Fenty Beauty
Fenty Beauty launched in September 2017 with 40 foundation shades and seeded product to a deliberately wide range of creators before anyone could buy it — including dark-skinned creators the category had routinely ignored.
- Shades at launch
- 40
- Earned media value, month one
- ~$72M (modelled)
- Approach
- Pre-launch seeding
What happened
The seeding list and the product claim were the same argument. A brand claiming inclusive shade range cannot demonstrate it with a homogeneous creator roster; the roster is the evidence. Creators such as Jackie Aina, Nyma Tang and Alissa Ashley had built audiences precisely by testing whether brands’ deep shades were real, so their coverage functioned as verification rather than advertising.
Reported earned media value was approximately $72 million in the first month. Treat EMV as a directional indicator rather than a hard financial figure — it is a modelled estimate of what equivalent paid reach would have cost, and methodologies differ between vendors.
Campaign details
- Campaign
- Launch seeding
- Launched
- 2017
- Sector
- Beauty
- Platforms
- Instagram and YouTube
Creators involved
- Jackie Aina
- Nyma Tang
- Alissa Ashley
What to take from it
Choose creators who can verify your central claim, not just amplify it. If the claim is inclusivity, the roster is the proof.