These Beauty Brands Are Maintaining a Lasting Connection

A brand’s ability to spark a lasting emotional connection, rather than a brief flirtation, with consumers depends on more than superficial prettiness. That’s especially true among beauty brands. Approaching consumers with a message that went beyond typical (and literal) skin deep commitment is what led to Huda Beauty, topping Talkwalker’s ranking of 50 global brands in its second annual Love Brands 2021 Report. The ranking used social listening to compare 1,228 global brands across social media, news, blogs and other public forums from July 2020 to April 2021. Other beauty brands in the top 10 included M·A·C Cosmetics (ranked third), Benefit Cosmetics (ranked fourth) and Urban Decay (ranked sixth). The cosmetics and skincare brand Huda Beauty was created by beauty blogger-turned-influencer Huda Kattan in 2013. What started with a line of false eyelashes immediately flourished into a global beauty business after the uber-influencer Kim Kardshian West praised Kattan’s products. A deal with Sephora Dubai, where Oklahoma-born Kattan had previously moved with her family, set her on a course to become a billion-dollar brand. After abandoning a career in human resources as a recruiter, Kattan’s origins as a beauty blogger and makeup artist helped her develop a brand voice and identity that has allowed her to forge a relationship with her audience from the get-go. In part, that helps explain the devotion of Huda Beauty customers. “The beauty brands provided emotional reassurance or an opportunity to escape the reality of the pandemic,” Todd Grossman, CEO of the social listening and analytics firm, Talkwalker Americas, told Adweek. “They established, highly creative, snackable content that encouraged a lot of sharing across many platforms.” Measuring the love The key to building brand love: knowing what makes consumers tick. Talkwalker identified 11 ways brands are fostering positive sentiment and assigned them values to compile the ranking. They include: corporate social responsibility, optimism, encouraging employees to actively promote the business, sponsorships, customer experience, engaging in trends, influencer marketing, driving conversations via social channels, positive PR, engaging fandoms and being aspirational. “Brand love is all about knowing your audience,” Grossman said. “What drives them, moves them, angers them and excites them. To find brand love, become more customer centric. Understand what matters to your consumers, and embody that in your marketing strategy.” It will pay off. It’s been well documented that creating an emotional connection between brands and consumers leads to increased sales and brand advocacy. How Huda did it Kattan’s innate sense of the cosmetics community drives engagement. She stepped down as CEO in September 2020 to focus on product and content development. When Huda launched the eyeshadow palette, Naughty Nude, in October it generated 2.6K mentions from 1.4k unique authors, mostly beauty influencers with significant followings. This led to 376.4k engagements and 144k engagements per mention. Among the most popular words to describe the product on social media were "great," "excited," "enjoy," "super," "holiday," "beautiful" and of course, "love." Like any valuable relationship, giving is part of receiving affection. And Kattan’s been generous. One example of the way the company drives the love is how Huda donated $500,000 to the NAACP in 2020, a time when social unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement was often in the news. Helping customers make meals and cancel flights The French kitchen appliance brand Moulinex ranked second by leaning into the pandemic cooking trend. The brand shared recipes and posts across their social media channels and amplified user-generated content. Perhaps most surprising was Swiss Air’s 9th place ranking. After all, this was a time when countries were on lockdown and travel was limited. But that’s likely why customers love them. Users and influencers regularly mentioned their exceptional customer service. And they kept followers engaged by turning their Instagram account over to a new employee weekly, making for fun, behind-the-scenes content. The airline also had several positive press mentions. A Forbes story that deemed it one of the safest airlines to fly during the pandemic; lifestyle influencers building them up as an aspirational brand and press mentions in December of their partnership in CommonPass, a way to share vaccine info for travel. Grossman stated, “none of these are big stories in themselves, but together, they create a strong perception of the brand for consumers.” Overall, brands that made the list were either comforting during a time of extreme fear and sadness or distracting. Take the French cookware line Tefal (ranked fifth). While the brand also tapped into the home cooking trend, it also fosters customer loyalty by providing a lifetime warranty on many of its products. And the brand drove positive PR and community engagement, by providing essentials to hospices and hospitals during the crisis. Glossier Is Embracing IRL Commerce With 3 Permanent Stores

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How These Beauty Brands Are Maintaining a Lasting Connection With Consumers

Messaging must go beyond skin deep and drive real change

Tara Weiss

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Tara Weiss