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If you live outside of Scandinavia, you may not have heard of Caia Cosmetics. But after five years of booming business in its home market, the beauty brand founded by Swedish mega-influencer Bianca Ingrosso has its sights set on international expansion. Up against a host of influencer labels with loyal followings, it has its work cut out.
Known for makeup, skincare and haircare, Caia’s revenues are expected to hit 526 million SEK ($50 million) in 2023, up 28 per cent on 2022. Some 65 per cent of revenues come from Sweden and 20 per cent from Norway, says Caia CEO Johanna Eriksson Hamrén. The remainder is spread across the Nordics and Germany. Caia products are made in a factory in Italy alongside premium beauty players. Prices range from around €15 for concealer to €160 for a skincare set.
Up until last month, when it opened a pop-up in Stockholm luxury department store NK, it was 100 per cent direct-to-consumer (DTC), so it’s been able to keep price points accessible, Ingrosso says. Locals say the NK pop-up had customers queueing around the block.
Now, Ingrosso is planning to expand her business across Europe (notably the UK) and the US, with press activity to build brand awareness and drive DTC. This starts next week with intimate dinners held in London and New York for select journalists and influencers. She’s also weighing retail pop-ups in Europe and the US to boost brand awareness.
The 29-year-old is a member of Sweden’s Wahlgren-Ingrosso family, referred to by some as Scandinavia’s answer to the Kardashians. The family has a reality show titled Wahlgrens World, now in its 11th season. Ingrosso’s mother is the famous Swedish singer Pernilla Wahlgren, her cousin is Swedish House Mafia star Sebastian Ingrosso, her brother is pop star Benjamin Ingrosso and her elder brother Oliver is a DJ, singer, actor and restaurateur, along with her father Emilio Ingrosso.
If the Wahlgren Ingrossos are the Kardashians of Sweden, Bianca Ingrosso is the Kylie Jenner. Not dissimilar to Kylie Cosmetics HQ, Caia’s 30-strong team works in a brightly lit office, with pale pink and white soft furnishings and backlit shelves of products, also in millennial pink. After her interview with Vogue Business at Caia HQ, Ingrosso is heading across town to film an episode of her weekly talk show, Bianca, with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
Caia is one of a number of influencer-launched beauty brands that have gained mainstream popularity in the Nordic regions over the last few years, thanks in part to their affordable or mid-range market positioning, says Emilija Balsytė, research analyst at Euromonitor. Others include Ida Warg, Hickap, Camilla Pihl and Glöd. And as Scandi beauty labels like Byredo and other budding fragrance brands increasingly find success abroad, there’s somewhat of a blueprint for Caia to follow.
Still, Ingrosso recognises that it’s not going to be easy to break through in new markets, where she’s less well-known and up against stiff competition. Incumbents like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics or Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty have similar branding and social media tones and founders with over 100 times the followers. How will Caia stand out? “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, just perhaps we’ll be more colourful, be bigger, be better,” says Ingrosso. “We will make it more about the products because I won’t have my audience.”
Eriksson Hamrén is also cognisant of the challenges. “We’ll probably have to adapt a little bit to the cultures while keeping the same mindset.” Caia has a higher social engagement rate than some beauty megabrands, she says, and it hopes to lean on its content to acquire new customers abroad, alongside events and some physical retail. Ingrosso adds that Caia is well suited to the UK or US where people are more willing to experiment with their makeup purchases.
Former Kylie Cosmetics CEO Christoph Honnefelder, who exited the brand in 2020, joined Caia’s board this year to help with its expansion. “Having Christoph join the board has been instrumental for setting up the company for success on the global expansion journey we are on,” says Eriksson Hamrén. “Christoph brings his expertise from both the Kylie Cosmetics CEO role with its global presence, as well as his executive roles at Germany’s leading beauty retailers, two key experiences for a board role at a company with our international ambitions.”
Entertainment and co-creation
Influencer brands like Kylie Cosmetics often focus on drops and trend-led special collections. But Ingrosso says she takes the opposite approach with Caia, focusing on beauty staples rather than special flash-in-the-pan products. “We want to add products to your routine permanently. It’s not a product that is here for three months and then it’s not relevant anymore,” she says.
The focus is on product innovation: adding a twist to existing makeup staples. Sometimes literally: the brand’s twisty mascara allows the customer to change the brush shape for different effects, like “classy” or “edgy”. It won an Allure beauty award this year.
In the beginning, Ingrosso’s fans flocked to Caia, but the broader Swedish customer took some convincing. “It’s a word-of-mouth effect. The products are really good quality, so even the most sceptical are now becoming part of the Caia universe,” she says. To build its community, Caia’s video content is focused on tutorials, often filmed by its staff or micro-influencers, rather than just Ingrosso herself. It’s a strategy seen at many successful DTC beauty players, from Refy to Glossier.
In contrast to this lo-fi video content, some of Caia’s campaigns on Instagram or YouTube are almost cinematic short films, reminiscent of Chanel fragrance adverts rather than influencer brand videos. “I never take it for granted that people are going to stop in the feed. So we strive to be super entertaining,” says Ingrosso. When the brand released a makeup collaboration with MTV in summer, Ingrosso recorded and shot a full-length music video, a cover of UK artist Jamelia’s hit ‘Superstar’, wearing Caia products. The video, posted on Caia’s Spotify and YouTube account, garnered over 650,000 views.
In markets outside of the Nordics, where Ingrosso isn’t as well-known, Caia is partnering with beauty opinion leaders across the US and Europe, including Dutch model and entrepreneur Vivian Hoorn or German model Stefanie Geisigner. This brand awareness strategy has worked in Germany already, Eriksson Hamrén says. “German retailers and buyers keep asking when we can launch wholesale, but we are taking our time.” Caia was approached by Swedish retailers in the same way but waited until it was offered prime position in NK, next to Chanel, before agreeing.
Caia also collaborates with and invites feedback from its fans. Last year, the brand created its Pinky Promise lip gloss after inviting its social media followers to vote on the type of product, shade and packaging. The brand later filmed a documentary, giving customers a glimpse into its HQ. “If I could, I would have them here every day, just to learn what they need,” says Ingrosso.
This level of engagement comes with risks. Caia had a PR disaster in 2021 when it released an advent calendar that contained all minis rather than full-size items, disappointing customers. “We had to hold our hands up and say, ‘OK’, this wasn’t as you expected, and we’re sorry,’” recalls Eriksson Hamrén. The brand came back in 2022 with a calendar that contained full-size products.
As they look to 2024, Ingrosso and Eriksson Hamrén are keen to test Caia out abroad. The plan is to be “opportunistic and agile”, the latter says. Ingrosso’s ambitions are clear: “If it’s not going to be a hundred per cent, then we’re not going to do it. I want to see my kids work here. It doesn’t need to be the biggest brand in the world. I just want to continue to develop products that people feel happy with, that are safe to use,” she says. “And a factory. I want my own factory one day to produce Caia products. I want to produce our own mascaras. That would be amazing.”
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