Maybelline has some of the leading cosmetic brands in the industry. The brand also has one of the highest loyalty rates in the industry. Maybelline has grown popular in the digital space due to many Maybelline advertising strategies. The brand has millions of followers on Instagram, far more than most of its competitors. Maybelline also has a vast following on other social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The question becomes, what are the marketing strategies behind Maybelline’s campaigns and ads that are responsible for their success? This article will introduce you to Maybelline history, its advertising strategies, and lessons you can learn from the beauty giant.

Maybelline History

Although Maybelline is based in the USA, the brand has stores worldwide. The image of bubblegum pink and lime green mascara tubes is what floods most people’s minds when they first think of Maybelline. This brand’s mascara has a vast customer base. Since its release, both budget-conscious customers and professionals have continued to use this product. However, before there was Maybelline, there was a Maybel Williams. In 1913, a young chemist named Thomas Williams was in a dilemma on how he could help his sister achieve her goal. Maybe Williams was in love with a man who loved someone else. Therefore, she turned to makeup to make her stand out to catch his attention. The only cosmetic readily available at the time was petroleum jelly, which she used to enhance her brows and natural lashes. However, Thomas had an even better idea of how his sister could stand out.

He decided to help her increase her appeal by mixing carbon dust with petroleum jelly. This mix had the effect of darkening the brows and lashes more dramatically. It worked, and within two years, Maybel had her man, and Thomas had a company to start. 

Maybelline Created the First Mascara

Although the carbon dust and Vaseline mix were mascara-like, Thomas partnered with a pharmaceutical company, Parke, Davis & Co, to create a perfect product. The team named the first mascara product Lash-Bro-Ine before settling on Maybelline. Thomas got the ball rolling by securing an office he called Maybell Laboratories. In this office, he set to marketing his new product. The first Maybelline advertising strategy was placing ads in newspapers. He sold this product through mail order alone. Next, he came up with the Maybelline Cake mascara, the first modern eye cosmetics created daily. You could only purchase the product through mail order as well. However, this mascara product became so popular that women requested it in drugstores. 

In 1920, Maybelline spearheaded a youthful, dramatic makeup trend by creating an eyebrow liner in red. Several other colorful liners and eyeshadows followed this. At this stage, Maybelline advertising strategies moved to the next level, and it became the first cosmetic brand to advertise on the radio. 

Maybelline and the Creation of a New Market for Makeup Lovers

Although marketing makeup to women looks simple in this modern world, it was quite a challenge in the early 1900s. Cosmetics was usually left to women outside the span of good society and the theater. Till recent times, only a few women used lipsticks, eye beautifiers, rouges, and other facial appearance improvers. That was where Thomas’s real work began as he had very little capital but had to face the job of selling women on the idea that eye beautifiers were perfectly moral. 

To achieve this, Maybelline’s advertising strategy expanded, and he utilized silent film stars in his ads. He demonstrated to women what their lashes could look like if they used his eye beautifiers. With this advertisement, he could move makeup beyond the cinema and increase product sales exponentially. The next step was making Maybelline available in stores so that the average girl could access the products. It was also affordable, so many women could easily purchase a product. 

Maybelline Advertising – Target Market

Maybelline is quite famous in the cosmetic industry. However, this brand focuses on women aged 15-45 as its target audience. This category of women covers different backgrounds. Girls tend to start using makeup products at the age of 16. Therefore, this age group was the main target of the brand. The brand became more contemporary over the years to include women from all races. It takes into account the different needs and wants of women. Over the years, the brand introduced various products for different ages to meet these needs and wants. The product range is available to all groups, and Maybelline advertising strategies are appropriate. 

Maybelline Advertising Strategies

With the use of the right Maybelline advertising strategies, the brand continues to maintain its position as one of the leading cosmetics companies in the world. Below are some of the best Maybelline advertising strategies contributing to its vast success.

Maybelline Advertising – Digital Influencers Becoming Brand Ambassadors

Influencer marketing is now standard, especially in the cosmetic industry. Like Maybelline, many beauty companies are capitalizing on the reputation and fame of several makeup bloggers and vloggers. Maybelline fully embraces this strategy by creating a new trend of using digital influencers as brand ambassadors. Instead of getting these social media influencers to share content on Instagram, the brand also uses them on mainstream and multi-channel promotions. This Maybelline advertising strategy showed the degree to which influencers had dominated the industry.

