It started small in 2023, when Laneige, the Korean skin-care brand owned by Amorepacific, hosted an influencer-only “Cream Skin Café” at Los Angeles’s Carrera Café, in tandem with the launch of its Cream Skin Toner. But, since then, food and beverage-based activations — open not just to influencers, but also to the brand’s community — have become a cornerstone for the brand.
“By engaging all five senses with visual storytelling, packaging, texture, color and taste, brands can create a deeper connection [between consumers and] the products,” said Michelle Kwak, the brand’s director of integrated communications.
Tying product launches to specialty food and beverage items has become commonplace now, thanks to the runaway success of things like Hailey Bieber’s Erewhon smoothie. For its part, Bubble teamed with Juice Press when it introduced its first lip balms. For many brands, the strategy is a one-off, but for Laneige, it’s a foundational practice.
Laneige has leaned into aligning product launches with specialty items created with “local, buzzy food brands,” Kwak said, pointing to recent partnerships with New York-based Dough Donuts and L.A.-based La La Land Kind Cafe. It has come naturally, given that many of its products come in food-based flavors.
In the lip category, Laneige has not one, not two, but three winning franchises: its Lip Sleeping Mask ($24), its Lip Glowy Balm ($19) and, most recently, its Glaze Craze Tinted Lip Serum ($22). In a 2024 profile of its U.S. gm Julien Bouzitat, the brand reported that it had been the top-selling lip treatment brand in the U.S. for two years running, citing Circana data. According to Bouzitat at the time, one of the brand’s two hero lip products sold every two seconds in 2023. That figure has now held true for three years running, a rep for the brand confirmed.
“Laneige has been a pioneer in sensorial marketing and has created this cult following through the many core and limited-edition scents of our iconic Lip Sleeping Mask — our limited-edition flavors sell out every year when we release them,” Kwak said, speaking to past iterations like Cotton Candy, Pink Lemonade and Mango.
Laneige recently debuted a collaboration with Boba Guys, the bubble tea chain, to mark the launch of two new Lip Sleeping Masks and two new Lip Glowy Balms in the flavors Matcha Bubble Tea and Taro Bubble Tea. Though new flavors are inspired by all different sources, Kwak noted that Matcha, in particular, had been long requested by the brand’s community. On May 15, the brand held a consumer event promoting the collab — the first 25 customers received a full-size version of one of the four new lip products for free. The collab also includes a drink featuring the lip products’ flavors of matcha, taro and ube, plus collagen peptides — it will be available through June 14, and customers who purchase it will receive Laneige samples.
Bin Chin, co-founder of Boba Guys, found commonality between Laneige and his own business in their communities. “It might not seem like beauty and boba have much in common, but both have a way of making someone’s day brighter and [both] bring people together,” he said. The collab launch garnered a four-block line of fans in NYC who waited in the rain to get the drink. On launch day, over 600 drinks were sold, and Boba Guys saw its Instagram following grow by “a few thousand” within two days.
Laneige has not limited its food- and beverage-based collaborations to its lip franchise. For example, in March, when it teamed with La La Land on a Bouncy & Firm Cherry Collagen Latte, it was to celebrate its Bouncy & Firm Radiance Boosting Serum with Peony & Collagen Complex ($45). A portion of the proceeds of the affiliated merch sales went to the LAFD. The first 100 attendees at an April 3 community event received a full-size bottle of the new serum for free.
The strategy of gifting full-size products to early attendees is effective in building hype and ensuring turnout and excitement, Kwak said. The brand also hosted community events as part of the 17-day activation. A Bouncy & Firm Pilates Sculpt Class for community members garnered an 800-person waitlist for 55 spots. Sydney Sweeney, the brand’s global ambassador, was in attendance to mark the occasion at a VIP-only launch event held at La La Land with attendees including Leah Kateb, Anastasia Karanikolaou, Victoria Villarroel and Manny MUA.
Kwak can boil down the brand’s success to a “formula” that entails launching the limited-edition food or drink item itself and pairing it with robust sampling. Limited-edition merch, she said, is yet another lever that is part of the brand’s formula for success. Finally, the brand seeks to create a “true, immersive IRL experience with community events.” It’s no just about focusing on influencer events, she said.
When Laneige launched Glaze Craze, the newest of its lip franchises, in February, it leaned into the unique applicator tip of the products, which is squishy and circular with a hole in the middle, like a donut. For this launch, it teamed with Dough Donuts on limited-edition flavors. Mega-influencer Golloria George (1 million Instagram followers; 3.2 million TikTok followers) attended a VIP event for the launch on February 12 and a consumer-facing event the nextday, both at NYC’s Empire Diner.
Also during February, at each of Dough’s five New York City locations, the first 50 customers to purchase the Laneige collaboration donut received a free full-size Glaze Craze Tinted Lip Serum. After the first 50 customers, those who purchased the collab donut received Laneige samples.
In April, the brand expanded the Glaze Craze shade selection, bringing the collection from four colors to eight. George starred as the face for some of the new shades.
Laneige has 1.3 million Instagram followers on its U.S. account and over 996,000 on its U.S. TikTok.
From April 25-May 2, the brand partnered with Los Angeles’s Sidecar Doughnuts on a limited-edition Strawberry Sprinkles donut, in honor of its Strawberry Sprinkles flavor of Glaze Craze. On April 25, the first 25 customers at each participating Sidecar location to purchase the donut also received a free Glaze Craze Lip Serum. The next day, anyone who purchased the new lip product at Laneige’s store in The Grove received a free donut.
When it comes to measuring the success of these activations, Kwak said, “Of course, we’re going to monitor our foot traffic at our events and retailers and our sales. But outside of EMV, video views, engagement rates, and any PR and social rankings that we usually use, shares and reach have become a really important metric to us on social because they represent the level of engagement for the community. Those two metrics are overlooked a lot of the time, but those are the two metrics that we’re really going to benchmark off of moving forward for these food collaborations.”
