In May, the romantic drama series “Off Campus” debuted on Amazon to 36 million viewers in its first two weeks, making it the third most-watched debut series on the streaming platform. The TV series, which stars Ella Bright as a music student navigating college relationships, also became Amazon’s top show among women viewers ages 18-34, building on the young female viewership Amazon acquired with 2022’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
In July, coming off the success of “Off Campus,” Bright earned another debut: On Thursday, the 19-year-old actress was announced as Rare Beauty’s first celebrity ambassador.
“For millennials, [‘Off Campus’] really is reminiscent of those rom coms that we fell in love with in the ’90s. And for Gen Z, it’s almost an introduction to what that is,” said Rare Beauty CMO Ashley Murphy. “As we thought about our partnership with Ella Bright, it really is tapping into Gen Z and millennials, who we naturally already over-index with.”
Tapping into hit TV series with viral marketing campaigns has become a go-to strategy for brands like Skims and Rhode, which have launched campaigns with breakout stars like Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò of “The White Lotus” and Sarah Pidgeon of “Love Story”, respectively, just as those shows and actors reached their cultural peak.
But rather than chasing virality, Murphy said Rare Beauty is looking to take a “story-first” approach to weaving cultural moments into the Rare brand.
“We’re very much taking more of a story-first approach, and identifying these stories and existing conversations,” she said. “For us, it’s not about chasing every trend or chasing every new show. It’s more of the story, and what ladders back to what makes us rare and unique at the end of the day, and how we extend that beyond our ecosystem.”
While celebrity and pop culture stars are often tapped to promote new collections, Bright appears in a photo and video campaign promoting Rare Beauty’s Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, a mainstay of its product line since launch.
Murphy said the idea came from an “Off Campus” scene in which Garrett Graham, played by Belmont Cameli, challenges Bright’s Hannah Wells not to blush. She said the approach reflects the brand’s strategy in identifying moments that naturally track with a given product, rather than starting with a product and finding a cultural moment to match. According to the brand, the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush is still Rare’s best-selling product.
In a saturated beauty landscape, inserting a brand into the pop culture zeitgeist is a way for marketers to capture consumers’ attention.
“People are coming onto digital platforms to be entertained. So this entertaining content is what people want to see from brands, and it reinvigorates the brand story in a way that you can’t always do internally,” said Murphy. “You kind of need that outside party or IP, whether it’s ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ or ‘Heated Rivalry’ or someone like Ella Bright, to create that cultural moment, in a way that a lot of brands can’t naturally do on their own.”
Getting those campaigns from ideation to reality is also key to capitalizing on the buzz. According to Murphy, Rare Beauty executed the campaign with Bright in less than a month. As of publication, Rare Beauty’s Instagram post showcasing the full campaign has reached over 9 million views.
Pop star and actress Selena Gomez launched Rare Beauty in 2020, just as celebrity-founded beauty brands were hitting critical mass. In 2025, Fortune valued the brand at $2.5 billion. After its initial launch at Sephora, Rare expanded to Ulta Beauty in February, where it broke the retailer’s sales record for a debut brand.
With the Ella Bright campaign, Rare joins other celebrity-founded brands, like the aforementioned Skims and Rhode, and Jen Atkin’s Mane, that have invited other famous faces to front campaigns. But Murphy said Gomez’s role as the backbone of Rare isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“[Selena] is still heavily involved, and even in this campaign, she was heavily involved,” said Murphy. “She definitely remains at the forefront and heavily involved. So, [Ella’s campaign] doesn’t change anything in the way that you know her role within Rare Beauty.”
Week in review
- Gap was early in its efforts to snag back-to-school denim shoppers, launching an ultra-buzzy collaboration with Hailey Bieber on Thursday. Within hours, both styles in all washes were sold out online.
- Also on Thursday, Dossier introduced four unisex eau de parfums in personality-inspired vanilla scents. The concept was brought to life in a campaign starring brand ambassador Madelyn Cline.
- Marking a milestone of “1 billion iconic lip combos served worldwide,” NYX Professional Makeup debuted its second annual iteration of the “If You NYX, You Know” marketing campaign, with Paris Hilton returning as the “Gloss Boss.” Others featured include pop artist Normani Kordei, social media sensations Gabriela Moura and Yusur Al-Khalidi, and “Love Island U.K.” star Toni Laites. The campaign spotlights the brand’s best-sellers and recent drops across NYX’s marketing channels.
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