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If you’ve followed beauty dupe trends on TikTok, you’ve most likely come across a product or two from Milani Cosmetics. From its lip oil to its concealer, the mass makeup brand has seen multiple products go viral thanks to dupe-obsessed influencers like Mikayla Nogueira. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, the brand’s CMO, Jeremy Lowenstein, shares the details on the brand’s marketing strategy at a time when both TikTok and inflation are making price a big focus in beauty. Topics included how Milani responds to viral product moments on TikTok through campaigns and inventory, how it chooses its influencer collab partners, and why it’s important to have the right content for the right platforms. Also addressed: that viral TikTok video the brand made during the Depp-Heard trial last year. Check out a few highlights below, and press play above to listen to the entire interview.
Influencers’ dupe obsession
“We actually do not use the word ‘dupe’ in brand-led content. We allow the consumers and the creators to use it. They’ve started that trend and we embrace it and allow them to continue to have that moment to compare us to whoever they think we are the dupe for.”
The sales spike power of TikTok
“What’s amazing about TikTok is you don’t have to have a large following to have a video go viral. It is all about having the right sound, the right content and the right hashtags, and then having it picked up. So whether it’s Mikayla [Nogueira], Rocio [Soria] or any of our other creators we feature in our current campaigns… you will start to see spikes in conversion. And they can be double digit-spikes. They can be triple-digit spikes. I think it’s about, ‘Is it relevant for the consumer who is seeing it?’ And then, ‘How do we also start to chase the inventory, after, from an availability perspective?’ We have seen that happen with things like our Color Fetish Mattes which started with [the influential account] TheBeautyRadar. She created 10 videos on her own and looked for that product. Mikayla picked it up. Then it went viral, and we saw hundreds of videos created around that one product.”
That one viral TikTok video
“An influencer actually tagged us who was following the trial. I believe it was the opening statements, and one of our products was shown, and the influencer on TikTok was documenting the whole trial and was augmenting the videos as they do on TikTok all the time, with their own text overlays, and was clarifying for their viewers that this Milani product was actually launched in a different time. … We put the video out there and we stitched it to the original, and just said, ‘Yes, this is essentially when that product was launched,’ not meant to take sides in this trial. It was just an affirmation of something that was already out there.”
