US hair care brand L’ange has signed a two-year partnership with the Florida Panthers and joined a growing cohort of beauty and personal care brands connecting with consumers through professional sports platforms.
For example, within the last few months, brands like Garnier have recently broken into e-sports marketing, and Nutrafol has partnered with MLB.
Women’s basketball, Olympic swimming, and even Formula One racing have all announced partnerships with cosmetics and personal care brands in recent years, pointing towards a growing overlap between sports fans and beauty lovers.
A faceoff with traditional beauty marketing strategies
L’ange’s strategic decision to collaborate with the Florida Panthers reflects industry stakeholders’ growing interest in integrating into the fabric of consumers’ daily lives.
“This partnership is a strategic maneuver to shift the L’ange brand narrative from a purely functional ‘beauty’ label to an aspirational ‘lifestyle and cultural’ brand,” Shamila Byler, VP of marketing at Integra Beauty, the brand incubator behind L’ange, told CosmeticsDesign. “We were prompted by the recognition that modern beauty consumers connect with brands that are present in their everyday lives and passions, not just in their vanity.”
Byler explains that live sports environments offer a refreshingly different type of brand exposure than more traditional social media or brick-and-mortar-led campaigns.
“Sports offer an authentic, high-emotion setting for this,” she said. “Shifting from digital-only to shared experiences through sports demonstrates that L’ange is a brand that actively supports, celebrates and is part of the local community culture.”
The rise of the female fan
The company pointed to data around female NHL fandom as a factor in selecting professional hockey as a marketing platform, particularly in South Florida. According to market research from Statista, a January 2024 survey reported 34% of hockey fans were female, which is a dramatic increase from 11% reported by the NHL in 2016.
“Our decision was grounded in proprietary consumer research and league-level data indicating a significant and growing segment of highly engaged female fans,” Byler said. “These fans are often the primary purchasing decision-makers in their households and view game attendance as a social, lifestyle event.”
L’ange plans to leverage the partnership to monitor and test live product interaction in controlled environments rather than relying solely on awareness-driven media placements.
“Our presence in these environments is about value creation,” Byler added. “That includes sponsoring styling bars, creating fan experiences and ensuring our product is seen as a performance staple for everyone from the dance team to the fans in the stands.”
Pressures of live activations
Byler said that activating in sports and performance settings places different demands on product development and operations than conventional beauty marketing, including the introduction of “critical operational and formulation demands that traditional beauty marketing often overlooks.”
For example, she illustrated, “our hair tools and products must demonstrate reliability against high humidity, rapid temperature changes, perspiration and the physical demands of performers.”
She noted that these use cases require expanded testing protocols “beyond standard consumer-use scenarios,” and operational flexibility “capable of producing and kitting specialized products for rapid distribution to large groups.”
Customization and on-site readiness are also part of the equation, she added.
Experiential ROI measured through mixed metrics
According to L’ange, the company is using a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures to evaluate the impact of the partnership.
“We utilize a blended, multi-metric approach for experiential ROI, moving beyond simple cost-per-impression,” Byler said. “We monitor brand impact and sentiment through our marketing tools to measure effectiveness from a conversation and brand lift standpoint.”
The company also tracks regional performance tied to activation timing.
“We track event attendance, code usage, and any UGC [user generated content] generated from experiential activations,” she added. “We also use geo-fencing and data aggregation to correlate sales spikes within the regional market following major activation events.”
Purpose-led programming tied to longer-term brand equity
Women’s Empowerment Night is expected to be one of the most visible activations tied to the partnership, with L’ange participating alongside the team in programming focused on leadership and community recognition. “Authenticity in purpose-driven initiatives is maintained by ensuring a genuine, tangible link between L’ange’s core values and the cause,” Byler said. “For Women’s Empowerment Night, we ensure the event involves more than just a logo.”
She said the company views these initiatives as longer-term brand investments rather than immediate sales drivers. “Commercial objectives are met not by aggressively selling at the event, but by building brand equity and loyalty,” Byler added. “The event creates a powerful, positive memory of the brand, making future purchases a values-aligned choice.”
Moving forward, Byler predicts that “sports partnerships are the blueprint for the future of beauty marketing, moving it into an experience-first, performance-verified space,” she said.
As a result, suppliers may see increased demand for endurance-focused formulations and agile production capabilities. “There will be a rising demand for products formulated for both endurance and immediate results,” Byler said. “Manufacturers need agile production lines that can support rapid, small-batch, co-branded runs.”
