Intro
So, what are you doing with your life?
Apparently, you’re happy. Whether that’s the motivation for this post is up to you.
I’m going to tell you what I do, what I know and why I do it. If that clicks with you, then great. If not, no worries! You could always move on to something else entirely…
A Little Background
I’m a big fan of Too Faced, the online cosmetics retail site, since they have an amazing range of products and a great reputation for quality. I’ve reviewed their entire range (I gave them an A+ in New Beauty Under $50) and considered buying quite a few of them myself.
One thing I love about Too Faced is that they have a huge product line that is almost entirely made up of palettes — not just eyeshadow but also blush, lipstick and bronzer — but unlike other online beauty retailers they don’t focus on one product line only. In fact there are 10 or so different ones!
Which makes the website extremely convenient for shoppers to browse and make comparisons between different colours, finishes and formulas.
What some people don’t know is that this is a huge advantage for them (especially if their eyes are already getting tired from reading). As someone who takes a lot of photos from stores, I always find it nice to be able to see what other products look like or compare with my own favourite palettes (perhaps because these things involve me shopping).
However, as soon as you start comparing products on your own instead of via the site, you realize that there are some serious limitations:
• You can only compare between products within the same category – i.e. ‘blush’ doesn’t mean ‘blushes with pink-brown undertones and small gold specks in them’ nor does it mean ‘blushes with warm-toned pinks’ nor does it mean ‘blushes with rosy pink tones’ – hence the need to go into each product category separately • You can only compare against pre-made colours – i.e. if you want to look at blushes that have been swatched on your arm or against what your favourite makeup brand has done – you can’t do this directly. You’d need to buy another palette or buy pigments from smaller brands where packaging may be more limited • You can’t see the formulas aka how much pigment is in each colour – hence why it’s important to know what your budget is before buying any palettes • You can’t compare shades against each other directly either – since they’re all different shades they’ll look very different when compared side by side • You cannot use your own photos as swatches either since this will likely be wildly unrepresentative based
Packaging
Ever since the launch of Too Faced’s “Pumpkin Spice” palette, I’ve been a fan. I think the tone of the product is spot on and the colors are so vibrant and, dare I say it, festive. As a result, there was a huge reaction to that launch – people were quick to make their own versions (either as a one-off or part of an ongoing series) and there were also tons of tutorials and tips for how to use this palette in every conceivable way.
While I am sure that no one at Too Faced has seen this list for any other reason than to see what all the fuss is about, I thought it would be fun to do just that:
• Decorate your bedroom with these colors!
• Tie your hair up with these colors!
• Paint your nails with these colors!
This post was inspired by my friend Jeanne Crosby who created a video titled “How To Do These Colors With A Pumpkin Spice Palette”: http://vimeo.com/14170522
If you have any questions or comments on this post or anything else related to marketing, please feel free to leave them below.
Contents
The “pumpkin spice” palette is a good example of the way we can present ourselves to our customers (and a great example of why we need to do some deep-diving at the product level, to find out what they want and need). Initially, we released a collection that would appeal to everyone, but now we’ve learnt that it’s not really enough. We need something that is more specific.
So, in order to find out what the palette wanted, we spent three days in New York City with a bunch of bloggers who were testing our new palette. We found that different people wanted different things — and this is why:
• Men want more reds and browns.
• Women want blues and greens.
• Men are very split as to whether they want warm or cool tones.
Our goal was to create a palette for men (with warm tones) who were split between warm and cool tones — women (with blue-green tones) who were split between green and blue-green — and for everyone else (who were all neutral). This presented us with an opportunity: if we could hone in on one group of people (men or women), then each group would have its own color palette, which would be useful for multiple purposes: styling, makeup application, and so on. And if it made sense for one group of people only… well, you know…
With color palettes comes an obvious problem: how do you label them? There are many methods out there: by brand name (H&M), by color code (Rimmel) or by name-making system like Pantone™ or Hexagon™. We decided against using these names because they lack the charm of design by hand; they are far too rigid compared to what you see when you’re looking at photographs — but there are better options available if you want to keep things elegant without paying too much attention to branding anyway.
We decided instead on using haptic feedback so that users could navigate around using their fingers or hands as well as just tapping their screens — similar in concept but far more intuitive than web buttons, which require the user to watch your screen for the action you have requested before actually taking it actionable! The idea is simple: when users move their fingers or hands around your interface(s), haptic feedback will let them know whether their fingers or hands are over objects on your interface
Experience
A palette is a collection of colors and their combinations.
In popular culture, the term has been used to refer to the style of makeup. In the world of digital marketing, however, it’s used to refer to how experienced you are in using digital tools.
In some cases, this means not having enough experience with a particular tool — or that you’ve picked it up just enough to be able to use it in your own way, but not in someone else’s. This is often expressed as something like “I can’t use Photoshop because I don’t know what images I can create with it”. Or: “I can’t use Gif Maker because I don’t understand its inner workings and my pictures don’t look very good in it.” (This is correct in both cases.)
When people say they can do X but they don’t have enough experience do X How do they know they have X? They have enough experience but not enough knowledge about how well/badly X works/works for them. They also tend to know how poorly/well X works for others; or how well/badly others use or don’t use X (don’t be too surprised if you see people say “Oh, I knew of it but I didn’t really take advantage of it.”)
Conclusion
I’m going to end this post with a quote from the book The Lean Startup, written by Eric Ries (author of The Lean Startup) and Eric Worloff (co-author of The Lean Software Development Cookbook):
In software development, the best time to introduce a new feature is when people have not yet experienced it.