Celebrity beauty brands exceed $1bn in sales in 2023, says NIQ report
According to a recent market research report release by NIQ, celebrity beauty brands have steadily increased in sales, growing by 57.8% from $691.5bn in 2022 to $1,091.1bn in 2023. This growth comes despite the slowdown of celebrity brand launches, which has decreased from their peak of nineteen launches in 2021 to six launches as of November 2023.
CosmeticsDesign spoke to Anna Mayo, VP Beauty Vertical at NIQ for her insights about celebrity beauty brand trends, including the report’s most compelling takeaways, the forecasted trajectory of celebrity beauty brands in 2024 and beyond. Mayo also discussed essential considerations for cosmetics and personal care product manufacturers and suppliers looking to work with celebrity beauty brands.
Report methodology & current celeb beauty consumer profile
To compile the data used in the report’s analysis and determinations, “the NIQ team is constantly monitoring the beauty market to keep a pulse on the latest launches in celebrity beauty,” Mayo said. From there, “we then pull sales for our brand list from NIQ's Omnishopper database, which measures the Full View of beauty sales, including online and in-store, across mass, premium, and direct-to-consumer brands,” she explained.
The report tracked the performance of multiple celebrity beauty brands, including Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Jennifer Lopez’s JLO Beauty, and Rihanna’s Fenty Skin. From its analysis, the report sought to create an avatar of the celebrity beauty consumer, determining that on average, “celeb beauty buyers spend $1,003.64 per year on beauty, or 1.25 times the average buyer.”
Further, the report revealed that celebrity beauty brands are a growing segment in the beauty industry, with 20.7m households purchasing celeb beauty products, which is an increase of 21.9% over the last year.
Additionally, the report evaluated the demographics of the current average celebrity beauty buyer, finding that they are younger to middle aged consumers between the ages of 18 and 44 and come from diverse households, including black/African American, Hispanic, and Asian ethnicities.
Further, the average celeb beauty consumer comes from a mid-to-larger size household of three members or more, with the average age of children present in the household ranging between 13 and 17 years old. Finally, these high-income households are typically located in the Pacific and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, the report stated.
Key report takeaways and more
Among the report’s key findings was that “celebrity beauty brands have made a real impact on the industry, dominating much of brand innovation over the past few years,” said Mayo.
With the highest sales concentration of celebrity beauty brands firmly in the cosmetics and nail and fragrance categories with 2.9% market share each respectively, brands like Ariana Grande Fragrance and Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty have grown “to be mainstays in the US Beauty industry; the brands which are showing the most promise are not only delivering excellent product performance, but they are also coming from an authentic place,” Mayo explained.
Compared to the rest of the beauty market, which is growing at an annual rate of 11.1%, the growth rate of 57.8% for celebrity brands has been impressive, Mayo continued. Moving forward, “while we project continued growth for celebrity brands as a whole, not every brand is going to be a success story,” she said, adding that “2024 will likely be the year when the successes separate from the brands that haven't quite hit the mark.”
Currently, “we are seeing that 63% of the celebrity brands that we are tracking are seeing growth, while 37% are declining,” she explained. Therefore, “we expect to see increased distribution and sales growth for those brands who have forged a strong connection with consumers and have developed excellent products.”
Leveraging report findings in future celeb brand collaborations
For cosmetics and personal care product manufacturers and suppliers looking to establish or maintain relationships with celebrity beauty brands in the coming months and years, “creating a 'celebrity' beauty brand is about much more than just putting a founder's name on a product and expecting it to sell,” said Mayo.
“It's critical that the brand has a compelling back story and reason for being that connects with its consumer base,” she shared, and “launching a celebrity beauty brand is not that different from any other brand launch - you just get the added benefit of name recognition and a built-in fan base which can be hugely helpful,” Mayo stated.
Though celebrity brands are subject to the effects of consumer fatigue, it is authenticity that is the key determining factor for a brand’s success in the current market as “the onus is on celebrities to now work a bit harder to prove why their brand is important and what is means to them.”
