by Alexandra Charbonné and Arnaud Caplier
From skincare to self-care
In case you missed Part 1, click here
Since beauty brands will also have to deal with the impact of COVID-19 in 2021, it would be useful to identify the visual trends that have worked well during such a critical period. With less need to make themselves up in the morning, lockdown beauty consumers focused on self-care, diminishing the gap between beauty and well-being.
TheContillery’s technology helps beauty brands start the new year with some insight about trends boosted by COVID-19.
COVID-19 crisis reinforces the bridge between beauty and self-care
2020 was a challenging year for the beauty industry. The worldwide pandemic and lockdowns pushed brands to step out of their comfort zone and find an innovative way to talk to their audience. Thanks to that, 2020 was the year of the emergence of new powerful codes. For audiences and potential consumers all around the world, beauty products were more than ever a matter of self-care. A strong indicator of this shift is the sudden rise of the “pampering” visual code: It has become exponentially engaging in 2020, especially in the second half of the year.
2020 seemed to be a year where, more so than before the pandemic, beauty can be part of your lifestyle and self-care routine. With lockdown, beauty was about well-being this year: Warm colors, soft lights and shadows, cocooning atmospheres were exceptionally engaging in 2020. Indeed, pampering was not the only code to perform well: interior, bathroom and lifestyle were quite good visual codes to rely on too.
They were also a smart way to bypass the lockdown issue by enabling to photoshoot at home instead of studios.
As an illustration, the bathroom-visual engagement rate was multiplied by 2 between 2019 and 2020. In the same way, the 1st-tier engaging lifestyle visual rate reached a +172% vs. average against +93% the previous year.
Lockdown boosted application visual content
As seen with the emergence of the pampering trend, 2020 was about self-care and it is also true with make-up products. With their call for appropriation and creativity, visual content showing make-up application was stronger than ever, with four types of product reaching +80% of more engagement comparing to the average, as shown in the figure below.
Lockdown, home working, masks, have challenged beauty brands in how they can communicate about makeup. Application was a smart way to explore the creative potential.
We hope that we will put the pandemic and its struggles behind us in 2021, but staying in TheContillery loop watching this space would be our best recommendation for the first quarter of the year. In case of a third wave of the pandemic, beauty brands, from indies to luxury, should not hesitate to rely on the pampering, cocooning visual codes in order to maintain engagement with their audience.
Are the well-being vibes of pampering here to stay or will outdoor visual content rise as a celebration of the end of the pandemic?
TheContillery cannot wait to study 2021 data… to keep you on trend with unprecedented visibility to plan your future campaigns.
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