Amazon Prime Day 2023, Fenty Beauty's Shade Matching, and Nostalgia for Barbie

Welcome back to HotToks. This edition we report on Amazon's Prime Day 2023, a new shade matching filter for Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, and the cultural movement that is Barbie.

Amazon Prime Day 2023 Racks in Sales on TikTok

We’ve just passed a National Holiday here. No, not Barbenheimer. I mean Prime Day 2023. But this year is unlike any other. TikTok partnered with Amazon to launch a game show to share Prime Day deals and get consumers to add to cart.

Every year, Amazon Prime Day rakes in billions of dollars (this year’s sales reached $12.7B, up from $11.9B last year). And especially this year, with “little treat culture” in full swing, the stage has been set perfectly for Amazon’s Prime Day to flourish. With more than 36M views on the platform, “Little treat culture” is a form of self-care, as it’s described on TikTok, to spend on everyday, inexpensive purchases to give them a serotonin boost during stressful times. 

For this year’s Prime Day, Amazon created a first-of-its-kind interactive live-stream shopping experience called “Duel for Deals” to make livestream shopping more interactive. This virtual event engaged multiple well-known influencers, like Alix Earle and Jake Shane, to play various games and have the viewers work together in the chat to uncover Amazon deals. By partnering with TikTok for this huge shopping moment, Amazon could meet consumers where they are and drive awareness of Amazon Prime Day deals without consumers having to leave the TikTok app.

Although many viewers and consumers on the TikTok app have said that this was a “weird livestream” and virtual experience (“amazon prime day game show” has over 44M views), there is no doubt that this Amazon-TikTok collab is paving the way for more creative brand activations to drive sales in the realm of e-commerce marketing.

Fenty Beauty Shade Matching Filter

Badgalriri never misses; this time, she is changing the beauty x social media game by being the first (ever!) to drop a shade-matching filter on TikTok. As we know, finding the correct foundation shade can be daunting, and it is quite a drag of a process. Often involving multiple visits to Sephora, shade matching is almost like a delicate dance (tanned shade vs. untanned shade, hues, tone-matching, etc.), the intricacies of it all, amirite.

But, thanks to Fenty Beauty, we have found a way to combat the fear of shade-matching with this #ShadeMatching filter on TikTok. Perfectly on brand, as Fenty Beauty is known for their highly diverse shade range, this shade-matching filter can help users visualize the foundation shade on your skin tone to find the best color. 

The user can choose a shade range (including light, light-medium, medium, medium-deep, and deep), and the filter will then bring up the shades in that range for the user to try. After choosing the shade, the filter will bring the color to the face, and then the user can decide how it matches their skin tone. With this tool being a game-changer for the beauty world, Fenty Beauty (and Rihanna) is upping the ante for other beauty brands to be more innovative on social media.

See the Fenty Beauty #ShadeMatching TikTok filter for yourself here.

The Cultural Movement that is Barbie: Nostalgia Wins Again

Since the debut of the famous doll in 1959, it’s been a worldwide phenomenon, recognizable across all generations of consumers and all over media. First, some accolades: the film is rumored to have a budget of about $100M, making Greta Gerwig one of a few women to direct a film with a budget this big (and she also made history this weekend as Barbie outperforms box office expectations at $377M, making her the first woman to do so).

All of the movie marketing magic we’ve worked up to from before the release of the movie (the Crocs collab, the AD YouTube walkthrough of the Barbie Dreamhouse, the Airbnb hosted by “Ken” that was open to the public -- which one’s your favorite?).

Let’s not forget the opportunity to change up Barbie’s image, which, for a long time, was just a ditzy blonde (the term “barbie” was often used to refer to an attractive woman lacking substance) with a “feminist film” as Greta calls it, really set the movie up for success. 

In a conversation with Director Greta Gerwig and Actress/Producer Margot Robbie, we get a glimpse of their intention to pay homage to the legacy of Barbie and what Barbie means to the world, while still balancing that with a more culturally and socially relevant conversation that answers what the world needs today.

The movie has also given birth to a variety of TikTok trends: #barbiecore has over 695M views on TikTok, the Cold Stone collab with Barbie goes viral on TikTok with men turning into Barbies after drinking the shake (#barbieshake has over 34M views on the platform), and even Margot Robbie’s feet from the trailer is going viral via a “Barbie Feet Challenge” which has over 56M views on TikTok. And behind all of this is an irresistible story of a doll, which not only drives the element of nostalgia (which lends itself well to TikTok), but also gives long-time Barbie fans a real-life glimpse of what Barbie would be like as a person, which only added to the success of the film. 

We can go on and on, but to fully grasp this cultural movement that is the Barbie movie, you would need to do a deep dive of your own, because we are literally overwhelmed (in a good way) by the sheer amount of planning, depth, and beauty in the delivery of this film, that we are still processing all of it. You can check in on us here.

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Thanks for reading!

Viv

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