🎨 Rhode, a viral beauty brand known for its sellout products — was sold to Elf Beauty for 1 Billion dollars by founder Hailey Beiber.
✍️ Question for us all: Is lifestyle a good indicator to a brand’s success?
🎨 Rhode, a viral beauty brand known for its sellout products — was sold to Elf Beauty for 1 Billion dollars by founder Hailey Beiber. Prior to the acquisition, Rhode was a subsidiary of the HRBeauty LLC which was founded in 2021. However, the brand itself has developed into something that echoed sneaker culture. Elf Beauty CEO, Tarang Amin, said Rhode customers camp overnight for a pop-up and wait 14 hours not just for the product “but to buy into the entire lifestyle of the brand.”
So let’s talk about brand lifestyle.
📡 Branding is the disciplined process of developing awareness, attracting new customers, and extending customer loyalty. All three are attached to lifestyle and how you market that lifestyle determines the niche and the customer value you attract.
☯️ Despite Rhode’s acquisition the brand remains true to its essence — maintaining a separate and unique identity from its acquiring brand while co-existing within the same ecosystem. It’s a similar principle when Clorox acquired Hidden Valley — you never see any Clorox logos on a Hidden Valley product. It would be unpleasant to see and just plain poor brand representation when bleach and disinfectant is associated with food dressing. As of this writing, Rhode has not been included in Elf Beauty’s website. That’s either because of the recency of the acquisition or a marketing strategy.
So let’s do a quick Brand Audit.
🧝🏻♀️ The Elf Beauty brand language speaks of being bold, spearheading resistance and becoming a pioneer. A lifestyle that speaks to youth — a phase in our life when we dared to oppose.
💎 The Rhode brand foundation has “Simplicity. Affordability. Authenticity. Quality. Transparency” in its core. The brand ethos that was envisioned and carefully developed by founder Hailey Rhode Beiber. They thrive in minimalism and are committed to minimal footprint; However, the most important thing I discovered in my brand audit is that they explicitly mention minimal releases as part of their marketing strategy.6 And based on my own experience, this is the best way to build FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). This gives us a valuable insight to Tarang Amin’s statement about Rhode’s line-up culture and craze. They fear missing out on this limited release.
So the million-dollar question is: how did Rhode build their brand lifestyle?
Hailey and the Rhode marketing team did a great job.
👏 From strategy development to visual execution — the founder’s vision is well-represented in the brand’s culture. Customers are willing to go above and beyond to acquire the latest product and effectively grow a community of millions of followers across all socials.
💵 My assessment of their strategy is based on their heavy investment on social media marketing. The art of going viral. Strategic partnerships that lead to explosive brand awareness. By teaming up with fashion icons, social media influencers, and pop-culture stars Rhode is able to tap into the Gen Z marketing and build a diverse culture of loyal followers.
🔋 By looking closely at their line-up of stars and their social power we can already see their preamble to success. Hailey Beiber with 55M7, Tate McRae8 7M, Yoon Young Bae 322K3, Anyier Anei 14.7K2, Shannon Zhao 39K4, Yoonji Bae 64.1K5. All of which are based on 2025 partnerships solely sourced across Instagram.
⚙️ Their social feed uses UGC (User Generated Content) as the main source of content. A great way to tap into a diverse wave of audiences that traditional marketing techniques wouldn’t have access to. Adding in a good mix of in-house content with aesthetics that were visually tailored for the brand. This is their secret recipe to achieving cultural relevance. Something local brands can easily adopt.
Hailey and the Rhode marketing team did a great job.
👌 To close, lifestyle is the key to tapping into the Gen Z market. Their attachment and fondness of developing real connection is the source of this frenzy. Seeking connection digitally with content that are organic and filled with life: personable people, relatable problems, and easy-to-make things — IS Gen Z culture. The social media era has changed what was once Television power into social influence.
🚪 So if you are a brand today. Develop your social media presence and tap into the culture now before they age and mature and move forward to the next shiny thing. Your investment in social media will be worth it. And yes, to answer our opening question: Yes, lifestyle is a good indicator of a thriving brand. ✌️
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Image courtesy of Www.rhodeskin.com
