My professor for New Product Development, a marketing course at Bentley, asked me to explain the launch of a product using marketing concepts.
Stunna Lip Paint in “Uncensored”
On November 23, 2017, Fenty Beauty released its first cosmetic lip product, Stunna Lip Paint. The brand, almost synonymous with Rihanna, its creator, has come to be one of the most popular makeup brands in the industry today, continuously setting trends for its competitors. Since its recent release, Stunna Lip Paint has proved to be a very successful product, much like the others in the Fenty line. This could be attributed to the elements of its marketing mix.
In regards to the product itself, it is a soft matte liquid lipstick that comes in one shade, a bright red color called “Uncensored”. This color was specially chosen to match all skin tones, making the core product the ability of the wearer to wear a bold color with low effort for their whole day since the long lasting red color can compliment any person who wears it while the actual product is the 4.5 ml soft matte liquid lipstick in bright red that lasts 12 hours. The actual lip paint product comes in a small prismatic glass bottle labeled “Fenty Beauty” on the handle. The product is then packaged in a simple black box with a gray graphic on the front side and standard information from the brand name to the number of ounces to a swatch of the color around the box. Overall, it is a premium cosmetic product which provide high quality lip color to the consumer. The Fenty Beauty product mix is 100% cruelty free, an uncommon practice among American cosmetic brands. The Lip Paint line, containing only the Stunna product, is manufactured without any testing on animals which is a feature many animal right activists appreciate. The augmented product is the same as the actual product as Fenty and its retailers do not offer any warranty or extra features for the Stunna Lip Paint.
In terms of places that the Stunna Lip Paint and any other Fenty Beauty product is sold, the brand uses an exclusive distribution strategy. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, this product is only available in stores at Harvey Nichols. In the United States, Australia, and 13 other countries, the Stunna Lip Paint is only sold in Sephora locations. Overall, anyone can purchase the product online on the Fenty Beauty, Harvey Nichols, and Sephora websites from anywhere in the world. Both of these retailers are high- end stores that reflect the premium quality of the product.
The price of the Stunna Lip Paint in “Uncensored” is 24 USD or 19 GBP. The default price for the Fenty Beauty website and Sephora is 24 USD. When the consumer is purchasing from a country from outside the United States, the price is converted into the proper currency based on this price. When purchased from Harvey Nichols, the default price is 19 GBP which is slightly higher than the American price. This could be due to purchasing power difference in the UK and Ireland versus the US. The Stunna Lip Paint has yet to have a sales promotion and it is most likely not going to have one in the near future. The high price for just 4.5 milliliters of product shows that Fenty aims to portray themselves as a high quality brand. Sales promotions would be misaligned with this goal. There are also no additional cost due to the simplicity of the product and lack of augmented products. If an according lip liner were to be released, this could be an additional cost as many consumers consider lip liner a requirement for wearing lipstick.
Fenty Beauty relied heavily on social media and consumer generated media to promote the Stunna Lip Paint. In general, the brand has a marketing campaign called “Fenty Face” where consumers of all demographics (ethnicity, religion, skin tone) can post a selfie of themselves wearing Fenty Beauty makeup on Instagram. Selected pictures are then displayed on the brand website. This campaign translated to the the Stunna Lip Paint, Fenty’s first lip product, naturally as consumers were excited to test if such a bold color could really work on all skin tones. Rihanna, who has a huge following on the platform, also posted a tutorial showing how easy the lipstick was to apply. This trend was quickly picked up by the media as articles and videos showed women and men of various skin tones wearing the color as a method of reviewing the product. This consumer generated media also used social media as they were usually found on Snapchat and YouTube. The largest part of the product’s promotional strategy was the paid sponsorship of beauty influencers on YouTube. Fenty Beauty sponsors many beauty influencers to make video content reviewing Fenty products, including Stunna Lip Paint. A common format for this product’s video were for the makeup artist to apply the lipstick on themselves and people they know. Advertising, was also a smaller portion of Stunna Lip Paint’s promotional strategy. The pictures from the “Fenty Face” campaign were also displayed in traditional formats.
In summary, the key message of the promotions for Stunna Lip Paint in “Uncensored” was that it is an all inclusive lip color that requires very little effort to wear as it is easy to apply and will last 12 hours. Any person of any color can feel confident that they look good in the red color. Fenty Beauty’s positioning as a brand is almost identical. The company aims to make makeup for anyone and everyone. From the unparalleled variety of foundation colors that are numbered instead of named to the versatile highlighters that are not skin tone specific, Fenty Beauty wants to be an inclusive brand that everyone can find great products from. Stunna Lip Paint is universal for all skin tones (inclusive), easy to apply, and premium quality which is exactly how the entirety of Fenty Beauty is positioned to portray.