Fenty Beauty's Marketing Strategy and Planning: A Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Fenty Beauty's marketing strategy and planning. It begins with an introduction to the brand, highlighting its focus on diversity, quality, and customer satisfaction. The report then delves into a SWOT analysis, identifying the brand's strengths (inclusive ideologies, Rihanna's endorsement, consumer satisfaction, and innovative packaging), weaknesses (gender-specific marketing, reliance on Rihanna's image), opportunities (growing cosmetics market, strong social media presence, YouTube tutorials), and threats (increased competition, preference for natural beauty, online focus). Furthermore, the report examines Fenty Beauty's segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategies, emphasizing its demographic, geographic, and psychographic segmentation, broad targeting strategy, and positioning as an inclusive and innovative brand. Finally, the report analyzes Fenty Beauty's social media presence and its role in the brand's success. This case study illustrates how Fenty Beauty has disrupted the cosmetics industry through its unique marketing approach.

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MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLANNING
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Firm’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy:............................................................6
Social media presence of Fenty Beauty:......................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction:
Fenty Beauty by Rihanna is not just another cosmetic brand which focuses to strengthen
its celebrity endorsement game rather the launch of this cosmetic rand in the year 2017 (Walters,
2018) was meant to be a strong changing force behind the existing conversation about
beauty. Fenty beauty has primarily aspired to be a brand which initiates a visible shift in the
existing makeup culture. The brand largely emphasized on the concept of building a makeup
range for “all women”, irrespective of their skin ton, texture and other such superficial
attributes. This was the primary reason that even before the brand could complete its first
financial quarter, it did bring noticeable change in the mindset of the consumers who were
hesitant enough to come forward and opt for cosmetics as they did not seem to match well with
the societal standards of beauty.
Fenty Beauty initiated a storm in the market when it launched its 40 shades of foundation
and addressed the age old taboo associated with dark tone and not so fair complexion (Vorster,
2018). Diversity, quality, innovation and customer satisfaction has been identified as the key
attributes the brand aims to address through its market operation. Therefore this project report
will highlight on the strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats that the brand incorporates
along with analyzing the brand’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. Moreover
the social media presence of the brand will also be analyzed through this report.

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Discussion
Using celebrity figures in launching new cosmetic products or popularizing a novice
brand is not a new advertising and promotional technique. However what differentiates Fenty
Beauty from its rivals is the aim of the brand to create a sustainable brand image and not just
function as an international cosmetic brand. Therefore to gain a better insight regarding the
existing market competition, present market scope and future challenges that the brand might
encounter, it is necessary to conduct a market environment analysis also known as marketing
audit (Ismail, 2018). Varied macro and micro economic factors cast an important impact on the
overall brand’s performance. Thus, these factors can be analyzed by conducting a SWOT
Analysis. SWOT Analysis is identified as a strategic planning technique, therefore Fenty Beauty
needs to ascertain its market position applying this strategic marketing framework. Thus, the
SWOT Analysis will help this cosmetics brand identify:
Strengths:
1.The most crucial strength of Fenty Beauty is its ideologies and what it stands for. Thee brand
has helped in bringing a revolution and break free the idea of those superficial standards of
beauty. It has also helped in changing consumers’ perception of how beauty brands promote and
advertise their product and in turn has liberated the mindset of the society. This is indeed
identified as the Unique Selling Proposition of the brand.
2. The next major strength identified is choosing Rihanna as the face of this brand a Rihanna
herself represents a woman of color, vibrancy, diversity and creativity hand set perfect example

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of how the society and its age old taboos needs to be challenged. With over 62.3 million
followers on Instagarm and being a youth sensation who is often considered as a style statement
for many and has made appearance at various prestigious events like Met Gala 2018 (Okojie,
2018) wearing makeup from her own collection and standing confidently as “The Fenty Fcae”,
Rihanna undoubtedly has given the brand a unique appeal and helped in creating the buzz.
3. Consumer satisfaction is identified as the core essential that the brand focuses on. Therefore
Fenty Beauty emphasizes on its proper availability of its cosmetic products both in-store as well
as online. Especially at Sephora, store ensures to provide a unique experience to all its
customers by allowing them a trail before making any purchase.
4. Exclusive range and variety of products backed with magnetic packaging off the goods adds
an innovative as well as a playful element to the brand and ultimately leads to extremely high
consumer satisfaction.
Weakness:
1.While more and more brands are emphasizing on going unisexual in their appeal, Fenty Beauty
still advertises only as “For women” brand. This often limits the brand’s penetration making it
very gender specific and affecting its market penetration
2.Celebrity endorsements have its own pros and cons. Rihanna being the brand ambassador and
face of Fenty Beauty is often not well accepted by those who personally do not prefer Rihanna or
dislike her (Rantanen, 2017). This directly impacts on the brand’s purchase performance. Her