As part of the Maybelline advertising strategy, the brand uses these influencers to emphasize diversity. In addition, the use of influencers also increases engagement with the brand on social media platforms. The brand’s first male influencer was Manny Gutierrez, and he had millions of Instagram and YouTube subscribers. Today, Maybelline has a large and active community of influencers. A single post from Maybelline influencers usually earns hundreds of thousands of engagements. 

Maybelline Advertising – Publicizing Product Releases

Apart from utilizing influencer-driven content for increased engagement, another Maybelline advertising strategy is the use of visual tools to create excitement before a product launch. An example is the makeup line introduced in conjunction with Gigi Hadid. This partnership was enough to generate excitement on its own. However, the hashtag #GigixMaybelline was a clever way to build anticipation for the event. For the entire month of October, Gigi dedicated her complete Instagram account to the product launch. 

The Maybelline advertising strategy was successful because Maybelline focuses on using sites like Instagram mainly for engagement and interaction. Although the app delivers a passive user experience, the brand also asks questions or invites followers to their social media platform to add friends to promote real interaction with the brand. 

Maybelline Advertising – Developing Platform-Specific Content

Instagram continues to provide brands with the tools to achieve a vast reach. Most beauty brands struggle to achieve the same reach on other sites like Facebook when they post the same content. One of Maybelline advertising strategies is using a channel-specific approach. This approach helps to produce top-quality and personalized content for various platforms. Pinterest utilizes different content to provide customers with insightful tips and how-to makeup tips. The ‘Get the Look’ feature on Pinterest is fast gaining popularity. However, the brand takes a humorous approach on YouTube. The brand’s target audience interacts with the brand through the NikkieTuturials on the platform. This content is challenge-based and allows the brand to reach consumers who prefer this type of content. It also gives viewers a reason to subscribe to the YouTube channel and return for more content.

That’s not all Maybelline offers on YouTube, as the brand also uses it for its Nudes Palette campaign. To promote this Maybelline advertising campaign, the brand collaborated with thirteen beauty vloggers to carry out content for the brand. The brand also uses a range of models who appear in a short video developed by Vice’s fashion culture website. This campaign was quite a success, and there was a significant increase in brand awareness. The video attracted millions of views. This Maybelline advertising strategy portrayed the benefits of visual content and how a platform-specific approach brings the best results. 

Maybelline Advertising – Making Customers the Focus

Maybelline advertising strategies help keep the engagement cycle up by involving its online audience in every way it can. One way the brand achieves this is by promoting user-generated content. It achieves this by providing complimentary product samples to customers to inspire them to post feedback after using the product. Alternatively, the consumer could post product-related materials on their social media account. These customers are not necessarily influencers, as they don’t usually have a solid online presence. However, Maybelline takes into account the importance of everyday consumers. This is even more important when promoting the brand to a broad audience.

Influencers tend to post the trendier and higher-end aspects of Maybelline. However, the user-generated content is more realistic and shows the broad audience that the products can be available and affordable. The brand finds this type of content through brand-related hashtags. Most times, Maybelline creates these hashtags about an occasion or event. An example was the New York Fashion Week when Maybelline started the #MNYFashionWeek hashtag. The Beauty Con festival is another event Maybelline created a hashtag for. This hashtag was used by many online users, driving engagement. 

Maybelline Advertising Campaigns

Creating awareness and driving the conversation about its products through the media is an essential tool for any business’s success. Marketing and advertising campaigns are pretty crucial for the Maybelline brand. These campaigns helped create awareness for the brand and rejuvenate the brand after a while to foster brand loyalty. Below are some of the popular Maybelline advertising campaigns to note. 

 Maybelline #SoBoldSoColossal Campaign

This Maybelline advertising campaign aims at spreading awareness about the launch of eye makeup. This campaign focuses on taking a bold stance on its range of eye makeup. Maybelline created various bold shades for this eye makeup line to provide users with an instant gorgeous look in different ways. The eye makeup line is also waterproof to maximize performance. 

Maybelline Fit Me As I Am Campaign

Another Maybelline advertising campaign is the Fit Me As I Am campaign. Maybelline encourages its target audience to go outside and beyond their comfort zone t make a change. The celebrities in this campaign reflected on the values and trends prevalent in the world at the campaign time. The campaign utilized different female celebrities who shared their stories about overcoming their different challenges to achieve new heights.

Final Thoughts

Maybelline has successfully achieved a high customer loyalty rate by producing reliable cosmetic products. The brand utilizes different marketing strategies shared in this article to stand out in the cosmetic industry and engage with its audience in new and innovative ways. With the right Maybelline advertising strategies, the brand is strategically placed to continue to flourish in the industry for a long time.