With estimated global sales of $579 billion in 2023, the cosmetics marketing sector continues to attract, innovate and reinvent itself. In France alone, it is worth more than €17 billion, making France one of the world leaders in beauty.

Behind these impressive figures lies a market undergoing profund change, with new players and increasingly engaged consumers. In this article, we will therefore examine new challenges facing cosmetics marketing.

How to boost brand visibility ? What formats can you use to engage consumers in the long term? And above all, how can a tool like gamification become a powerful lever to stimulate sales, build loyalty and enrich the customer experience? Here is our analysis, along with some concrete examples to inspire your future campaigns.

SUMMARY

• Developing your cosmetics brand: 3 pillars to stand out from the crowd
• Boosting sales: digital marketing strategies tailored to the cosmetcs industry
• Engage and retain customers through cosmetic marketing

Nowadays, consumers want more than just a good product; they want a complete experience: a recognisable brand universe, embodied valued and a constant presence on their preferred channels. Here are three key levers to activate in order to lat the foundations for a powerful and memorable cosmetic brand.

1. Focus on authentic and embodied storytelling

Storytelling is the secret weapon for brands that want to create emotion and build audience loyalty. At a time when consumers are looking for meaning, it allows brands to contextualise their offering, talk about their commitments or formulation choices, while making the brand more human.

This translate into:

• A clear brand mission (skin health, responsible cosmetics)
• Verifiable commitments (local production, natural ingredients, certifications, etc.),
• And a lively tone (sometimes taking on the voice of the founder).

Example : Typology

Founded by Ning Li (formerly of Made.com), the brand focuses on radical transparency in tis compositions and accessible education about its formulations. Each product displays the percentage of ingredients of natural origin, and the information is scientifically sourced. This minimalist, honest approach reassures and appeals to a demanding target market.

2. Create a strong and consistant identity on social media

Brands that want to stand out on social media must therefore:

• Define a unique graphic charter and tone of voice.
• Create native content for each platform
• Engage users by promoting UGC (User Generated Content)

Example: Merci Handy

The brand has successfully established a fun, uninhibited and colourful tone on social media, particularly on TikTok. By subverting hygiene conventions and embracing self-depreciating humour, it has forged a strong connection with a young, connected audience.

3. Partner with influencers to gain visibility and credibility

To get started in influence marketing, it is important to:

• Identify profiles aligned with brand values
• Co-create authentic content: beauty routines, unboxing challenges
• Think long term with editorial collaborations or limited editions.

Example : Fenty Beauty

From the outset, Rihanna’s brand has focused on inclusivity as a central pillar of its marketing strategy. She has surronded herself with influencers of all backgrounds and skin tones to convey her message.

In the beauty industry, digital marketing is a decisive lever for capturing attention, generating traffic and converting interest into purchases. Here are three high-potential digital approaches that have already been adopted by many cosmetics brands.

1. Co-create products with your community through gamification

Involving consumers in the creative process encourages their engagement and strengthens their sense of belonging to the brand. This co-creating can take the form of interactive votes, personalized quizzes or participatory competitions. The result: a product that is perceived as more legitimate and a launch that goes viral naturally.

Inspiring examples:

• Nidé.co builds its entire offering on this principle: each launch is co-created with its community via an interactive platform, to offer useful and sought-after solutions.
• Avril, an organic cosmetic brand, used gamification to gather preferences on products currently in development. The result: more targeted launches and increased engagement even before the products hit the shelves.

2. Co-branding & marketing games to stimulate cross-selling

Co-branding allows two complementary brands to cross-pollinate their audiences and benefit mutually from their brand awareness. Combined with a gamified marketing game, this becomes an excellent lever for generating traffic, stimulating sales and collecting qualified data.

Example : Sephora x Nuxe

To boost sales of Nuxe products on its marketplace, Sephora launched a digital game on its app and website. An interstitial ad presented the product features, increasing their visibility. The 100% winning mechanic encouraged purchases while collecting data via an integrated form. This game enabled Sephora to attract qualified traffic, boost Nuxe sales, and feed its CRM with new leads.

3. Personalise the shopping experience with fun virtual trials

Personalisation has become a key purchasing criterion in cosmetics. Offering a tailor-made, gamified shopping experience allows you to meet the specific needs of consumers while boosting conversion rates. And when this personalisation takes the form of a game (via a survey or personality test, for example), engagement skyrockets.

