What’s in this article:
- TIKTOK’s Addison Rae’s Item Beauty is launching in all Sephora stores and online
- It will be one of Sephora’s few Gen Z-driven, influencer-helmed brands
- Sephora will also open stores inside Kohl’s
TikTok’s For You Page (#fyp) offers brands the kind of organic exposure no other social media network/app/platform has ever offered before or since. Not when it comes to scale – and not when it comes to how truly organic it can get, exposing content to followers without them ever needing to actively, purposefully, follow it in the first place.
This – along with the nature of the content that succeeds on that platform (read: simple, authentic, direct, unapologetic, entertaining, value-driven, and most of all – short and preferably lo-fi-y in its production) makes TikTok a must-platform for any size brand. Meaning – you RALLY don’t have to be huge in order to be hugely successful with your content on it.
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That’s the whole point. That’s why the list of the most followed TT accounts is so different than those of all other platforms. While the most followed accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and others is almost entirely comprised of names that are big regardless of their social media presence, the TT list is almost exclusively made of names that got made on TT. Famous for being TikTokers.
Still, just like other smart, advanced methods (think: moneyball in sports), the fact that it’s cool and new doesn’t mean that it’s reserved only to the small, quick-to-shift, easy-to-maneuver, early-adopters of the world. And if you can combine big budgets and still keep it smart and authentic – then you’re in the money.
Case in point: Sephora.
The brand has been active in and around the platform and its many sub-cultures, and these days is launching Item Beauty in all Sephora stores and online. This is Addison Rea’s – TikTok’s (second) brightest star – brand, where she is chief innovation officer and co-founder. An especially interesting case-study for combining online success with an on-the-ground one (that will surely have its fair share of data challenges to work with).
Glossy is reporting that “it will also launch in Sephora’s new shop-in-shops at Kohls. Sephora will carry all of Item’s skin-care range, which was just updated with baby-blue and lime-green packaging, and a selection of its makeup.”
As we alluded, this is not Sephora’s first “Gen Z-driven, influencer-helmed brands”, as per Glossy.
“We are beyond proud to partner with Sephora to bring Item Beauty’s fun, clean and accessible products in-store and couldn’t have imagined a better setting — and clean beauty champion — to bring this to life,” said Janine Gettinger, VP of brand at Madeby Collective, the company behind Item Beauty.
“fun”, “accessible”, and colliding the worlds of TikTok and Brick-and-Mortar are the keys here. And so, even if your brand cannot afford a collaboration with Addison Rea, there’s still many pages from that book you can steal.
Coming to a Kohl’s Near You
Additionally, Sephora also just announced its collaboration with Kohl’s, saying it will be “launching 200 Sephora at @Kohls locations this year 🤩 Each store will carry around 125 top brands. Earn Beauty Insider points AND Kohl’s Rewards on all Sephora purchases made in store or on kohls.com. P.S. We’re hiring at all locations! #SephoraxKohls”
And while collaborating with a huge TikTok star may be out of reach for most brands – bringing the cool-factor of D2C into the struggling department store space is an opportunity many brands should be looking to seize right now.
Among the many clear benefits of doing this right, there are also the endless CRM Marketing opportunities and challenges it will bring with regards to omni/multi-channel communications and activities with customers, and loads of data to share, analyze and work with. Where will Sephora take it is for sure interesting to see. For the sake of their customers, we hope they’ll let AI help with their CRM.