In July, Korean skin-care brand Innisfree partnered with comedian and “Saturday Night Live” star Tommy Brennan on a series of man-on-the-street-style interviews to promote its Green Tea Sunscreen Serum. The benefits of the sunscreen took second fiddle to Brennan’s playful questions with New Yorkers, and that was largely the idea, according to the brand. “With Gen Z, in particular, traditional product-focused advertising is really not enough anymore,” said Jamie Lee, head of brand marketing at Innisfree U.S. “Entertainment is 100% the way to capture an audience.”
Advertising has long existed alongside entertainment, either in the form of TV ad breaks or product placement. But as today’s consumers are up to their eyeballs in entertaining content just a scroll and a click away, many of today’s beauty brands are asking if entertainment and advertising can be one and the same.
That can look like Innisfree’s series of short comedic clips with Brennan, but it can also take the shape of long-form content, like E.l.f. Cosmetics’ nearly 10-minute true crime mockumentary starring Phoebe Dynevor, released in March; or it can play on consumers’ emotional attachment to their favorite characters, like Rare Beauty’s July blush campaign with Ella Bright that mimics a scene from her hit show “Off Campus.” It may also borrow from classic beauty vlogger genres, like Merit’s candid “Get Ready With Me”-style partnerships with Jemima Kirke and Dan Levy.
