Female Millennial Update Opps: Glossier scores new funding following CMO promotion (Score 79)

Update: Glossier recently secured $80m in a Series E funding round. The company is reportedly now valued at around $1.8b. It will use these funds to continue building its business, so we may see Glossier increase its ad budget in the near future. The company also announced it will begin reopening its stores in August after closing during the pandemic. Additionally, it is opening new stores in Seattle and Los Angeles, which could lead to more local ad spend. 

Please refer to the article below for spend and targeting information.

Agency & martech readers-- Keep reaching out to the new CMO to pitch your services. The extra funding makes it more likely that Glossier may outsource some marketing duties to an agency. I recommend offering PR/communication assistance and to focus your pitches on helping Glossier build brand awareness. 

The original article was published on June 10th:

Glossier created a new position by promoting Ali Weiss to CMO. Weiss joined the company in 2015 as marketing director and was promoted to marketing SVP in 2017. As CMO, her primary goal will be to reach new audiences. Weiss will also be responsible for creating in-house marketing campaigns. This comes just a few months after the company appointed its first brand VP Kleo Mack. 

According to Pathmatics, Glossier earned 639.2m impressions YTD through desktop video ads (33%), desktop display ads (30%), Instagram ads (17%), mobile display ads (8%), mobile video (6%), Facebook ads (5%) and Twitter ads (1%). It placed the majority (80%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as youtube.com, instagram.com, facebook.com, drugs.com and medicalnewstoday.com. It placed the remainder (20%) through a variety of indirect channels onto sites such as people.com, healthline.com, hollywoodlife.com, tmz.com and usmagazine.com. It spent around $5.4m on digital display ads YTD, a 72% jump from $1.5m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend increased 63% from $4m in 2019 to $6.5m in 2020.

Magellan estimates Glossier placed about 50 podcast ads over the last year. 

 iSpot reports the company made its foray into national TV in late March 2021; since then, it has spent approximately $233k this channel. Its 2021 commercials have targeted millennial women viewing programs such as The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Modern Family, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Married to Medicine and Summer House.

Sellers-- Glossier seems to mainly be targeting millennial women. It most likely targets Gen-Zers as well. It has been increasing digital spend for a couple of year, but it has really ramped up spend so far this year. It also invests in OOH, print and radio ads, per Kantar. Sellers should reach out offering relevant ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- Start reaching out soon to be top-of-mind with the new CMO. We believe Glossier does not work with any outside agencies and has an in-house creative team. The most common first agency appointment are normally PR or communication shops, so you might consider offering those services.