In Bliss’s new campaign spot, standup comedian Iliza Shlesinger (1.2 million Instagram followers) is seen walking the aisles of an unidentified beauty store before the serenity of her “me time” is interrupted by a gaggle of Gen Alpha girls. Her response: “Why are you even here? if you looked any younger, you would be a sonogram. Where’s your mother? Let the adults shop in peace.”
Bliss was acquired by AS Beauty Group, parent company to Laura Geller, CoverFX, Julep Beauty and Mally Beauty, in January of 2023. Since then, its new owners have been working to shift focus to an older core customer. Its previous owner, L Catterton, had focused heavily on Gen Z and been successful in doing so.
“[L Catterton] was really focused on attracting a Gen-Z customer,” and had done so by leveraging TikTok, said Sara Mitzner, vp of brand marketing as AS Beauty Group. The brand has over 409,000 TikTok followers.
But many who define themselves as an “elder millennial” — a term coined by Shlesinger vis-à-vis her 2018 Netflix special — remember the Bliss of years prior. Many even have fond memories of its spas. The brand originally launched in 1996, founded by serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, now of Beauty Pie. L Catterton acquired the company in 2015, and in 2018, it relaunched with a new look and a lower price point.
“The Gen-Z customer is a little bit more exploratory, a little bit less loyal,” Mitzner said. “They’ll use a Bliss product, then they’ll use a different brand; they’re a hard and expensive customer to attract and keep. So we want to nurture our OG customer, which is our elder millennial and Gen-X customer. It’s not a 180-degree pivot, because we’ve always had this customer; but we’re refocusing on this customer.”
Mitzner said Bliss resonates with this customer because she’s busy and has to spend her money on everything from her “mortgage to her family.” As a result, she’s “more careful with her discretionary income” and aren’t looking for a 12-step routine that costs thousands of dollars a month, she said. Bliss’s prices range from $4 for under-eye masks to $60 for a jumbo-sized body butter.
AS Beauty Group conducted qualitative market research with its customer base when it acquired Bliss in 2023. Among the “elder millennial” and Gen-X customers it interviewed, price point was one of the top factors when considering a skin-care purchase. “They loved that Bliss offered affordable pricing while still offering a high-quality product assortment,” Mitzner said.
According to commerce media company Fluent, 79% of moms use sales, coupons and deals when they shop. Furthermore, Salsify research found that 31% of shoppers are engaging in more price comparisons before buying as a result of the current economy.
Bliss is running the campaign as a television commercial and across its social channels, plus Shlesinger will share it with her followers. In tandem, the brand will be selling an Elder Millennial kit featuring Bliss’s cleanser, serum, moisturizer and one-time-use under-eye masks. It will sell for $60, except from January 28-February 11, when it will be available for $30, nodding to ’90s prices. To further promote the campaign and the kit, the brand has tapped influencers in the “elder millennial” demographic, including Isabelle Clancy (1.2 million Instagram followers), Kate Steinberg (855,000 Instagram followers) and Jenna Barclay Testa (296,000 Instagram followers)
Shlesinger played an active role in the script, she said. This is her first time working on a beauty campaign, but she understands the power of humor in marketing. “Nobody wants to talk or think about the fact that we’re getting older. But if a skin-care brand can say, ‘Hey, look, you’re a little bit older. We’re with you,’ and reflect your values back to you in a funny way that doesn’t make you feel bad about [aging], you’re probably more likely to listen about its product. If you can make people feel good while selling something to them, it’s a win-win.”
Mitzner noted that the Laura Geller brand has successfully worked with standup comedian Leanne Morgan. “There’s so much happening in the world that’s not so lighthearted that we have to address seriously and not with humor,” she said. “But beauty isn’t one of those things. So I love it when beauty brands approach their marketing with humor. … The Bliss brand is meant to be joyful. It’s meant to be happy.”
“At the end of the day, people want to feel seen,” Shlesinger said. “They want to know that the product they’re buying was made with them in mind, not just mass-marketed to them.”
Mitzner declined to comment on Bliss’s and AS Beauty Group’s revenue.