Colourpop can you hear me now? Good!

 I selected Colourpop Cosmetics as my brand to blog about this week.  I’ve always liked makeup and in my mid twenties I heard about the brand Colourpop.  They are known for offering quality cosmetics at an affordable price.  What drew me to them initially was their vibrant eyeshadow colors and great prices.  https://colourpop.com/pages/about-us 

Over the years I’ve purchased many of their eyeshadow palettes and keep coming back because of the clever launches they do.  Colourpop has collaborated in the past with Disney and has recently launched an Avatar The Last Airbender Collection. https://youtu.be/AqcN7GrQdDA They are known for taking suggestions from their social media and launching themed collections that their cult followers, spam requests for.  

On Instagram they have 10.1 million followers and they have 989.7k followers on Tik Tok.https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdCDBnRx
They have mostly positive comments on their Instagram account on the new 80’s themed collection called Let’s Roll. One comment however was a plea from a fan for a matte lilac eyeshadow palette to which the Colourpop account  responded the same day it was posted in a positive and thankful way.   This Let’s Roll collection includes a 10 pan eyeshadow palette, a signature Super Shock Blush, two signature Super Shock Shadow duos, 3 plumping lip glosses, a shimmering body powder, a shimmering body oil, and 2 face crystals.  

Colourpop uses storytelling on their Tik Tok.  By creating a light hearted feeling featuring their products displayed against the green of a tennis court and two people flaunting roller skates almost dancing around in the background.  All of this gives you the feeling that this product is fun and you should have fun using it.

After two days posting my comment to the Colourpop instagram I noticed not only did they not respond to my suggestion, the comment had been deleted.  This leads into what problems this brand faces.  One is their failure to optimize their social media advertising.  For a brand that originated exclusively online and got the majority of their sales from social media coverage they seem to be lacking in that department as the brand grows.https://commonthreadco.com/blogs/coachs-corner/colourpop-case-study

As much as it hurt my feelings to be ignored like this as a long time customer I’m still loyal.  I remember in 2016 when they grew so much their orders were delayed substantially because they couldn’t keep up with demand.  I received a personalized email apologizing for the delay, a site credit that equated to half the value of my order, and freebies included in my late order.

I think moving forward they have to return to their social media roots, listen to what people are saying, and remind their long-time customers that they still hear them.  Responding more consistently on social media should be the first step.       

Yummy Yummy Digital Burritos In My Tummy

Scrolling through countless advertising sites hoping to find a topic for my marketing blog I stumbled upon a futuristic fast food collaboration between Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. and Roblox.  Roblox is a gaming platform for kids similar to Steam and Chipotle is known for their burritos made to order in front of you much like Subway sandwiches.  Why this interested me is simple.  I like food and video games. Why not combine the two?  Look no further than Chipotle Burrito Builder that launched on April 7th(Happy Burrito Day!)

https://newsroom.chipotle.com/2022-04-05-FANS-CAN-ROLL-BURRITOS-AT-CHIPOTLE-IN-THE-METAVERSE-TO-EARN-BURRITOS-IN-REAL-LIFE.

This ad campaign combines Chipotle’s classic build your own burrito with Roblux’s gaming platform.  Users of Roblox essentially design their own burritos to earn in-game currency.  Chipotle is also letting its loyalty members exchange rewards points for Roblox gift cards.  Chipotle is hoping to reach a younger demographic, Gen Z, by embracing the metaverse. https://www.marketingdive.com/news/chipotle-roblox-burrito-bucks-rewards-metaverse/621566/  

I think the challenge that Chipotle faces is avoiding technical problems with Roblox.  In October 2021 Chipotle and Roblox had a collaboration called Boorito where the first 30,000 players to enter the in-game store got a free burrito.  During this time the Roblox site crashed and players blame Chipotle for the failures. The only thing I see Chipotle doing to avoid this problem is having a longer time period for the event and letting more people get the reward.  They are offering an entree code to the first 100,000 participants. And instead of having the event be two days long it is six days long, but the codes are just while supplies last. https://www.th

e-sun.com/tech/3956946/chipotle-crashes-roblox/

I didn’t notice anything happening with Chipotle’s competition except the stock for the company that owns Qdoba dropped right after the promo launched.  Apollo Global Management, Inc.  ended the day on April 7th selling shares for $57.67 and ended the day on April 8th selling shares at a of $57.56.https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=APO 

I personally think this marketing strategy is kind of weird.  Besides the fact this strategy isn’t targeting me personally I don’t see anything proprietary about this marketing ploy.  I will admit after looking at the price change in what Chipotle’s shares were selling at from April 7th to April 8 that this might be a successful marketing plan, though.  On April 7th at the end of the trading day Chipotle’s shares were selling for $1526.52 and at the end of the day on the 8th they were selling for $1544.11.  That’s approximately a 1.15% increase in one day.  That may seem negligible,  but after watching stocks for a term in my finance class I’ll say 1% gain in one day is still a win.  That’s $17.59 extra for each share owned in one day.  https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=CMG

I would probably do a soft launch in case they have bugs with the site crashing again.  As a casual gamer that knows otaku gamers the most irritating thing you can do to gamers is have an error message display on their game screen when they are trying to reap the benefits of a promo on their favorite game.   

My first marketing blog: About me

Hello, I'm Sarah.  I'm majoring in accounting.  This is one of six classes left in my AS degree requirements so I'm super excited to bring this chapter to an end and start my next education chapter at OSU.  I'm interested in learning anything about marketing that is weirdly fascinating.  One thing I've noticed since starting my higher education adventure is I bring up random facts from the classes I've taken for my general education courses like biology or health.  If I can get more of those tidbits from this course it'll be value added when I mystify some of my friends with knowing more random facts.  I'm very passionate about music and going to concerts.  I have very eclectic tastes, but I love singing off key in the car very loudly be it Korn or The Lonely Island.  I also am obsessed with my new puppies.  Be warned if you say you like dogs I have lots of pictures to compare with you and am shameless about showing off my furbabies.