[Glossier's DX example] "I support the brand I love!" Fans' contribution mentality is a great weapon

Glossier was founded in New York in 2010 as a cosmetic brand targeting millennials. It has become a regular feature in DtoC marketing and case study articles, and is now an explosively popular cosmetic brand in the United States. In 2018, sales exceeded $100 million and valuation exceeded $1.2 billion, joining the ranks of unicorn companies. Founder Emily Weiss was selected as one of the “TIME 100 Next”, 100 people who support the next generation announced by the magazine “TIME” in 2019.

Blog at the beginning

Glossier was not a DtoC brand from the beginning. The founding year 2010 is the year when the blog "Into The Gloss" operated by the founder Weiss started. After graduating from New York University, she worked as an assistant stylist for the global fashion magazine Vogue. Into The Gloss was started so that she could share information about the fashion industry and apply it to her career as a stylist. A series of blogs called "Bathroom Interviews" became famous and quickly gained a following.

In 'Bathroom Interview', Weiss visited the bathrooms of actresses and models he met through his work on 'VOGUE' and interviewed them. It introduces whether you are doing beauty care on a daily basis. This content that makes you feel close to celebrities quickly became popular and spread on social media, which led to more blog fans.

In 2013, Weiss left the company to focus on blogging. The following year, he released the Glossier series of original products, reflecting the ideas of celebrities and user requests from Into The Gloss.

Cosmetics for users based on the community

Glossier is a typical DtoC company that publishes its own products in showrooms and sells them online. Their greatest feature is that they are based in the digital community. In other words, the fans of the blog Into The Gloss are the customers, the creators of product development, and the people in charge of publicity.

Users (fans) in the community actually create what they want, have it criticized, and spread awareness and develop commercial distribution. For this reason, we do marketing for brand awareness and sympathy, but not promotion for sales purposes. We don't sell to drugstores, cosmetics floors of department stores, or even Amazon, we sell everything through our own digital media. Some new and standard products can be purchased at the showroom, but basically they are purchased online and picked up at the store.

Glossier consciously opposes the conventional business style of mass-producing to lower costs and mass-selling at mass retailers. Develop the items you need and produce as many as you need. Reduce marketing costs such as stores and sales promotions to lower costs. It is a brand that embodies the intentions of the millennial generation, who emphasize the practice of sustainability and have a strong awareness of mass production and mass consumption. That is why fans contribute to product development and sales promotion to improve Glossier. is. Similar to Bonobos, Glossier's business style is a part of DNVB that focuses on improving the long-term customer value experience, and is positioned differently from simple direct-to-consumer DtoC brands.

Pain Eliminated by Glossier ── Minimizes Time to Quality Confidence

Glossier doesn't sell at retail stores, it pays digitally and delivers products by delivery, so shop visits And in that there is no waiting for cashiers, we have eliminated the same pain as other e-commerce and DtoC.

However, the essence of Glossier's pain relief lies in minimizing the "time and effort" spent by cosmetic consumers to ensure their confidence and trust in the brand. We provide "confidence in quality".

To date, the cosmetics industry has created a “certainty” by building a brand image using celebrities and investing a large amount of advertisements. In addition, we have gained the trust of consumers by explaining the "certainty" from various angles using scientific evidence and information that is said to be the voice of users.

On the other hand, there are always similar products competing, there are many hype advertisements due to image processing, and sometimes there is damage due to ingredient disguise, so modern consumers have begun to look at the promotion of cosmetics brands diagonally. I'm here. Above all, the rise of digital media has made it possible to find good products that have been buried. Millennial consumers, in particular, do not take brand promotions seriously, instead checking product reviews on social media and weighing before buying. It can be said that the very motivation to search for really good things creates a new pain of exploration load.

Into The Gloss, the predecessor of Glossier, has gained popularity including such product reviews, and has a history of creating "what cosmetics should be" with the community from the perspective of makeup professionals. It is the core of the brand. For consumers who have become suspicious of the marketing information of traditional brands, Glossier's products are guaranteed to be "probable" products from the beginning, and there is a foundation on which they can be enthusiastic with peace of mind.

Gain created by Glossier──Happiness that contributes to the brand you love

The new value created by Glossier is probably the pride of the fans that they support this brand.

To date, the cosmetics industry has carefully conducted user interviews and developed products based on their opinions. However, only a few people with goods could participate there.

Glossier is all based on the community formed by the blog Into The Gloss. Community members are active in Glossier, driven by pure fan psychology that wants to convey the goodness of Glossier and the joy that the person who introduced Glossier likes Glossier.

In fact, Glossier has announced that about 80% of its new customers are referrals from the community, and Instagram accounts voluntarily opened by community members to support Glossier have become a major source of inflow.

The community conveys the sincere brand of Glossier to people, and receives the happiness that is obtained as a gain.