How an Acne Patch Brand Took Over the Gen Z Audience – What's Working in Marketing?

Welcome back to another week of What's Working in Marketing, a weekly newsletter where we share what's working outside your own four walls across the digital marketing landscape so you can be more effective. If you enjoy reading this,?follow me on LinkedIn?or create a?FREE Insight Library account, our team is publishing tons of free research that you won't want to miss.?

This week we're breaking down:

• Trending Research:?Uncovering how Starface captured the Gen Z audience?
• #MarketingTwitter: Three tweets about TikTok's new topic video feeds, the end of marketing attribution (???) and three reasons people buy?

HOW AN ACNE PATCH COMPANY CAPTURED THE GEN Z AUDIENCE

A LOOK INTO THE SKINCARE INDUSTRY

Today, I'm taking a look at Starface, an acne patch company that has continually brought an innovative social media strategy to the world, capturing the heart of all Gen Zs, one at a time.

Let's jump in!

The Audience Landscape

In 2021, Starface generated 192K average site visits per month, with 81% of traffic coming from mobile devices.

Outside of direct and organic search, social media drives the highest volume of traffic (21%) to mobile devices.

Since Starface’s target demographic is 18-24 year olds, the brand is consciously making an effort to have a presence on apps that are the most popular with the Gen Z age group.

Suggestion to Test

• Fish Where the Fish Are: Starface has been intentional about where they post content. They ensure a presence on all social media apps but have strategically positioned themselves on community platforms like Discord because their audience is already there.
• Devices: Take a look at your own analytics and see what device is driving traffic to your site. If you have a mobile-forward demographic, it might be time to start thinking intentionally about optimizing all aspects of your presence to mobile.

Starface's Unique & Impactful Campaigns

#1. Championing the Acne Positivity Movement

Suggestions to Test

• Set the Tone: Starface encourages consumers to be open about their acne problems and to love their bare skin.

• Social Encouragement: On social media, the brand consistently publishes posts that focus on self-love and boosting one’s confidence.?

• Act on Values: On Starface’s TikTok channel, the brand is not afraid to post pimple-popping videos, and encourages followers to show their star-studded faces!?

#2. Giveaways

Suggestions to Test

• Collaborate: Starface partnered up with Europhia's makeup designer Donni Davy to host a giveaway to win free products. The Donni x Starface giveaway generated +148% more engagement compared to the non-giveaway Instagram posts.

• Be Timely: What's an unexpected but niche partnership your audience would understand and support? Think about unique ways to tie creators into your marketing plans and initiatives.?

#3. Creating a Sense of Community3

Suggestions to Test

• Go Where Your Audience Is: Starface created its own space to build a community using Discord. Discord had the highest share of 18-24 year old users on social media in 2021, leading to their community having over 1.2K users in 2022.?
• Segmenting Conversations: On Discord, Starface has different channels for general chatting, skincare and even a safe space for mental health and self-care.?

Want an Activation Breakdown? for your audience? ??

Here are three tweets you should check out this week:

1. TikTok's new video topic feeds

2. The end of marketing attribution?

?3. Three reasons why people buy

If you're enjoying the newsletter so far, I want to encourage you to check out?The RightMetric Insight Library.

It's full of strategy tear-downs and examples from fast-growing brands that have already helped thousands of marketers?identify?content opportunities,?focus?on the right whitespace channels,?improve?their media strategies, and?benchmark? against competitors.

?? Thank You! ??

That's all for this week, I hope that you enjoyed it. If you found this valuable, I'd really appreciate it if you tagged someone who should read this in the comments.

I'll catch you next week. ???