Glossier : en fallstudie

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to provide the reader with knowledge of how the beauty industry is affected by digitalization, especially concerning marketing strategies and consumption practices. This thesis performs a case study of the company Glossier in order to examine what strategies they use to market and sell their products. Glossier launched in 2014 as an ecommerce based beauty company. This thesis questions how Glossier tackles problems selling beauty products online, with the possibility that consumers have not tried the product yet. Furthermore discussing Glossiers work with user generated content. Lastly the study will analyze how Glossier uses digital tools to market them self’s online. In order to provide the reader with sufficient background information of the beauty industry a brief historical overview is presented, followed by previously performed research regarding the subject. Furthermore, theoretical perspectives are presented which include prosumers, charismatic capitalism and Online-to-Offline (O2O) marketing to analyze Glossiers work in today’s society, followed by a presentation of the empirical results. The study examines these questions regarding the empirical material that has been collected through a case study and a netnografic method. The empirical material consists of prerecorded interviews with Glossier employees Emily Weiss and Ali Weiss, news articles, blog posts, Instagram posts and lastly a field study of a Glossier store. In order to further analyze the findings a qualitative analysis method has been implemented. The study discovers connections between the theoretical perspectives and Glossiers work. Glossier is aware of the hinders of selling cosmetic products online, they therefore have product reviews on their website and are working with physical stores as an opportunity for the consumers to try the products and to create brand experiences for costumers. Additional user generated content is shown to be the most prominent part of how Glossier is using digital tools to market itself. The study shows that the beauty industry has been affected by digitalization through digital tools that constitutes effective ways to connect with consumers. However, the physical experience is still important.