Like A Brunette Going Blonde, Olaplex’s Digital Marketing Strategy Is Gradually Getting Bolder

Hair care, like media buying, is a complex blend of art and science.

Few companies know that better than Olaplex, which got its start in 2014 selling products that counteract chemical damage done to hair cuticles during the bleaching process.

But unless someone dyed their hair platinum blond and had a particularly talkative stylist, they probably had no idea Olaplex existed back then. The brand’s first online-only products, called No. 1 and No. 2, were intended only for salon professionals and still require a cosmetology license to purchase today.

Once its consumer-facing product line launched four years later, however, Olaplex expanded beyond peer-to-peer Facebook groups and into more upper-funnel and brand-driven marketing strategies.

Although Olaplex is still in its “nascent days” when it comes to data-driven analysis, Chief Marketing Officer Katie Gohman told AdExchanger, understanding the digital marketing ecosystem is now a core part of how her team operates, especially when it comes to creative.

“If you don’t build the assets so they can work on the digital platforms, you’re not going to win,” Gohman said.

Finding the right audience

As you’d expect to be the case with a beauty brand, cinematic video assets are a big part of Olaplex’s latest campaign, which launched this month.

Entitled “Designed to Defy,” the campaign represents a lot of “newness and innovation” for Olaplex, said Gohman. The brand also began working with the media agency VaynerMedia in January.

The new campaign is Olaplex’s first attempt at a truly full-funnel marketing initiative, for starters, she said, as well as its first to feature celebrities from outside the beauty community, including “Bridgerton” star Nicola Coughlan and Olympic sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

The goal, said Gohman, was to highlight people who are known for “defying expectations,” but who could also use their own digital presences on Instagram and TikTok to get the brand in front of a much wider range of consumers.

The focus on social video certainly makes sense. According to NielsenIQ, TikTok is actually the eighth largest health and beauty retailer in the US, driving $1 billion in sales. But 68% of global sales on social commerce platforms is driven by impulse buying, which doesn’t quite work for Olaplex’s $30-$90 price range.

So the more reach the brand can achieve through influencers and other beauty content creators, the better chance it has to hit its target audience – that elusive sweet spot between the younger Gen Z and Alpha consumers who drive online trends and the older millennials and Gen Xers who can afford to pay a premium.

And, of course, Olaplex hasn’t forgotten about its stylist community, which tends to align itself with older women who have more to spend.

“They want to be inspired creatively,” said Gohman of salon workers and stylists. While DTC consumers, in contrast, sometimes need to hear more overt language about claims and benefits.

“It’s a different kind of journey for both of them,” she said. “But you have to do both.”

Finding validation

Since she joined Olaplex nine months ago, a big part of Gohman’s role as CMO has been to build out the data and analytics team.

So far, that process has involved shopping around for the right data partners, in addition to working with the company’s first-party retail data.

Getting more serious about data has also required the team to think critically about what metrics they use to define success. “If you just go on ROAS alone, it’s like a race to the bottom across all of the different platforms,” said Gohman.

In addition to ROAS, the team looks at earned media value – essentially, assigning a dollar amount to organic social posts and customer reviews – as well as average order value.

Last year, the brand also experimented for the first time with a media mix model (MMM) that tracked impressions and actions across CTV, linear TV and social platforms.

General consumers can often take “20-some-odd times” to see an ad across multiple channels before buying, said Gohman. So single-platform attribution has to be taken with a grain of salt. Or a mountain of salt.

Still, the results of the MMM were validating, she said, particularly how the methodology highlighted the effects of paid media touch points as opposed to organic ones.

It demonstrated, she said, that “upper funnel brand marketing really does still work, even at the most commercial kind of conversion-driving channel.”