matched their skin tone. In particular, dark-skinned women have anecdotally had the most trouble finding a matching foundation.

Fenty's signature foundations are priced at $47 CAD - slightly lower than other luxury beauty brands like Esteé Lauder and NARS.

Overall, Fenty not only aims to be accessible to a wide range of skin tones, but to be more financially accessible than the average luxury beauty product as well. It's hard to understand why existing beauty brands didn't capitalize on the market opportunity and diversify their shades before Fenty entered the scene, as African Americans were responsible for 85% of all beauty product sales in the U.S. in 2017.

Marketing Efforts

Fenty's initial launch was highly successful, with excited customers taking to social media to share their joy at finally finding a foundation shade that matched them. Of course, Rihanna's fame and following undoubtedly contributed to the line's success. Fenty also had the support of its parent company, LVMH, which owns Sephora and ensured that Fenty products were stocked in their stores from launch.

Deep shades in the Fenty line sold out almost immediately upon launch, contributing to the excitement and FOMO for potential customers. Below is a tweet from Affinity Magazine showing just that, with over 20k retweets and 35k likes echoing the enthusiasm.

Beyond the initial hype, Fenty Beauty has continued to use social media to keep their brand visible. Today, Fenty maintains the #FentyFace hashtag that allows its customers to post their Fenty makeup looks to the tag.

Why is it successful?

It's not uncommon for celebrities to try and foray into the beauty industry, but they are rarely ever as successful as Rihanna. In fact, many celebrity beauty line launches failed completely. Take Tyra Banks' Tyra Beauty or Salma Hayek's Nuance, both of which were discontinued within 6 years of launch.

So we can say for sure that Rihanna's celebrity status is not what's primarily responsible for Fenty's success. The main marketing factors that ensured Fenty's success were its strong company values and strong social media presence.

Fenty launched with a mission to provide accessible beauty products, and backed its words by stocking a whopping 40 shades of foundation. It hit the nail on the head in terms of what consumers were looking for, and got to reap the benefits as buyers shared their new purchases on social media.

With its #FentyFace hashtag, Fenty allows its customers to find others who use their products easily. This is a highly effective marketing strategy for beauty products - not only can people browsing the tag find new Fenty products they'd like to try from makeup looks, but the hashtag also creates the feeling of an exclusive community for Fenty customers. Exclusivity is one of the main reasons luxury products sell - think about the number of people lining up for iPhone launches every year.

Overall, Fenty Beauty's success lies in its products appealing exactly to what customers wanted, and the development of a customer community as a result.