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strong opinionated outlook and stern believes often do not go well with many customers and they
directly intend form a negative impact about the brand.
Opportunities:
1.The ever growing demand of color cosmetics and beauty product definitely helps the brand
better target profitable markets and increase brand’s penetration. Moreover Fenty Beauty has a
huge collection when it comes to their range of cosmetics for varied skin tones and skin texture,
therefore this automatically helps the brand expand more into varied cosmetic product segment,
experiment and innovate in new lines of product (Cho, 2018).
2.Fenty Beauty’s strong presence on social media is another significant attribute rather a very
positive aspect for the brand because almost over 44% of women discover new products and
about different new brands on social media itself. Moreover the interactivity of social media
provides new venture for the brand to constantly communicate with the potential consumers and
gives greater opportunity for the brand to tap international markets with its strategic social media
communication
3. Fenty Beauty can potentially use its YouTube channel for uploading interesting tutorials
regarding make up. Small tricks and tips altogether will help the brand to build better
connectivity with the audience also maximize the brand’s reach. According to market statistics
more than 25% of women rely on these YouTube channels to get an easy access to various
makeup tips at no added cost (Carlson and Lee, 2015).

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Threats:
1.More and more brands are following the same pattern of being inclusive, accommodating
variety of cosmetics for different skin tones and texture for breaking the age old taboos
pertaining to set standards of beauty and hence Fenty Beauty is losing its exclusivity.
2.Fenty Beauty products specially address the beauty needs of Black Women and it has been
found that black women are more inclined towards following natural beauty techniques rather
than opting for synthetic cosmetic products
3.Fenty Beauty’s too much online indulgence might serve as risk for the brand specially catering
to those range of customers who might not be very much comfortable making online purchase.
Therefore in order to address this issue, the brand needs to provide sizeable attention in growing
their in store brand availability and presence.
Firm’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy:
Barbadian Superstar Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty has witnessed an unrivalled growth in the
cosmetic industry since its launch in September 2017 (Black, 2018) Therefore it is necessary to
analyze the brand’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy (STP) to understand what
factors have led to its unprecedented growth pertaining to the cosmetics industry. Firstly, market
segmentation helps the company to understand its potential customer base, how they behave and
what their individual expectation from the products are.

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Fenty Beauty’s market segmentation approach includes:
1.Demographic segmentation- the basic age group that Fenty beauty aims to include as its
potential market is from 15 to 45 years. The range is so huge because Fenty Beauty has a whole
range of products starting from teenage makeup cosmetics, to vital skin nutrition creams and
varied other skin nourishment lotions. Moreover as already mentioned the aims to cater to all
races, all skin tones and skin textures (Andaleeb, 2016).
2. Geographic segmentation- Fenty Beauty specifically targets the Hispanic and Asian females.
However with the brands strong online presence, it intends to break free all these Geographic
boundaries and emerge as a strong global brand.
3. Psychographic segmentation- this intends to take into concern the characteristics of
consumers. Fenty Beauty as a brand specifically aims those consumer segments who have a
liberal mindset and are not guided by the set standards of beauty. Rihanna being the face of the
brand, particularly aims to reach out to those segments and women who intends to create their
own style statement and do not wish to go with the usual trend. Fenty Beauty has always aimed
at creating a more positive and inclusive market strategy which would help to uplift the
confidence of women and enhance the concept of beauty with a purpose.
Targeting strategy of Fenty Beauty:

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Fenty Beauty ensures to build a larger targeting strategy which is necessarily not niche in
its approach. This is because the brand has a huge variety of products to offer. Moreover all its
products specifically aim to provide a look which is completely natural and does not seem to be
made up. The targeting can be best understood by analyzing one of the very famous product of
this cosmetics brand which is the Pro Filt'r foundation available in 40 different shades for every
possible skin tone. Therefore the targeting strategy is very wide as well as equally strong.
Moreover the product rangers are kept very minimal so that it is easily accessible by all and does
not burn a hole in one’s pocket (Hicks, 2018). The main target market also includes the
consumers who are quite pro at social media usage because Fenty Bauty engages in a strong
social media marketing and communication with its customers.
Positioning of Fenty Beauty as a cosmetics brand:
Fenty Beauty since its inception has shown tremendous growth and success. It was
specifically because of the brand’s unique positioning strategy that aimed at challenging the
usual definition of being beautiful (Walters, Jenna, 2018). This is exactly the reason why Fenty
Beauty at its very first month of being launched could easily beat a brand as strong as Kylie
Cosmetics by earning a revenue which is 5 times more than that of its rival brand. The brand
specifically uncashed on its variety and positioned itself as an inclusive brand for all skin type
pinpointing on universal shades. Fenty Beauty also strongly emphasizes on building up a strong
social media position as the brand recognizes the power of the social media and positions itself
as brand which has a very strong and active social media presence. Moreover the smart and very
innovative packaging of the products make it very much travel friendly and attractive to
consumers along with its easy to use stick make up for instance the Shimmer Skin sticks

