Case Analysis-Glossier: Co-

Creating a Cult Brand with

a Digital Community

Submitted By:
Alok Kumar (2022EPGP003)
Rohit Satarke(2022EPGP042)
Sucharita Das (2022EPGP051)
Executive Summary

Glossier, a digitally native, direct-to-consumer(D2C) beauty brand, born from content

fuelled by community, was up to decide its marketing strategy for the second half of 2018.
Founded in 2014, Glossier was born of CEO Emily Weiss’ mega-successful blog, Into the
Gloss, and is dedicated to the goal of making beauty “as much an element of personal style
as fashion.” Emily declared it to be internet’s hub for quality beauty conversation. Emily and
a team of four had then started publishing 4 stories per day, attracting 1.5 million unique
visitors and 10 million page views per month, with the philosophy of “Everyone can be their
own expert, their own curator”.
By 2014, Into the Gloss, had 1.5 million readers and social media interactions of 200000
Instagram followers and 60000 Facebook fans. She also felt the absence of the proper brand
to changing customer preferences, which is when she decided to create a new brand,
GLOSSIER, to house curated collection for fulfilling the desires of her community.She
partnered with a chemist and a contract manufacturer and developed her plans to launch 4
everyday essentials as per her readers’ demand. With series-C funding of $52 mn, options of
investing the same raised.
The brand was built to be social-media friendly with a focus on content perspective and
making the customers as the stakeholders. The fan following that was generated for the brand
was evident from the fact that over 50,000 Instagram photos from consumers in the second
part of 2017 used the #Glossier handle with a reach of around 17 million. More than 60% of
the patrons were in the 18–35 age range.
While most of its growth had been organically derived from millennial-friendly digital
properties, the top management, Emily, Weiss & Davis were contemplating the course of
action for the next phase of growth with evaluating the following three options:
i) Whether to emphasis on paid media and / or a more physical market presence
ii) Whether to convert Glossier’s loyal customers into paid peer-to-peer sales
representatives
iii) Whether to engage professional influencers and decide on how to continue to use
the community to inspire new product ideas as it diversified
iv) Whether to expand its availability beyond digital to physical retail
After analysing the alternatives, it is recommended not to go with a single alternative, but
combine few alternatives for maximising benefits in the long run and ensuring sustainability.It
is therefore advised that Glossier can follow the below mentioned avenues to get optimum
results, without compromising its original competitive advantage and disrupting the beauty
industry based on community relationships and patronage:
• Focussing and investing more on R& D- improving the curated list of product offerings,
larger number of SKUs

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• Leveraging the Technology: Invest in creating better customer experience, thus
continuing with their competitive advantage of creating wonderful content
• Tie up with retail outlets of the likes of Sephora, for better scalability, establishing
global presence and leveraging the touch and feel factor, even at the cost of higher
margins, for long term sustainability
• Collaborate with micro-influencers (make-up artists & Youtubers) as the costing is the
lower; however, for new product range launch, can collaborate with celebrity
influencers
• Combine it with P2P sales rep program – focussing more on skilled reps – which will
foster the original community relationship and loyalty

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Introduction

Glossier, a digitally native, direct-to-consumer(D2C) beauty brand, born from content fuelled
by community, was up to decide its marketing strategy for the second half of 2018.
Founded by Emily Weiss, a former art student and styling assistant at fashion magazines W
and Vogue, Glossier had emerged from a popular beauty blog, “Into the Gloss” which
provided data from 1.5 million passionate readers.
With the rapidly scaling community, which had grown threefold in 2017, senior vice president
of marketing Alexandra Weiss and President and Chief Financial Officer Henry Davis, were
debating the marketing strategies, as in February 2018the company had closed an
oversubscribed $52 million Series C round funding.
While most of its growth had been organically derived from millennial-friendly digital
properties, the top management, Emily, Weiss & Davis were contemplating the course of
action for the next phase of growth with evaluating the following three options:
v) Whether to emphasis on paid media and / or a more physical market presence
vi) Whether to convert Glossier’s loyal customers into paid peer-to-peer sales
representatives
vii) Whether to engage professional influencers and decide on how to continue to use
the community to inspire new product ideas as it diversified
viii) Whether to expand its availability beyond digital to physical retail

The Evolution and Journey of Glossier

Emily, a former art student and styling assistant at fashion magazines W and Vogue had
launched Into the Gloss in 2010 at age 25. She had filled Into the Gloss with high-quality
product reviews and comparisons, beauty how-to’s and beauty routines of inspiring
individuals.
They also provided the top shelf interviews, which encouraged readers to share their own
beauty routines using #itgtopshelfie.
Emily declared it to be internet’s hub for quality beauty conversation. Emily and a team of
four had then started publishing 4 stories per day, attracting 1.5 million unique visitors and
10 million page views per month.
They followed the philosophy of “Everyone can be their own expert, their own curator”.
Soon advertisers like Lancôme used it to reach prospective customers and the advertising
revenue reached $5 million.

