NaliNi Prasad

B.a. (jourNalism)
2 Nd year
advertisiNg aNd PuBlic
relatioNs
iNtroductioN

The history of cosmetics takes us back to 10,000 B.C. spanning at least 6000 years in the
human history. People's purpose of using cosmetics was just the same, to make them more
beautiful and attractive. Therefore, the cosmetics are important to people, especially for
women. Ancient Egyptians believed in looking good and smelling good, because of their old
expression which is "cleanliness is next to Godliness'. Therefore, they needed to find ways so
that they can make themselves look presentable. Thus, cosmetics were one of those things.
Egyptian women used to apply black or dark gray to their lashes and upper eyelids, not just
to look good but because of spiritual beliefs, the dark colours were designed not just
enhance their appearance but also ward off evil eyes.

World War 1 had a significant impact on the reach of cosmetics, due to sudden absence of
American society, women gained more independence in late 1910s, socially and financially.
This enabled them to acquire a disposable income, by which many working women used to
buy make-up. Thus, the cosmetics industry grew rapidly during the 1920's. Advertising also
helped in splurging the industry.

Even though L'Oreal/Maybelline is a western company, but its advertisements successfully

adjust to taste of Asian countries like China and India. We can observe loyal customers in the
markets for the product as well irrespective of age. As a brand Maybelline New York is
popular from catwalk to the sidewalk, with ideals to empower women, explore their looks
and come up with their creativity and individuality. Maybelline is product which has
scientifically-advanced formulas, trendsetting colours, and revolutionary shades with the
quality to make you look at affordable price.
Maybelline: History

Maybelline is an American make-up brand which is sold worldwide and owned by French
cosmetics company, L'Oreal. The man behind in setting up the company was Tom Lyle Williams
who was a 19 year old entrepreneur in 1915. Williams noticed his sister Mabel applying a
mixture of Vaseline and coal dust to her lashes to give them a darker and fuller look. He adapted
the idea in his small laboratory and produced a product which was sold locally as ‘Lash-Brow-
Ine’. No doubt the product was a local hit, but the awkward name held back the product. The
legendary status in cosmetics industry gained by Maybelline has a story in which T.L. Williams
named his product as Maybelline because of her younger sister, ‘Maybell’ and Vaseline. In 1917
the company came up with Maybelline Cake Mascara, which was the first modern eye cosmetic
for everyday purpose. And later in 1960s, Ultra lash to make lashes look fuller, curvy and longer.

For almost every Asian girl’s life, short stumpy lashes are bane. They tend to point downwards
and smudge your mascara, they lack drama what foreign women’s winged wonders. Maybelline
was generally centered towards eye make-up products till 1960’s and later after acquisition, they
came up with various beauty products like pan cake, lipsticks and nail colours.

During 1960’s using eye make-up was also controversial, because of the usage and depiction of
eye make-up by actors in various films. Earlier eye make-up was just done for the negative role in
the movie so to give the character bad and evil look. This also affected the sales of Maybelline
which mainly popular of their eye make make-up. And this allowed Maybelline to grow widely.
After acquisition by L’Oreal, the brand was no0t just producing eye make-up but other cosmetics
like nail paints, lipsticks and pan cakes. And all of this made Maybelline to renovate their
products and introduce products which will not just restrict any particular group or age but adds
variety to everyone make-up cases.

Maybelline brands were carried by major Chinese mass-market retailer, according to the
company’s website, reflecting the company’s commitment to bring beauty to women of all
incomes and cultures. They leveraged its relationship with L’Oreal and capitalized, that was a
trendsetting move by the company in comparison to latter reputation. Even now, it tries to
appeal to the mass market by offering wide variety of quality cosmetics at competitive prices.
Maybelline created its products in a simple and authentic way and concentrate on eye make-up
basically.
Maybelline’s brand is to give women a unique kind of New York Style to achieve their personal
best. Maybelline’s mission for beauty states that, there are no universal standards of beauty and
every woman has got her own it, which makes her beautiful, unique and special. Maybelline
celebrates woman spirit of individuality, and encourage her to pursue her dreams with
confidence and style.

advertising booMed
sales

There is no wrong in saying for every product in market; if one needs to promote a product it
need to be introduced to audience via mass medium. The strategy of advertising was a new
concept by then, and generally promotion was done via posters or magazine advertisements.
Maybelline used the same strategy to promote their range of products to the customers during
latter 1920’s as well. The packaging and image construction was done in such a way that one can
receive the idea behind the product and she accepts that product not just as an essential for
parties but for daily purpose as well. And Maybelline was not surviving in a monopoly market, as
there was wide variety of other cosmetics like Avon, Pancakes etc. but still due to its specific
product range in 1930’s it was a must for every women. Later Maybelline received a boost when
the company hired Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter as the company’s beauty fashion
coordinator. She was also featured in various television and print advertisements. The current
faces of Maybelline are Erin Wasson Kemp Muhl, Lisa Montenegro,Julia Stengner, Christy
Turlington, Jessica White and Shu Pei. For Indian market they came up with Alia Bhatt as their
brand ambassador. They have a larger audience for their products. Maybelline not only
specializes in eye cosmetics but it has excelled in various other unconventional products like
liquid mousse for facial skin, gel liner and baby lips balm range.

For their eye cosmetics range named ‘Colossal’ they are very popular. Maybelline was
considered as first company to introduce the phenomenon of 8 hours smudge free kajal which is
waterproof. Later this concept was used by Lakme as Iconic kajal with 10 hour of application and
smudge free. Colossal also includes extra curly and volume based mascara too. The emphasis
over words like ‘extra dark’ and ‘smudge free’ was the keyword for the advertisement. They lay
upon best advertising strategy and taglines. “Maybe she's born with it, maybe its
Maybelline.”

The social media outreach by Maybelline is also phenomenal where they use hashtag which
are catchy and appropriate which attracted more attention of the readers and user
generated conversation content led to high engagement rate. Digital and outdoor campaigns
were also synchronized with uniformity. Use of Blogger outreach to review the products was
a good idea since word of mouth gained maximum publicity for Maybelline. ‘Persone’
California based advertising agency who head the online strategy for marketing and
advertising Maybelline. ‘The kiss song’ featuring Alia Bhatt and crowd sourced kisses for
Maybelline Baby Lip Balm range was also swanking as they came with the idea to indulge the
customers all together, which came out as a brilliant advertising campaign. And their ‘Lip
polish’ which is the new lip color balm created is hype among people to use it as a balm or
as a gloss as it works for both purposes.

ConClusion

We understood Maybelline as a brand gone through various ups and downs. History behind
every brand always has some inspiration, so does Maybelline. As a brand Maybelline is for
the trendy, innovative and infused with New York energy. It is world’s no. 1 cosmetic brand.
Maybelline New York was created in 1991, and from then the brand was made accessible to
every woman and empowers women worldwide to make the most of their unique beauty
potential. It has a mod qualities and racy packaging and advertising as a whole which is a
reason behind the great success of the brand in various countries. It caters now wide variety
of cosmetics like eye, facial, nail color and lipsticks etc.