Olivia Rodrigo had a big night at the Grammys earlier this month, picking up trophies for Best New Artist, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Pop Vocal Album. For those keeping score on the red carpet, she was wearing a Vivienne Westwood gown, and makeup by Glossier. Specifically, Glossier’s Skin Tint, Stretch Concealer, Cloud Paint blush in Beam (soft peach) and Storm (warm rose), Haloscope highlighter in quartz, and Monochromes eyeshadow trio in Mist.
Ali Weiss, chief marketing officer at Glossier, says this is the company’s first-ever celebrity partnership. She notes that a lot of thought was put into the type of person who could partner with Glossier in an authentic way to tell a broad audience—including existing and new consumers—about the brand in a way that exudes its ethos in real life.
“The idea behind it is to really celebrate one of our founding beliefs, which is the sentiment of when you feel good, you look good, and when you look good, you feel good,” Weiss says. “Olivia had been a fan of the brand prior to the partnership, so we reached out pretty early on as her star was rising to see if she’d be interested in partnering with us. We found an immense amount of alignment between her own come-as-you-are ethos and our look-good, feel-good approach, and it just came together.”
As McDonald’s Famous Orders have illustrated, there is plenty of brand magic to be found when a big name is an actual fan and user of a company’s products. For Weiss, this was the only way to go. “The reality today is that the consumer has so much information at their fingertips, through social media, word of mouth, and understanding and interacting with a brand’s products themselves, that it’s very difficult for a brand to create a successful partnership if it’s not authentic and fully integrated into that [celebrity’s] lifestyle,” she says.
Glossier has had a tough year so far, most notably announcing a round of high-profile layoffs in January, when a third of the company’s corporate staff was cut. At the time, CEO Emily Weiss told CNN, “Over the past two years, we prioritized certain strategic projects that distracted us from the laser focus we needed to have on our core business: scaling our beauty brand.”
Refocusing on Glossier the beauty brand required a back-to-basics approach. For CMO Weiss, that means once again tying the brand and its products to the personal stories of its users, something she says the brand has had since its Into the Gloss beauty blog days.
“This partnership is a great example of us being more focused than ever on executing against that, and building a brand that inspires people through other people’s stories, real-life connections, and shared values,” Weiss says.
And having 24.5 million Instagram followers doesn’t hurt.
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