Being part of fashion week doesn’t come cheap. But with the bulk of beauty brands paying designers for show sponsorships anywhere from $5,000 for a lesser-known fashion label to $50,000 for a more established one — plus supplying the products — the question is: Do the beauty companies reap rewards?
The answer is a resounding “yes.”
“From our research at Unilever, we know that the content we develop around fashion week has a really strong ROI,” said Jen Daly, marketing director of salon-inspired hair-care brands at Unilever, who noted that since 2013, when TRESemmé concentrated its efforts in New York as the official hair-care sponsor of fashion week, the brand has seen the growth rate of its styling business increase five times. “[For our consumer], the hair resonates more than the designer.”
According to Tribe Dynamics, a digital marketer that tracks overall earned media performance — the dollar value of social influence, based on number of impressions, engagement with the content, quality of the publisher and audience size in traditional and new media — TRESemmé outperformed all other brands in earned media value with a total of $1,336,751 throughout fashion month.
In terms of makeup, Dior saw an upswing in sales following its September spring runway show. Makeup artist Peter Philips used Dior Crayon Khôl in white on the models’ eyelids and the company saw a 25 percent increase in sales in October compared with September.
Even the niche brands like Oribe find being backstage beneficial. Daniel Kaner, cofounder and president of Oribe, noted, “It helps incubate that cult sensibility for our product and it trickles into sales at some point in prestige and [brand awareness].”