Exemple : Sephora – Skincare Campaign

Sephora recently launched a fin activation around skincare diagnosis. Participants were guides through an interactive journey to define their skin type and ideal routine. At then end of the journey, a personalised promo code enhanced the shopping experience and boosted conversion. This campaign generated traffic to the website, increased skincar sales, and recruited new opt-ins leads for targeted marketing actions.

In a marketing as competitive as beauty, customer engagement is not just about the moment of purchase. It is over time that a cosmetics brand builds a strong relationship with its community. Here are three hey approaches to cosmetics marketing for effectively and sustainably engaging your community.

1. Immersive online and point-of-sale campaigns

Creating a link between digital and physical channels allows you to re-engage consumers in an omnichannel approach. A well-designed immersive campaign can encourage people to visit a store, try something new or complete an online purchase. By adding exclusive gifts or content, the customer experience becomes even more engaging.

Cosmetics brands can therefore:

• Offer mini-games accessible on mobile devices with rewards to be collected in-store
• Create a gamified discovery tail to showcase a new range or limited edition,
• Focus on short but dynamic campaigns to generate a spike in traffic over a few days.

Example: Sephora summer campaign

For six days, Sephora rolled out a gamified mobile activation to boost its summer sales. The experience, accessible via the app, offered participants the chance to win in-store discount vouchers. This 100% win-win format not only stimulated purchases, but also enabled the recruitment of qualifed opt-in leads, while strenghtening the use of the Sephora app as a loyalty channel.

2. Ambassadors program to activate the community

Example : Typology

French brand Typology has set up a program of micro-influencers and ambassadors among its loyal customers. These profiles are invited to test products in advance, give their opinions and share their experiences on social media. This engagement strategy is based on proximity, authenticity and recommendations, which strengthens the brand’s credibility and promotes high-quality UGC.

3. Interactive loyalty programs

Traditional loyalty programs are often uninspiring. By incorporating interactive mechanics, we transform loyalty into a truly fun experience. The resulte: increased engagement, better retention and active promotion of customer loyalty.

Example: Galeries Lafayette uses gamification to encourage customers in its program to make repeat purchases from the retailer. Members of the loyalty program must enter a code received after purchase (by email) to access an exclusive game and try to win gift vouchers.

Conclusion

In a sector as dynamic as cosmetics marketing, standing out requires a strong brand, engaging campaigns and lasting customer relationships. Gamification is emerging as a powerful lever for boosting visibility and sales. To take things further, discover the interactive activations in the Adictiz catalogue and transform your beauty campaigns.

Black Friday is an essential highlight in the brand marketing calendar. Every year, more than 70% of consumers say they make purchases on this occasion, taking advantage of the exceptional promotions offered by retailers.

Imported from the United States this trade festival is becoming increasingly popular in France and abroad..
Il est donc très pertinent pour les marques de se positionner sur ce temps fort et de créer une stratégie marketing Black Friday efficace, qui leur permettra de recruter et convertir de nouveaux clients.

In this article, we take a look back at the main issues that companies need to prepare for in order to succeed with their Black Friday marketing campaigns. We also share some effective and original ideas to boost sales and prepare offers for the festive season.

SUMMARY

• The marketing challenges of Black Friday
• 3 marketing campaign ideas to boost sales during Black Friday

Black Friday is no ordinary trade fair. It offers companies a unique opportunity to hire new prospects and re-engage their existing customers (in the same way as sales). But the special feature of the Black Friday is that is takes place at a particularly strategic time of year.

It is indeed the last weekend of november the final stretch before Christmas shopping. Generally speaking, the 4th quarter of the year (the months of October/November/September) is a strategic time for companies, who generate 20 to 30% of their annual sales during this period.

Black Friday’s marketing challenges are therefore unique and brands have the opportunity to implement a strategy that will enable them to target the following four marketing objectives.

Stand out from the competition

An increasing number of companies are offering Black Friday deals. Brands must therefore redouble their efforts to make their campaign visible to their target audience

To capture attention, they won’t be able to rely solely on exceptional discounts (if they want to control the ROI of their Black Frday campaign). They’ll have to rely on other levers of visibility, such as originality and interactivity. Companies can set themselves apart by organizing a marketing competition, for example.

Engaging consumers at the right time

Brands are tending to communicate their Black Friday offers earlier and earlier. By spacing out their marketing campaign over several days, or even weeks, they can create a teasing effect and better manage consumer expectations .

Its also an effective approach to staying top of mind the big dayand guide shoppers more effectively towards the offers/products that best meet their expectations. The key is to strike the right balance to avoid advertising fatigue (and audience fatigue) by offering a variety of advertising formats that maintain engagement right through to Black Friday. A multi-channel approach will also be essential to reach consumers wherever they are.

