Maybelline is leveraging Pinterest to reach Gen Z makeup fans

Though Pinterest was once known as a platform solely for creating visually pleasing mood boards, the platform has evolved into one of the biggest search and discovery engines. And with the shopping and ad features added in 2020, it has quickly attracted an even larger audience, especially younger consumers. According to Pinterest data from May, Gen Z is its fastest-growing audience, making up more than 40% of Pinterest’s global monthly users.

Pinterest’s newer advertising capabilities have also created a prime opportunity for brands. Since 2014, L’Oréal USA has worked with Pinterest on a handful of content marketing initiatives, and in recent years that partnership has expanded into new territory — L’Oréal has been teaming with the platform to help it launch new features. In 2021, L’Oréal tapped over 20 Pinterest creators to create branded content for seven of L’Oréal’s personal care brands. The campaign was tied to Pinterest’s newly launched Idea Pins feature, which allows creators to produce interactive, short-form videos to engage consumers and educate them on trends and products. The impact of that partnership resulted in increased traffic, sales and earned media value for its brands, particularly Maybelline.

“As an enormous makeup brand, we know that Pinterest is the place where the Gen Z consumer, especially, will go to find makeup trends,” Maybelline CMO Jessie Feinstein told Glossy. “As we dug into the data, we saw that 48% of Maybelline’s engaged audience on Pinterest is Gen Z. Although we represent all [consumers], we’re always trying to target new audiences, and Pinterest is that location where we found that most [consumers] engaged with our content.”

Earlier this year, Maybelline worked with Pinterest to run a homepage takeover on Pinterest, which included a static ad on the homepage and sponsored searches. Then, during the back-to-school season, Maybelline teamed with Pinterest again to roll out the platform’s Collages Remixes, a revamped advertising initiative allowing creators to build on and use existing collages. Maybelline tapped Gregory Littley, digital strategist and founder of inclusive beauty brand Parde Beauty, as one of the lead content creators to build the collages for the campaign. “Anytime a company or a brand is willing to [lean in and work with creators who have expertise], you’re going to see an impact. A lot of Maybelline’s success from the [back-to-school campaign] had a lot to do with that,” Littley said.

To Littley’s point, the campaign, which kicked off in August, had an engagement rate of over 5x both the brand’s average and the platform’s average across beauty brands, according to Pinterest. What’s more, since the campaign’s launch, Pinterest searches for “maybelline” have increased 32% year-over-year, with half of these searches coming from Gen Z. 

“[Maybelline] is great about wanting to push the boundaries and [explore] new, interesting ways to engage with their consumer,” said Rachel Goodman, head of luxury and beauty partnerships at Pinterest. “The [longstanding] partnership is rooted in that experimentation with Pinterest’s newest advertising features, leaning into trends to engage with audiences like Gen Z and bringing big moments to life.”

This month, Maybelline and Pinterest are once again working together on an exclusive marketing partnership tied to Halloween. In early October, Pinterest rolled out a trend report with Maybelline as its exclusive partner. Through the partnership, Pinterest released data that revealed the most-searched-for terms during the Halloween season, while Maybelline had sole brand inclusion in the trend report. Maybelline also received early access to the data to leverage the trends and create content with its paid creators to live on the platform.

“Halloween is also the No. 1 makeup holiday, so we wanted to own that No. 1 makeup moment where people are looking for inspiration. It’s a holiday where that starts with research,” Feinstein said. The content will primarily consist of Halloween content tutorials and will be shared on Pinterest first. The paid creators will also share their looks on other social media platforms, but they’ll be inspired by the findings from the Pinterest trend report.

Moving forward, Feinstein said Maybelline with prioritize its relationship with Pinterest. “We want to continue to utilize Pinterest as a key social partner. … Consumers spend more time actively on that platform. It’s the first place we know where consumers go [for search], and it’s the first place we know that Gen Z goes to get the look for a holiday.”

According to L’Oréal’s half-year 2024 results, released in July, the company sales were €22.12 billion ($23.96 billion), up 7.3% from the same quarter a year prior. Its consumer products recorded single-digit sales growth, driven by L’Oréal Paris and Maybelline New York, the company shared.