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By 2014, Into the Gloss, had 1.5 million readers and social media interactions of 200000
Instagram followers and 60000 Facebook fans. She also felt the absence of the proper brand
to changing customer preferences, which is when she decided to create a new brand,
GLOSSIER, to house curated collection for fulfilling the desires of her community.
She partnered with a chemist and a contract manufacturer and developed her plans to launch
4 everyday essentials as per her readers’ demands.

The Philosophy
The democratic beauty paradigm on which Glossier was working was that of consumer-to-
consumer conversations, focussing more on individualism. It was focussed more on peer-to-
peer recommendations. The core focus was on tailoring products that women want. Glossier
wanted to position itself as a modern beauty brand with an aim to fulfil the desires of its
community members leveraging consumer to consumer conversations.
The inspiration came from Into the Gloss which emphasized on people telling their beauty
stories rather than what the product was. Glossier wanted that community building within its
members where people feel like talking about their beauty products and experience which in
turn unifies them.

Taking On Big Beauty

Traditionally the big beauty companies dictated what was beautiful for women and then
inspired to chase that image. Glossier wanted to focus more on the individualism. The global
beauty industry had a valuation of $433 bn when Glossier decided to enter the competitive
landscape with a projected growth to $750 by 2024.
The market was dominated by eight companies – LVMH, Johnson-Johnson, P&G, COTY,
Unilever, Estee Lauder, Loreal, Shiseido Group. Over the five years, big brands have been
losing the market share to smaller brands.
In the current scenario, still over 80% of beauty and personal care products were purchased
through retailers. Consumer buying preference seemed to be changing towards digital
platforms wherein people made purchases through content delivery platforms such as
YouTube.

Focus On Community Inspired R&D

By 2018, Glossier offered a product line of 26 products ranging from $12 to $60. The motive
was to place the brand at a price point higher than mass-market and drugstore brands but
lower than speciality or departmental stores.
However, it was important to note that the company wanted to increase the breadth of its
offerings but rather offering curated product mix satiating the needs of what women wants.
Glossier emphasized on promoting natural skin beauty over the highly cosmetics covered skin.
It is astonishing to see the personal touch and efforts of Emily to tailor products which
customer wants through her timely responses and feed which made the customers
empowered and more attracted towards the brand.

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The company also took special initiative for customer engagement wherein top 100
customers got an opportunity to interact with company representatives on the Slack
platform.
Glossier wanted to instil the sense of Brand as Peer rather than Brand as Authority. The core
purpose was to ensure that people perceive a sense of belonging with the brand and they are
an integral part of that ecosystem. Glossier had 60,000 individuals on product waiting lists by
the middle of 2016.
The team contemplated about channelizing the efforts for new product development for hero
products or to create a broader product line.

Building A Social Brand

Copywriters answered as though talking to friends, and Glossier information was shared
similarly to that of other brands. Glossier started instilling the sense of trust among its
consumers through its website banners. To ensure the brand fostered a community feeling,
Glossier featured photographs of women with apt descriptions highlighting Glossier brand
spirit.
In addition, the brand was built to be social-media friendly with a focus on content
perspective. The company focused on creating brand associations as evident by the use of
pink bubble wraps. This ensured that if a person was observed with that pouch, one could
decipher that it belonged to the Glossier community.
The company also catered to the consumer demand by launching branded merchandise. This
created a sense that the company is listening to what people in the community wants rather
than dictating the terms other way around.

The Cult
The fan following that was generated for the brand was evident from the fact that over 50,000
Instagram photos from consumers in the second part of 2017 used the #Glossier handle with
a reach of around 17 million. More than 60% of the patrons were in the 18–35 age range.
Some critical facts included 40 % of the Into the Gloss readers preferred to buy Glossier
products. The company also outsourced many marketing tasks to the customers to help them
share their passion for the brand. It is equally critical to note that peer-to-peer outreach
accounted for 25% new customers.
Glossier leveraged social media platforms to create the sense of brand obsession and sense
of inclusivity. The impact was such that consumers waited eagerly for the new product
releases and posted tremendously on social media platforms.

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Evaluating The Alternatives

Peer-To-Peer Sales Representative Program

Below are some of the key benefits that can be derived from the program.