Propose relevant offers based on customer preferences

To convert, Black Friday marketing campaigns can’t just play on discount percentages. They can also precisely target consumers’ product preferences, offering them a recommendation of items or services they are more likely to want to buy.

This means collecting, in advance of Black Friday, relevant customer data on favorite product categories, but also on the marketing channels, payment methods and delivery options that buyers intend to prioritize. To achieve this, brands can rely on marketing games such as Battle or Gift Finder.

Collect opt-ins and build loyalty to boost repeat purchases

As we’ve already mentioned, Black Friday is the start of a particularly intense period for consumers..
La fête commerciale se déroule en effet juste avant le Cyber Monday (qui a lieu le lundi suivant) et Noël.

To boost sales throughout this period, it’s very important that brands take advantage of Black Friday to collect opt-ins. Black Friday marketing formats can be used to this end (via a simple opt-in form, for example).

Brands can also take advantage of this opportunity to continue collecting customer preference (with a survey or swiper, for example), to optimize future campaigns. They can also encourage engaged prospects to create a customer account or download their application to boost their re-purchase rate for the rest of the year.

Gamification is a relevant lever for meeting the challenges of a Black Friday marketing strategy.

Depending on the brand’s objectives, these interactive and entertaining formats can help to achieve the following goals:

• Recruit qualified leads and optins to develop your customer database;
• Engage existing customers using games to showcase products and support promotions
• Increase sales by encouraging consumers to make a purchase in-store or on the e-commerce site.

1. Recruter des leads avec un instant gagnant

Simple mechanics such as Instants Gagnants are ideal for recruiting new leads and collecting optin. before or during Black Friday. Red By SNCF, for example, relied on the One-armed Bandit to boost the visibility of its Black Friday campaign.

The very simple principle of the game (aligning three identical patterns to unlock a gift or discount) is indeed perfect for engaging a wide audience. Prospects are also attracted by the prospect of finding out immediately whether they’ve won a reward or not.

What’s more, the interactive, fun aspect of this Black Friday marketing campaign helped the operator stand out at this particularly busy time of year.

2. Engage your community during Black Friday with a Shopping List

To engage existing customers during Black Friday, brands can rely on gamification mechanics highlighting their products. The idea here is to discover its offer in a fun way, the aim is also to collect customer preferences in order to offer more targeted product recommendations. The challenge is also to offer attractive prizes that capture the audience’s attention and make them want to participate.

Git, for example, offered its community the chance to win an exceptional basket made up exclusively of items that participants had already selected using a shopping list..
Pendant toute la semaine précédant le Black Friday, les acheteurs pouvaient ainsi tenter leur chance et remporter leur wishlist au tirage au sort.

3. Boost Black Friday sales with coupons

For Black Friday marketing campaigns to bear fruit, brands need to find effective levers to redirect their audience to their website (or in-store for a drive-to-store campaign).

Oui SNCF, for example, took advantage of its Black Friday gamification campaign (a one-armed bandit) to distribute 15-euro e-coupons. Participants could then win a voucher, to be used on the company’s website or app for their next booking.

With more than 2K clicks driven to its site, Oui SNCF boosted sales over the period..
Mais en plus de générer du CA pour le Black Friday, l’entreprise en a aussi profité pour collecter des adresses emails et des optins afin d’enrichir son CRM.

Conclusion

Gamification is one of the most effective strategies for creating an impactful marketing campaign. By choosing a playful, interactive mechanism to animate your audience, you can not only present your discounts more effectively, but also significantly boost your sales. Discover our catalog of playable formats to boost your Black Friday marketing strategy.

If you’re looking to raise awareness of your brand while increasing sales and expanding your audience, co-branding is a relevant marketing strategy. Partnerships are an excellent way of reaching a wider audience.

By teaming up strategically with other brands, companies can broaden their commercial offering and capitalise on their partner’s visibility to boost their own brand awareness.

Co-branding has many advantages. But it is important to master this marketing strategy well before taking the plunge, to avoid associating your image with a brand that is not aligned with your values or that does not address a strategic market for your company.

In this article, we share with you some practical tips for increasing your target audience through a co-branding campaign.

SUMMARY

• What is co-branding?
• What are the advantages of co-branding for a company?
• Boosting the effectiveness of a co-branding campaign through gamification
• 4 tips for a successful co-branding campaign

Co-branding, or brand partnership, is a marketing strategy that involves teaming up with another brand to promote or co-create a product or a service. This does not mean simply associating the names of two brands on an item. A co-branding partnership combines the resources, identities and stories of each partner to create an exclusive offering.

