Self-proclaimed lover of online drama and Social Media Coordinator at Bolster, Ruby Giles, looks into the rise of YouTube’s now infamous ‘Beauty Gurus’. How are they shaping content and culture in 2020, and what does it mean for brands?
“What’s up everybody? Welcome BACK to my channel!” — Jeffree Star, 2020
Beauty Gurus are beauty vloggers, who create videos related to beauty, skincare and fashion. An early pioneer of this genre was Michelle Phan, who joined the platform in 2006. Since this monumental year, there have been over 14-billion views on beauty-related videos on the platform.
The US is the largest cosmetics market in the world, with an estimated total revenue of $USD62-billion. As of August 2018, 60 percent of beauty content views on YouTube were generated by influencers. These trends both have huge global impacts and reach, especially on brands. Beauty gurus are not only influencers, but influencers on a massive scale.
Within the YouTube ecosystem, there are video tropes and styles unique to each genre. For beauty YouTube these include: hauls, makeup challenges, product reviews, product releases and collaborations.
Within each of these video tropes, the central focus is products. This makes beauty gurus perfect for brand deals, sponsorships and strategic PR gifting. With top beauty gurus racking up millions of organic views per video, the reach brands can achieve through a single video is astounding.
Though beauty gurus often create their own makeup lines, they do so with existing cosmetics companies. A prime example of this is the company Morphe, who have created best-selling makeup palettes with James Charles and Jaclyn Hill. This, however, can sometimes backfire due to the constant drama in the beauty community. (More on that below.)
Let’s dive into the key players in the industry, and the brands involved.
Who’s Who?
The top figures of the beauty community include James Charles, Jeffree Star, Tati Westbrook, Nikita Dragun, and Manny Mua. Though the beauty community has often been slammed for racism scandals, it’s notably LGBTQI friendly.
The majority of the top creators fall under the LGBTQI umbrella. Recently, Nikkie Tutorials (a Dutch beauty Guru with 13-million subscribers) came out as trans on her channel. This was received extremely well. The video currently has almost 3-million likes.
However, the beauty guru community is no stranger to scandal. Most famously, Dramageddon 2.0 and Karmageddon, which played out in spectacular fashion and involved the breaking and remarking of James Charles, Tati Westbrook, Shane Dawnson and Jeffree Star. If you’re interested in reading more, the best breakdowns are here and here.
Despite these dramas, there are a number of exciting and diverse Gen Z creators becoming big in the YouTube space. Antonio Garza is a 17-year old trans YouTuber who has become famous for her unique editing style. Micro-YouTube beauty influencers such as Juno Birch and Devon Lee Carlson are becoming more and more popular, and there are many opportunities for brands to collaborate with these diverse young creators.
Welcome to Brand Land
It makes perfect sense that brands would capitalise on the enormous reach and influence of YouTube beauty gurus. The word collaboration is key here, as it implies the influencer is a creative partner in the process. Many consumers have reported that they feel like beauty gurus understand them better than the brand. As opposed to clearly labelled sponsored posts on Instagram, these collaborations involve a much subtler advertising method. The influencer creates a product with a brand, thus leveraging the brand credibility with the creative authority of the influencer. There is a higher level of artistry implied than a simple social media post.
An interesting example of a brand and beauty guru collaboration is James Charles’ YouTube reality series ‘Instant Influencer’ and the retail chain Ulta Beauty.
Ulta Beauty was a sponsor for the show, but it went far beyond that with the brand setting up a mini Ulta ‘store’ for the contestants to ‘shop’ for their makeup looks. This simulated shopping experience in the show recalled pre-Covid retail and promoted Ulta’s range to consumers online. Ulta’s Chief Marketing Officer Shelley Haus said it was an important tool in paving the way for consumers to return to their stores safely IRL.
As previously mentioned, influencer-favourite cosmetics brand Morphe is an industry leader when it comes to beauty guru collabs. Having worked with James Charles, Jaclyn Hill and most recently, TikTok’s D’Amelio sisters, Morphe understand the power of beauty guru authority.
James Charles’ Morphe palette sold out internationally in 10 minutes, and Jaclyn Hill sold 1-million units of her namesake palette. This wouldn’t have been possible without Morphe’s existing social media strategy, which involved placing a heavy emphasis on discoverable hashtags (#MorpheBabe), extremely active community management (liking, commenting and reposting fan comments) and an influencer-led marketing. The combination of their existing social-based community presence and their willingness to create new products with YouTubers has proven a profitable formula. Morphe made $500-million in 2019.
Another collaboration worth noting is Jackie Aina x Anastasia Beverly Hills in 2019. Anastasia Beverly Hills are known for their collaboration with RuPaul’s Drag Race and involvement in the drag community. They continued challenging the norms of the beauty community with their collaboration with beauty guru and POC activist Jackie Aina.
Jackie wanted to challenge a brand to step up to the task of creating colours that would work on every skin tone. On her collaboration with ABH, Jackie stated: “Seeing black influencers collaborate with mainstream beauty brands is still something that I would love to see more of.”
Ultimately, beauty gurus are a blank canvas for brand collaborations. By aligning with a diverse up-and-coming beauty guru, both the brand and the influencer can mutually benefit. The beauty industry, much like the wider world, is changing for the better in terms of representation and visibility. With a plethora of LGBTQI+ and POC creators now partnering with brands, there is no better time to consider expanding influencer marketing to YouTube.
Ruby Giles is a Social Media Coordinator at Bolster.
