Melodies and mascaras: Unlocking the potential of music in the beauty industry

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by Anna Munhin Jun 5, 2023 News
Melodies and mascaras: Unlocking the potential of music in the beauty industry

The beauty industry relies on individuals and influential people more than any other industry.

The majority of the top 200 beauty-related videos on the internet were uploaded by individual content creators. The #beauty hashtags has over 520 million posts on the platform. A majority of women follow a beautyinfluencer on social media.

The beauty vertical is 25% of all the activity.

Beauty is an intensely competitive area. New brands pop up regularly to carve out a share of the market from established leaders.

It's great that the need to create a brand identity is important. Maintaining a cohesive, distinct brand identity is a challenge when there are so many third parties representing your brand.

How sonic branding can help beauty brands beat the competition

Creating a consistent sound or soundtrack that is as synonymous with your brand as your logo or products themselves is a powerful tactic in any industry, but especially suitable for the beauty industry when so many other elements of branding are fragmented.

While investing in a visual identity has been a staple in brand marketing for decades, music usually represents only a small percentage of advertising budgets. Sonic branding is an equally important part of a branding strategy that offers unique benefits.

A sonic strategy can evoke powerful emotions and brand associations that are difficult to achieve with visuals alone. Studies show that sonic branding is an effective way to create a lasting impression in a short amount of time.

We looked at 10 of the most influential brands in the UK beauty industry to see how their music choices affect their bottom line. Over 15% of the business performance of UK beauty brands is attributed to the use of music. There is a strong correlation between music choices and business performance.

The brand that understands this best is Lancme, which has a dreamy and enigmatic identity that works well across genres and media.

A brand- and audience-aligned music library for social media content creators was created by Lancme. With company-produced ads, this musical consistency knits together nicely.

The ads, social content, and user generated content are all related to the music foundation.

Music branding do's and don'ts

Do it.

  • Consider enlisting a music artist as the face of your brand, or at least one of your celebrity endorsements. With the artist typically comes the music, potentially negotiated in a package deal. It’s a win-win for both sides as well… their image/endorsement supports your brand, while your content widens the exposure and awareness of their music. Example: Revlon recently enlisted Megan Thee Stallion as brand ambassador. Her music is featured in 85% of the company’s social assets.
  • It’s fine to use original music with custom-branded lyrics if properly supported. Using such “bespoke” music with in-house artists can be risky, however, as the music is not part of the popular mainstream and thus has to carry all its own weight. One way to address this is to have a more known artist/celebrity re-record the track.
  • Develop and publish curated music libraries to ensure creators and influencers use music that is consistently brand- and audience-aligned. Doing so will result in a significantly more cohesive and distinctive brand identity.

Don't.

  • Beware of creating sonic confusion. If your official brand-chosen music clashes with the music preferred by legions of UGC fans, consider a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach and switch up your music licensing to fit in with what your most loyal fans are already supporting.
  • Be sure you’re using music that’s supported on the social platforms you’re on. Both YouTube and TikTok for instance have music libraries cleared for use on their respective services. If your music isn’t supported, your content will likely generate copyright strikes. One brand we analyzed in our report had to remove over 40% of the YouTube content included in our study due to this oversight. That not only wastes production and media dollars, but it opens the brand up to legal risk.
  • Ultimately, using the right music will maximize breakthroughs, deepen emotional connections, and lift brand preference, ultimately boosting business performance. Choosing music that implicitly ties individual assets together across paid and owned media will reinforce a brand’s identity and more effectively encode it in consumers’ long-term memory.

Understanding the power of strategic music choices and how to connect with your audience on a deeper level is important to get your brand's message across more effectively.

The complete Music of Beauty report can be downloaded.