Co-branding means sharing resources and expertise, but also sharing your community of clients. The aim is for each partner to benefit from the strategic advantages of the other. This may involve a wider audience in general, or a new market that the company wishes to conquer in particular. But co-branding can also facilitate the transfer of technology and know-how.

Co-branding offers a number of advantages for all the partners involved. This type of partnership enables each player to benefit from the strengths of the other company, particularly in terms of :

• Reaching a wider audience. Brand partnerships enable companies to increase the exposure of their brand to their partner’s customers. A co-branding campaign can be broadcast across both companies’ communication channels (physical and digital).
• Engage a new audience and increase sales. Consumers are more likely to trust recommendations from a brand they know well and have been buying from for several years.
• Boost brand awareness and credibility. Establishing a brand partnership with a recognised player allows the company to strengthen its own credibility not only with its current audience, but also with its target audience. For example, a street-wear brand teaming up with a luxury brand will significantly upgrade its brand image. Its products will be perceived (by its community and high-end customers) as being of higher quality. This could lead to an increase in pricing, and therefore profitability.
• Reduce the risks and costs of a marketing campaign. Developing a new product or service, entering a new market or launching a new activity can be risky for a company. Joining forces with a brand that is already present in this market or that has long experience in this new vertical reduces the commercial risks. All the more so since, as we have seen, this type of partnership involves pooling resources. The companies will therefore be pooling their costs, which reduces the budget they would have to invest in this new project.

The aim of a co-branding campaign is therefore to increase an audience, or even to develop a new audience (with a persona not previously targeted by the company).

This marketing strategy in itself makes it possible to achieve this objective by multiplying the communication channels. Indeed, the campaign can be disseminated by both partners (publication on social networks, emailing, display format on their respective websites or in their physical shops, etc.).

However, partners can boost the effectiveness of their co-branding strategy by making their marketing campaign fun and interactive through gamification.

By integrating interactivity into their co-branding campaign, the two partner brands can more easily capture the attention of their respective communities and engage their customers. The fun mechanics of the game and the chance to win a reward will set them apart from other promotional content.

The marketing game can be used to help people discover the co-created product in a more entertaining way (via a quizIt can also tease its launch and optimise consumer expectations by offering them the chance to win free products via a competition or instant win (scratch cards, one-armed bandit). Le jeu permet aussi de faire gagner un produit de la marque partenaire pour booster la notoriété de celle-ci en s’appuyant sur la première.

Examples of gamified co-branding campaigns

The famous drinks brand Coca Cola is a master of the art of co-branding. The company uses this strategy to develop its audience and increase sales.

For example, it has teamed up with fruit juice brand Capri Sun to convert new customers. Its co-branded game campaign incorporated a proof-of-purchase mechanism into its prize draw form in order to boost its conversion rate and increase sales. In addition to the co-branded aspect of the campaign, the choice of an attractive prize (an iPhone) helped convert more than 5,000 visitors.

Coca-Cola has also developed a co-branding marketing campaign with energy drink brand Monster. Here again, the mechanic used was to upload a proof of purchase to access the game in order to generate more sales. As the two brands’ universes are more similar, this campaign had a participation rate of 75% and over 1,000 visits.

Before embarking on co-branding, it is important to consider the right factors to choose a relevant partner that will enable the brand to achieve its objectives.

• Target markets. The most important thing is to make sure that your target audience and that of the brand with which you are planning to partner overlap. The partnership will not work if the companies are both targeting extremely different audiences or, conversely, if they are too similar.
• Brand image. The personalities and worlds of the two brands must be compatible. The partners must share common and complementary values, at the risk of losing or alienating their community.
• Market needs. A co-branding campaign must also respond, to a certain extent, to a market need. This partnership can enable the brand to address a need of its audience that it has not yet met.
• Adapting the mechanics of your marketing game to the challenges of co-branding. In particular, this means choosing a prize that reflects the two brand universes. It also means announcing the winners on their respective channels, or providing an opt-in for the partner brand, etc.

Once the company has found the right partner, it is crucial to define everyone’s roles and responsibilities in the roll-out of the co-branding campaign. To achieve this, it is important to be able to count on a reliable and transparent partner who will contribute equally to the project.

Conclusion

Gamification is an excellent way of boosting the impact of a co-branding campaign. It will boost your brand’s reputation and its ability to develop a new audience. Discover our interactive competition mechanics to make your campaigns even more engaging and convert these new prospects more effectively!