Over the years, YouTube is known for launching a variety of people’s
careers. Many aspiring make up artists, such as Michelle Phan, use this social
media platform to help launch their career (Heine). Something that has been
slowly on the rise over the years is the marketing on the social media platform
Instagram. According to Adweek,
companies such as Anastasia Beverly Hills has been using Instagram to post
15-second long how- to videos, while using their brand (Heine). An example of
this would be how Anastasia Beverly Hills posted a quick how-to “smokey eye”
video, which received 74,00 likes and 2,300 comments (Heine). Not only are you
marketing yourself, but you are also making the consumers feel as if they are
truly benefiting from this short clip.
According to Adweek,
Anastasia Beverly Hills is the top ranked spot on Instagram (Heine). Other
companies that Adweek recognized was
Lush, Benefit cosmetics and Estee Lauder. In my opinion, I believe that advertising
beauty products on Instagram is ingenious. Why do you think Anastasia Beverly
Hills is so successful on Instagram?
What I’ve been noticing over the years is that many smart
companies will send a bunch of their products to popular Instagram make up
artists and have them take a picture with it demonstrating how to use their
product. A perfect example of this would be Jeffree Star. He is a well known,
singer/songwriter, makeup artist, model and DJ (Instagram). For the past year
now, Jeffree has been tearing up Instagram. He manages to show quick how-to
videos while advertising other companies’ makeup. Not only is he getting free
publicity, but he also is receiving free high-end cosmetics. Something else that has happened in the past
6 months is that he has launched his own cosmetic line, Jeffree Star Cosmetics.
So far in this line he has a long lasting lip stain, which is available in
three different shades. He announced on his Instagram recently, that he is
currently in the works of creating skin care and more shades for his long
lasting lip stains (Instagram). Do you think it is unethical what these
companies are doing? In other words, do you believe it is ethical to send
people free products and then have them write or demonstrate a raving review?
Do you think that
Instagram is a trend? If so, how long do you think this will last? If not, why
do you think Instagram wont be a popular place to advertise products?
As I mentioned earlier, we see a common pattern in
advertising on social media platforms. According to AdAge, celebrities such as Kim Kardashian are making a pretty penny
off of social media (Delo). How is it possible that she can make five figures
off of advertising on social media? Well, Luigi Picarazzi, who is the president
of Digital Media Management, explains to us how this is possible.
The company’s main focus is mainly securing deals with
brands to do integrations. This company also works with Bre.ad, which is an ad tech vendor who can show you the full- page
ad. This is unique because it shows users before and after entering and from links
on social media accounts.
Even though Picarazzi says no client is alike, he says many
times a celebrity will come in and say “Hey, I see how is starting to be of
importance in my traditional deals, and I’m wondering if there are also
opportunities that exist online in terms of creating a business.”(Delo)
Mr. Picarazzi mentions, how he approaches integrations
regarding brands. He says that sometimes the webpages they build are for the
editor or sometimes it’s for them. (Delo) These pages are more content based
and seems to do well whether it’s a full-page ad or a short video clip. (Delo)
YouTube seems to be the trending topic companies are talking
about. YouTube is great because as I mentioned earlier in this post, many
people are found and made in to celebrities from their videos. Picarazzi says
that he tends to tell his clients to make videos for this social media
platform. At the end of the day, people want to not only see you, but hear you
as well. (Delo)
When we flip through magazines, you might notice (or this is
at least how I feel) that there are more ads than actual content, especially if
you are reading Vogue, Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan. Toiletries and cosmetic
ads are leading the charts in terms of most money spent. (Cohn)
If you were to own a company, how would you go about
advertising/ marketing? Would you follow Instagram’s footsteps or make another
path?
Works Cited
"Cosmetics Were Biggest Magazine Ad Spenders Through the First Quarter." Minonline. Minonline, 9 Apr. 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.
Delo, Cotton. "How Celebrities Make Money from Social When They're Not Paid to Tweet." Advertising Age Latest News RSS. AdAge, 17 July 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.
Heine, Christopher. "Beauty Video Marketers Are Finding a Second Home on Instagram." Adweek. Adweek, 5 Jan. 2015. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.
