The affordable skincare label Bubble is well-known for its playful product names, cute plush toys and eye-catching packaging — and the fact that it’s catnip for teens.
But for its first-ever celebrity ambassador, rather than casting an adolescent influencer or young ingénue, Bubble selected Leighton Meester, the 39-year-old actress and former “Gossip Girl“ star. The “Radical Joy” campaign, revealed on Thursday, shows Meester sampling Bubble products and pondering beauty routines, as well as an extended bit with a seal.
“We wanted to partner with somebody who is going to embody the brand, but we wanted somebody who also appeals to a different set of generations,” said Shai Eisenman, the brand’s founder and chief executive. “People judge us by our cover. They see the packaging, and they immediately assume that [the products] might not be super clinical. We wanted to break that barrier,” she said.
Bubble isn’t alone. Over the last decade, beauty brands have poured millions of dollars into their efforts to reach Gen Z. Deified as the saviours of the industry who could be reached and converted easily on social media to spend untold sums on multi-step routines of premium products, numerous companies have raced to win over the younger cohort. The problem is that Gen Z are now growing up.
The oldest in the cohort will turn 30 this year. Many youth-focussed brands use similar codes like bright packaging, playful product names and create products with instant textural appeal, like goopy primers, frothy milk toners and vivid face masks — essentially TikTok bait. But as Gen Z’s beauty preoccupations change from sensorial to serious skincare, and they age into “anti-ageing”, youthful brands have to find ways to adapt to find growth — or an exit.
There’s a clear playbook for some. On Sept. 9, Gen Z-oriented skincare line Byoma was acquired by investment firm Bansk Beauty for an undisclosed sum after reaching $500 million in sales since its inception three years ago. Starface, the trendy label best known for its acne patches, is attempting to create a new hero product and enter a new category with its $6.99 Star Balm. In August, Eisenman confirmed to The Business of Beauty that Bubble had hired an investment bank to weigh its future options. In addition to its new campaign, the brand is launching new products that are better suited to adult skin concerns, like a moisturising eye cream, and incorporating its clinical and dermatological claims on in-store displays and packaging.
Eisenman believes the brand’s best chance of mastering global expansion, ratcheting up sales and transcending into a household name is by growing its intergenerational appeal. “We want people to understand that [the brand can] be very pretty and fun and joyful from the outside, but be clinical and drive incredible results,” she said. It’s already on its way: the brand said while 23 percent of its customers are under 17, 19 percent are between 26-35 years old.
Louise Yems, founder of trends agency The Digital Fairy, said Meester’s casting was inspired, but that Bubble was up against a wider psychographic tension about what effective skincare looks like.
“There’s an element of snobbery [in beauty]. … Fundamentally it’s about play, but if brands don’t lean heavily into preservation and ritual, there’s a misconception that they’re not a quality, serious brand,” said Yems.
How to Grow Up With Gen Z
It’s not that Bubble doesn’t have older fans. The brand has broad popularity, as evidenced by fans in their mid-40s: “Bubble skincare just isn’t for teens. This stuff is amazing!” reads one comment on Reddit.
But somehow — perhaps by design — it’s been positioned for the youth, and no one else. Ulta Beauty hailed it in a “teens and tweens” edit in April, while Walmart previously billed it as designed for teenage and young skin on its website.
While the brand’s early marketing talked more about young skin, Eisenman said its true focus was on dermatologist recommendations, clinical efficacy and accessible pricing. Those factors, combined with the bright packaging and playful product names (Cloud Surf or Slam Dunk moisturisers, for example) helped retain a teen cohort.
“Some of our customers started engaging with the brand when they were 16,” said Eisenman. “They’re already in a very different stage of life at 21. Maybe their acne is a lot better, but now they need glow or hydration,” she said.
The brand was also minted in an age where a different brand aesthetic reigned supreme. Yems referred to it as the era of “dopamine beauty,” where brands like Starface as well as indie names like Squish Beauty and Byoma traded on their loud colour palettes, whimsical elements and more-is-more design. Some brands have been able to segue that into long-term success: Byoma’s use of simple, no-nonsense product names that clearly conveyed ingredient benefits helped it secure placement in taste-making retailers like the UK’s Space NK.
Convincing customers that they’ve not aged out of a brand, while also opening the aperture to other generations, is tricky from both a marketing and product development perspective, but Yems said Bubble’s idea of approaching skincare from a joyful standpoint might have wider resonance.
“There’s a way of communicating science in a way that still feels fun and joyful … without feeling that you’re going for something inferior because of that,” she said.
Fuelling Growth With Star Power
Tapping Meester will create some buzz in the short term, but may also help the brand attract a broader customer base. Eisenman said Bubble’s research suggests that she resonates with ages 13-40, and that she is associated with quality and premium goods — a halo effect from her stint as a spoiled Upper East sider in “Gossip Girl”.
Her appointment is also just pure nostalgia power. In May, L’Oréal-owned Lancôme tapped Meester’s “Gossip Girl” castmate Ed Westwick to promote its Juicy Tubes lip glosses, alongside other Y2K stars like the actors Mischa Barton and Chad Michael Murray. Harkening back to the mid-aughts, when the product was first at the peak of its popularity, worked for Lancôme, with Westwick’s spot becoming its most-engaged social media post of all time.
Still, communicating messages of efficacy, celebrity and positivity in one campaign is no mean feat. Eisenman said that overall, its goal is to communicate the message around skincare as an act of joy
In the full advert, Meester’s script references the brand as premium, luxe and potent, three descriptors that might surprise customers who first encountered the brand in Walmart.
But as Meester says to the camera, “Skincare doesn’t have to be so serious to seriously work. … It’s [a] pop of colour outside, a powerhouse formula inside.”
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