4 Makeup Brands That are Nailing Video Right Now

The cosmetics industry is a very big market, with many renowned makeup brands competing for the same customers. In 2019 the cosmetics industry was worth $93.5 billion and, even more impressively, that is $74.7 billion more than the previous year in 2018. In a market so big, with so many makeup brands and products to choose from, how does one brand with a new product stand out?

The answer is marketing, which involves storytelling. Makeup brands need to create an image for the brand that makes consumers think, “People like me use brands like that.” These four makeup brands are creating stellar video content in the current age of fast-paced, social media-driven content marketing. Every great video requires an even greater filming location, and for that, Peerspace has you covered. Peerspace features thousands of unique production venues across the United States, giving you an abundance of creative places to film your next commercial.

1. Fenty Beauty

Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty exploded onto the makeup brands scene with two obvious value propositions for the market: Rihanna’s name attached for credibility and trust, as well as colors for even the most unconventional skin tones. The ad campaign for Fenty does a wonderful job of setting the tone for the brand, demonstrating the wide applicability of the product line while making Rihanna’s connection to the brand memorable and concrete for the viewers.

Every frame of the piece is stunning. The models are beautiful and diverse, styled perfectly with flattering makeup that feels like what they would wear every day. This combination is important because the producers deftly walked the line between making the subjects of the film aspirational, yet also attainable, for the kind of people they’re targeting.

In addition, this short fashion film is an ideal example for the fact that the camera movement and video editing chops are great, but a memorable video isn’t made by tricks in the editing room. Rather, it depends on capturing something of true beauty to begin with, then adds to it in subtle ways that bring out the best of the footage.

2. Estee Lauder

This piece from Estee Lauder showcases exactly what a high-budget commercial can be when handled by the right team. This promo is technically sound, following many best practices for content in general, as well as adding in components that elevate the piece without it feeling like a gimmick.

Firstly, the product is shown immediately, along with its name and CGI animation of silky-smooth makeup in the air. This is something that makeup companies have done for years, but this one stands out with its light branding that feels pristine. Though this introduction to the product only lasts three seconds, the best practice for commercials at this time — in the age of short attention spans on social media — is to display the product, name, and brand in the first three seconds.

At four seconds, we see the first model with flawless skin, and the frame opens up to the room, then a gorgeous mansion filled with diverse women whose skin is flawless. Whoever you are, whatever you look like, you can see the “best” version of yourself in that mansion and aspire to it.

Finally, elegant long-standing brands have no need to use trendy or modern editing tricks, effects, and transitions. For key product details called out in graphics on screen, they made white text in their font come on screen and then just disappear. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive. It’s timeless and effective, just like Estee Lauder’s product.

3. Sephora

Arguably a large part of the cosmetics industry’s rise as a whole is due to beauty influencers on social media, of which there are two types. The first is the makeup enthusiast, who is often just a high school student who knows how to do a few things very well, who picks a look and walks the viewer through every step of the process to create that look for themselves. The second type of beauty influencer is a lot more product-focused, featuring close-up or macro shots of the packaging, then playing with the product in some way.

Sephora is heavily focused on speaking to its community with similar, but elevated, content that speaks back to them in the “same language.” The above promo from Sephora does a beautiful job of just that. This piece is entirely focused on eliciting a feeling of calm and ease by moving the bottles for different Fenty Beauty products through the actual liquid product on a hard surface.

This creates a variety of different textures as the product smears across the table, pools around and sticks to the bottle, glistening in the light. This type of content resonates so well within the cosmetics industry because the satisfying sensation of playing with the product so closely mirrors the feeling of applying the product to your skin, rubbing in the makeup as you watch yourself become more and more flawless in the mirror.

Therefore, the content gives the viewer a preview of what it would be like to use the product, thus making the viewer desire it more. In your own content, try and figure out exactly what feeling your product gives your customer upon successful use. Find ways to elicit that same emotion through your advertising.

4. NARS Cosmetics

Continuing the theme of #oddlysatisfying content, these two pieces from NARS further illustrate what simple content can accomplish. In this first piece, there is only one shot of a woman brushing product onto her face. One shot is used in multiple different ways and broken up with text to tell you more about the product, so you can decide if it might be for you.

Words like “dominate,” “behave,” and “tempted” break up the shot to create a feeling, a narrative about who wears this product. If you feel these same things with that inner conflict and are the girl who plays rough but behaves in public, this makeup is for you. That’s effective content — it’s simple with a clear and emotionally charged message.

In the second piece, NARS decided to not only play with its products in a satisfying way for the trend, but it did the one thing that customers would be hard-pressed to do: ruin the product. Makeup palettes are fragile and meant to stay intact until fully used, otherwise the powder is used up way too quickly.

For this reason, palettes are treated very cautiously and stored properly, and it is very rare to see them messed up for content on social media. As a makeup brand, NARS can easily pull one of their palettes off the shelf and mess it up in the name of content. While it’s no publicity stunt or of any real value to the viewer, it is both satisfying and novel, the perfect recipe to engage the audience they seek to serve.

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