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Cosmetics marketing tends to follow a fairly rigid formula. In print, you’ll get a dewy-skinned model pouting softly at the camera; on video, a cinematic clip of Natalie Portman laughing in a wildflower meadow. The visual language is premium, sophisticated, aspirational — about as far as you can get from a clumsily edited, human-sized lip gloss holding a glass of wine.
So when Rihanna posted that very image last week to announce Fenty Beauty’s Olympics partnership (the sentient lip gloss was also holding Rihanna’s hand), people took notice. “I saw it and paused a meeting to say, ‘Look at this Fenty campaign, it’s so silly,’” says Steff Yotka, head of content at Ssense. “So it obviously worked.”
Fenty Beauty’s clip-arty shitpost is the latest example of fashion and beauty brands taking a deliberately lo-fi approach to social media — a tactic that’s been incredibly successful for some. So how long before the entire industry jumps aboard? And does the aesthetic have the legs to leap out of our phones and into more traditional ad campaigns?
Like so many others in fashion, this shift was propelled by Gen Z. Raised on social media, where ads are basically ‘optional’, it’s no surprise zoomers lose active attention for adverts quicker than any other generation. The answer? Platform-native content that doesn’t instantly register as marketing.
“Social media was invented for community,” says Lucy Finnegan, course leader for fashion marketing and content creation at the London College of Fashion (LCF). “Our students are much more engaged with brands they feel they have a dialogue with.”
For labels that understand digital culture — Praying, Pleasures, Aries, etc — speaking the language of the internet comes naturally and garners results. Relative to the size of their followings, you’ll see 10 times the engagement on an Online Ceramics reel aping so-called TikTok ‘sludge content’ (when a users’ clip is paired with unrelated footage in a split screen to boost engagement), than you will on a sophisticated — but ultimately very boring — traditional luxury ad featuring a model gazing into space.
Of course, this intentionally junky content doesn’t suit everyone, but “when it feels like an authentic expression of a brand, it works”, says Yotka.
By way of example, she mentions ‘im sorry’, a new capsule collection from photographer Petra Collins and designer Mimi Wade, whose Instagram account reads like a 2009 Tumblr feed. “Petra’s internet personality is so tapped in,” Yotka says, who launched the line on Ssense. “Having been in conversations with her, it feels like she downloaded and posted her brain.”
Certain labels that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with internet culture have also managed to find success in this field. Alexander Wang’s celeb lookalike unboxing reel made waves earlier this year, while the Jacquemus TikTok account features an iPhone montage of the company’s “dog-ployees” and a clip referencing a niche TikTok-shitposting universe that’s picked up over 5.5 million views.
On the Marc Jacobs TikTok — a masterclass in tailoring your content to a platform — the brand recruits popular creators for their usual shtick, or posts its own content that feels right at home on your FYP. Jacobs — and his sub-brand Heaven — have also tapped creative duo Shadrinsky to produce multiple viral videos that look like they’ve been lifted from a ‘Best Vines of 2014’ compilation. These videos are racking up 10s of millions of views.
In terms of reach, experts say it could deliver a much higher return on investment than many traditional print or TV ad spots. “The potential reach with this kind of content is much more quantifiable, as you can track the data and ‘listen’ to the reaction of your audience via the community engagement,” says Finnegan. “Does this equate to sales? Not necessarily. But if you want audience reaction, engagement, shares and more shares, this is what’s going to work.”
Will more luxury brands follow suit?
Given the success of lo-fi for some, the question is whether we’ll start to see this kind of ‘authentic’, relatable aesthetic cropping up in spaces the bigger brands can afford, such as print ads, billboards and TV.
“We’re seeing a phenomenon where brand campaigns are becoming more sanitised and generic in order to appeal to the broadest possible base,” says Mark Bage, founder of creative agency Not Studio. Former chief brand officer at Highsnobiety Adam Bracegirdle describes this trend as “a flattening of luxury aesthetics”, and you only need to look at the sheer number of high-end labels choosing to stick someone on a plain white background in recent months to see what he means.
With that in mind, one easy way for a Prada or a Celine to make a splash would be to plaster a load of stupid memes all over Times Square. But for this type of content to resonate from a bigger brand, it has to feel genuine, says Bracegirdle. “It works for someone like Marc Jacobs because he’s so referential in his work. But with brands that stand for romance, I’m not sure. You’d never want to see Valentino expressed in this way,” he says. Yotka agrees: “With Rihanna, her public persona is very cheeky; she famously was carrying that wine glass around in 2017 as an accessory."
“Some brands are selling more of ‘the dream’ versus reality, which is why lo-fi may not be as appropriate,” agrees Nina Van Volkinburg, MA course leader for strategic fashion marketing at LCF.
Plus, novelty only works when it’s novel, so it’s hard to see this tactic catching on in the long term. In a 2022 study of Gen Z consumers, only 39 per cent said that companies posting memes creates a positive brand perception, and it’s fair to assume that most premium labels wouldn’t want to risk the potential reputational damage associated with a meme-gone-wrong, aka the ultimate branding sin: being cringe.
“Luxury brands are usually more conservative, so they might not be able to go totally lo-fi,” says LCF’s Finnegan. “But they can do other things — for example, more user-generated content — to make people feel like there’s a connection there.”
For now, it seems, we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got: billionaire moguls promoting their beauty brands with an anthropomorphic lip gloss clutching a glass of wine.
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