Bright spots: what struggling beauty brands should learn from fast growing peers

• In 2024, rhode totalled more Owned TikTok engagement than L’Oreal’s top 30 brands combined

• In Jan 2025, Sol de Janeiro overtook Clinique and Lancôme in searches — rhode searches even overtook Ulta’s

• JeanPaulGaultier.com now lands 2x more website traffic than MAC, and 35% as much as Ulta (vs 6% just 2 years ago)

Recent earnings for beauty companies have been a bloodbath, yet outside-in performance metrics point to some (very) bright spots in the category, which begs the questions: what are these (fast) growing beauty brands doing differently? Does their growth represent a streak of good luck, or a stroke of genius?

As pointed out last year, it is significant that beauty share prices started stagnating or even falling starting in late 2021, just as the category was enjoying its fastest growth spurt of the century (2021-2023).

Connecting data dots, it becomes clear the 2 phenomena are connected: the forces fuelling category growth are so powerful that they allow brands harnessing them to both grow the category AND gain share from incumbents (many in publicly traded companies).

The growth of these social champions (to which one can add the fragrance category) started 3-4 years ago, just as TikTok became the platform of choice for brands that got social right:

Thanks to the virtuous cycles that both activate and feed off social communities, these newcomers have now overtaken once dominant brands:

These fast growing brands do many things right, chief among them they master social — first and foremost on TikTok. Here is data for owned:

Zooming into TikTok, their owned performance is achieved without boosted views:

In fact, rhode totalled more 2024 TikTok owned engagement than L’Oreal’s top 30 brands combined (and more than Estee Lauder’s 24 brands combined):

All of the owned winners also rank at or near the top on TikTok Earned, and as Sol de Janeiro’s CEO admitted, they don’t even need to spend nearly as much on paid influence as their peers do.

In the case of Jean Paul Gaultier (and most of the fragrance category), owned plays very little role in its growth — instead the brand dominates on TikTok earned:

Most beauty brands today are in some sort of doom loop when it comes to social media: they struggle to land winning content, so they compensate by over-investing in ads and paid influence - a strategy both more costly and less impactful.

Meanwhile, the brands that “get social right” grow and nurture communities thanks to winning content coupled with innovation and offline strategies that communities are eager to post about — a new 3-pronged strategy that is both more cost effective and uniquely able to shape brand preferences.