Social Samosa takes a look at how FAE Beauty is using its social media to connect with GenZ by using their language and reflecting on their values in their communication.
At a time when makeup brands offered limited shades to its consumers, FAE Beauty launched its brown skin-friendly products. Free And Equal (FAE) aims at making space for all skin types and its marketing strategy revolves around normalising body hair, acne, skin pigmentation, and owning stereotypical labels that society puts on people.
Social Samosa dissects FAE Beauty’s social media strategy, which is a blend of quirk, minimalism, unfiltered beauty and transparency.
What’s in a name?
Launched in the year 2019 by Karishma Kewalramani, FAE has used their product names to make a statement.
Their first-ever digital campaign #nosuchthingas, which was followed by a product launch, talked about the different judgemental names like ‘Too Much’, ‘Too Dark’, ‘Too Basic’ and other comments that one often hears.
With this campaign, the brand aimed at bringing fore the idea that no one is truly ‘too much’ or ‘too dark’, but the essence of beauty lies in celebrating individuality. And to add the quirky bit, the brand named their lipsticks those exact judgemental names.
Their latest campaign, FAE Desi Drink Flavoured lip balms are inspired by the many flavours of desi drinks which coloured our childhood. Imitating the flavours of coconuts, chocolates and other fizzy drinks, the brand named the products in its usual witty way. The range of flavours included names like Noice Nimbu, Soda Paap, Real Nariyal and more.
The digital campaign used visually aesthetic colours and audio simulation along with hitting a nostalgic note.
FAE’s core values have revolved around celebrating humans in their true forms - without edits, filters or touch-ups. The brand’s core values are reflected in their social media conversations as well.
On a larger scale, the beauty industry has presented their products on ‘clean’, ‘unmarked’, often ‘fair’ and ‘natural’ skin. Contradicting this industry norm, FAE has portrayed individuals that are un-photoshopped, hairy, dark, and have acne, and skin conditions; basically humans in their real forms.
As a digital-first brand, FAE Beauty has gathered over 48K followers in a short span of time.
FAE’s digital formula is a palette of strategies that grab the audience's attention and make them stay for the visuals, audio and more. The brand uses a colour palette that is a combination of a range of pastels, electric pops and a lot of whites and greens which is also seen in their packaging.
Influencers at core
The beauty industry has seen a wave of ‘Clean beauty’ and ‘Minimal Makeup’ trends taking shape in recent years. With that in mind, the brand’s influencer reach also witnesses content creators who try to create visually pleasing audio and visual content.
FAE’s Instagram informs consumers about what they are buying, how to use it and what’s going on inside their products. Their posts explain the basics of skincare, instructions on how to use a product, educating the audience of makeup, and lastly, plugging in their hero products for better reach.
To win consumer trust, FAE also talks about their credibility frequently. With frequent reviews from users, the brand uses customer testimonials on social media.
The brand tries to connect better with their audience by showcasing the raw behind-the-scenes of how the brand operates, trying to be further more transparent.
Memes are the best way to connect with the youth today, and FAE isn’t leaving this stone unturned either. The brand shares relatable memes on makeup and skincare, sometimes using their own employees to create satirical comedy and more to better build a bridge between the audience and the brand.
FAE beauty is using their platform to voice the Gen-Z way of choosing to use or not use makeup, either to express their emotions or just simply to feel good. The brand is trying to strike down the 'hyper-feminine' walls that the beauty industry has created for decades and is trying to serve the audience a gender-neutral, colour-inclusive, authentic; and a free and equal brand.
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