Cults & Lipsticks
by Unknown
As a make-up artist and beauty advisor, I am extremely excited to talk about MAC Cosmetics, one of the many prestigious, high-end brands in the beauty industry. In this week’s blog post I’ll be talking about the social media strategies that they have implemented throughout their company.
About the Brand
Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo founded makeup Art Cosmetics in 1984 with the initial US store opening in 1991 in New York. (Chesters, 2011) MAC offer their consumers a wide variety to high quality make up, skincare, make up tools and even fragrances. The brand is iconic where they collaborate with top designers, celebrities and fictional characters such as Barbie, Rihanna and their most recent The Simpsons collection. (MTV, 2014)
Edgy, Dangerous and Socially Conscious
Aside from typical social platforms businesses have these days such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr, MAC also has a YouTube channel where they post upcoming launches and instant artistry tips. However, the one thing the cult beauty brand is doing so right is by putting a social spin on their e-commerce business by launching MAC Shop Together.
It’s basically what it says it is – a technology that lets friends shop together. Through inviting up to four friends via Facebook, Twitter, Email or direct message, Shop Together allows friends to shop and instant message at the same time. You can also see what your friends are browsing at in real time and can recommend similar products to each other. (LA Times, 2011) It’s basically shopping in a MAC store together but online!
Viva Glam
From using traditional methods of social technologies like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, etc., MAC Cosmetics definitely takes advantage of marketing and sales lever by using social technologies for communication where most of their purchases come from customers who are just paying for the brand. (McKinsey & Co, 2012)
Read the whole review here.
For example, their latest collaboration with Rihanna have MAC fans swooning, even though major beauty guru, Nikkie, and many others have been writing negative reviews about the new MAC Viva Glam lipstick.
MAC Cosmetics has nearly covered the basics of the value levers to putting an interactive spin on social commerce, Shop Together, co-creating products with celebrities and fictional characters and using social media for communication, I don’t know what MAC hasn’t done.
What do you think?
References
McKinsey & Company. (2012, November). Capturing business value with social technologies. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from McKinsey & Company: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/capturing_business_value_with_social_technologies
Good post, Michelle. I haven't really heard much about MAC before but it looks like they pretty much used all the social technologies available. This might be one big reason why they are so successful. :)
ReplyDeleteMAC is one of the biggest make-up brands in the world :-) Thanks for your input!
DeleteWoah! MAC has a technology that lets friends shop together... That is really quite impressive. Have you used this technology by any chance Michelle? I'm keen to know what customers think of this experience.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! very insightful.
Explore my post ...
http://goo.gl/54KEiT
where I have talked about facebook, twitter, google+ and Pinterest for social leverage ;)
Hi Andre,
DeleteNo, I have never used this technology as I work at a beauty counter myself and do not shop for make-up online. However, it does look interesting and I might try it soon :-)
Great post Michelle.
ReplyDeleteI really love MAC's Shop Together idea; I think it's really innovative. It does seem a little gimmicky though. I do wonder how much use it actually gets. What benefit would people get from using it over just chatting via FB while browsing the store individually?
I think it shows how serious they are about social media & social interaction, but yeah, I do wonder about the usefulness & execution of such a feature.
Hey Tom, thanks for the feedback. MAC has a chat feature when using Shop Together so users can chat and browse in the same window. They just have to share the link through FB or Twitter :-)
DeleteEven though I don't wear lipstick, that colour looks pretty bad haha. Shop Together is also an interesting idea but I don't think MAC will get much use out of it to be honest. Anyway, great read!
ReplyDeleteHi Bradley, there is a lipgloss that goes with the range and they look pretty good paired together - I guess it was a marketing technique :-)
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