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(Schaefer and Cheung, 2018) which no doubt has a diverse global appeal as well as audience.
The brand manages to cater to such a huge target market segment because of its unadulterated
product quality which ensures photo-ready," long-lasting, and climate-adaptive make up finish.
Moreover choosing Rihanna being the face of the brand is another positioning strategy of this
brand as Rihanna stands as symbol of being bold, stylish and courageous. She was the one who
represented her brand while she walked in Met Gala 2018 creating a stronger brand position.
Therefore the STP Strategy of Fenty Beauty is mainly built around these specific considerations:
1. Prioritizing customer needs as the top most concern for the brand
2. Choosing the right time to launch a brand. For instance: Rihanna launched her brand during
the most talked and prestigious event pertaining to makeup and fashion industry which is New
York Fashion Week.
3. Never compromise on product quality
4 .Be updated with brand’s social media presence.
5. Constantly monitor the feedback of the customers and device changes accordingly.
Social media presence of Fenty Beauty:
It is very evident that more and more brands are engaging into social media
communication because of the immense benefit that the channel brings along with it. Going by
the statistical records, Fenty Beauty has over 4 million Followers on Instagram, and largely

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emphasizes on building up its social media presence. Rihanna being the face of Fenty Beauty
personally engages in communicating with the followers (Kadekova and Holienčinová, 2018),
sharing her own personal experience with the customer or potential buyers as well as uploading
mini demonstration make up videos to increase the brand’s consumer engagement. The prime
reason for Fenty Beauty to stick to a strong social media marketing strategy is that the brand
acknowledges the fact that more than 41% of women learn about any new brand through social
media to stay updated (Alalwan, et al. 2017). Moreover constructive brand review about the
quality of Fenty Beauty products is undoubtedly another strong reason for the growing
popularity of the brand. In today’s competitive market scenario, peer reviews paly a very crucial
role in building up the image of the brand. Therefore positive brand reviews has exclusively
worked or strengthening brand’s market position.
The above brand performance analysis of Fenty Beauty gives a detailed overview
regarding how this cosmetics brand has grown leaps and bounds and has a strong market
dominance. It portrays the significance of using the digital media strategy to successfully
dominate the present competitive market and most importantly proves how significant a brand’s
message is when it comes to building up the brand’s image. The inclusivity of this brand long
with its noble intention of breaking the age old of taboos associated with fixed standards of
beauty have worked wonders in associating with the consumers and making a significant mark in
the minds of these consumers.

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References:
Alalwan, A.A., Rana, N.P., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Algharabat, R., 2017. Social media in marketing:
A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics, 34(7), pp.1177-
1190.
Andaleeb, S.S., 2016. Market segmentation, targeting, and positioning. In Strategic marketing
management in Asia: case studies and lessons across industries (pp. 179-207). Emerald Group
Publishing Limited.
Black, Z., 2018. How to Make a Self Portrait.
Carlson, A. and Lee, C.C., 2015. Followership and social media marketing. Academy of
Marketing Studies Journal, 19(1), p.80.
Cho, H., 2018. Advertising in the beauty industry: digital media and conceptions of beauty.
Hicks, A., 2018. BLACK BEAUTY, WHITE STANDARDS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL
STUDY OF BLACK AMERICAN WOMEN’S PERCEPTIONS OF BODY IMAGE AT A PWI
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Alabama Libraries).
Ismail, A., 2018. International Marketing Strategies in the Celebrity Cosmetics Industry: A Dual
Case Study: Huda Beauty and Fenty Beauty.

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Kadekova, Z. and Holienčinová, M., 2018. INFLUENCER MARKETING AS A MODERN
PHENOMENON CREATING A NEW FRONTIER OF VIRTUAL OPPORTUNITIES.
Communication today, 9(2).
Okojie, V.O., 2018. Consumerism in the Digital Age: Exploring Innovative Commerce as a
Design Strategy for Brand Creation and Implementation (Doctoral dissertation, Kent State
University).
Rantanen, J., 2017. Celebrity Endorsement in Social Media Marketing.
Schaefer, D. and Cheung, W.M., 2018. Smart Packaging: Opportunities and Challenges.
Procedia CIRP, 72, pp.1022-1027.
Vorster, A., 2018. Does your beauty brand cater to all demographics?. South African
Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Review, 45(8), pp.38-39.
Walters, J., 2018. “FINALLY SOME DIVERSITY”: An exploration into the publics’
perceptions of the ‘Fenty Beauty’campaign in relation to how it challenges the lack of diversity
in the mainstream Westernized beauty industry.
Walters, Jenna. "“FINALLY SOME DIVERSITY”: An exploration into the publics’ perceptions
of the ‘Fenty Beauty’campaign in relation to how it challenges the lack of diversity in the
mainstream Westernized beauty industry." (2018).

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