• Trust building
• Community growth
• Enhanced Customer relationship
• Improved online shopping experience
The company wanted to figure out the right incentive program for people interested in
promoting the brand product line. Since Glossier is driven by its community and has
developed a cult of devoted consumers who provide it with a tone of user-generated material,
peer-to-peer commerce is a great alternative.
Also brand discoverability can be made possible with the help of this initiative. Another
important factor weighing in was the credibility it can add for the product use. Imagine
someone from the community knowing the product in-and out making a recommendation for
you to purchase a product. This could tremendously take off the burden of whether to trust
that product or not.

Professional Influencer marketing Program

The company was contemplating on the avenues that could suggest the prospect of influencer
partnership as per some metrics. However, this approach can be a cost incurring as evident
by the fact that some celebrities charged heftily such as a million dollars.
For well-known influencers, it might cost $15 to $50 or more for having 1,000 followers.
Metrics such as Pay per cost, pay per click, pay per view, Pay per sale were evaluated.
Such initiatives can be used to widen the brand awareness but it is critical to evaluate the
potential revenues that could be generated considering the high cost.

Paid Media
Paid advertising on social media platforms can be a good option to increase the brand
awareness and customers interested in buying the products. If we consider the AIDA model
of customer journey, this initiative can greatly enhance Awareness aspect.
The average CPM ranged from $5-$7 for search ads to $40-$50 for print and outdoor.
However, this strategy can also be copied easily by the competitor brands. One major concern
with the paid media is ensuring the correct audience reach and in turn increasing the top line.

Customer Loyalty Program

Customer loyalty program could be translated to discounts, free samples, early access to new
products and access to special events. This can further be translated into fostering better
customer relationship.

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One of the key challenges with this program is to gauge the true intention behind making a
purchase. An example can be when a customer is solely purchasing a product for the sake of
earning the rewards associated with the purchase. Due care has to be taken to ensure that
repurchases occur to ensure healthy ROI.

Retail Showrooms and Pop-Ups

This can be an excellent opportunity to experience the product first hand and interact with
other community members. The challenges faced by the members during an online purchase
such the look and feel of the product or questions related to the product quality can be
addressed then and there.
Key challenge with establishing a physical footprint is the high capex cost. The intention
behind creating this was to eventually move to the online channel and build digital
community. Only 30% of the showroom shoppers moved to e-commerce for their subsequent
purchases. Also, physical footprint ensures that sales are happening in the events of
website/online avenues faces a service outage.

Other Options
The company is pondering the option of themed parties where people can experience the
product and then would be going through the digital channel to make the purchase.
Wholesale model would mean selling through the wholesale and retail outlets such as
Sephora by giving up on margins. Another challenge can be to convince people who come to
such outlets to buy Glossier products since several other products will be featured in parallel
at such stores.

Analysis of the alternatives

The analysis of the options could be summed up as below:

i) P2p sales rep
Pros:

• More Authenticity-with loyal customer content, more trust

• Customers become channels of distribution
Cons:

• Connections between reps & back to the community

• Uninterested & unskilled reps coming in

ii) Influencer marketing

Pros:

• Larger Reach

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 • Better traction especially for new launches
Cons:
• High-cost involvement
• Chances of damaging the P2P community loyalty

iii) Paid media

Pros:
• Good brand impressions - creating the buzz
• Easy reachability
Cons:
• More pressure to break-even, diminishing returns
• More competition
iv) Customer loyalty program
Pros:

• Better retention of loyal customers

• Enhanced customer relationships
Cons:

• Challenge to make the ROI positive

v) Digital to physical presence

Pros:

• Better scalability
• Higher revenues (almost 10X)
• Option of going global
• Leveraging the touch and feel factor
Cons:

• Massive margin (40-50%)

• Destroying its own eco-system

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Recommendation

Considering the analysis of the various alternative, it is recommended not to go with a single
alternative, but combine few alternatives for maximising benefits in the long run, and
ensuring sustainability. It is therefore advised that Glossier can follow the below mentioned
avenues to get optimum results, without compromising its original competitive advantage
and disrupting the beauty industry based on community relationships and patronage
• Focussing and investing more on R& D- improving the curated list of product offerings,
larger number of SKUs
• Leveraging the Technology: Invest in creating better customer experience, thus
continuing with their competitive advantage of creating wonderful content
• Tie up with retail outlets of the likes of Sephora, for better scalability, establishing
global presence and leveraging the touch and feel factor, even at the cost of higher
margins, for long term sustainability
• Collaborate with micro-influencers (make-up artists & Youtubers) as the costing is the
lower; however, for new product range launch, can collaborate with celebrity
influencers
• Combine it with P2P sales rep program – focussing more on skilled reps – which will
foster the original community relationship and loyalty

____________________________

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