Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star’s YouTube series is a marketing masterclass
A collaboration between two misfit influencers is an absolute masterclass in how to immerse customers in a story, build enormous hype around, and investment in, a product, and ultimately sell (a lot), and make (a lot of) money. Brittney Rigby reveals why Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star’s campaign is the stuff of influencer marketers’ dreams.
Shane Dawson didn’t know a thing about make-up before the YouTube documentarian filmed a series with beauty mogul, Jeffree Star. Fast forward a year and he’s about to release an entire collection, which could sell out in under an hour, thanks to one of the most clever marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen.
The two make an unlikely pair. Both are YouTubers (Dawson has 23m subscribers, Star 16.4m), but that’s where the similarity ends.
Dawson was one of the first people to rise to fame on the platform, starting with sketch comedy and eventually finding his niche with conspiracy videos. He’s also received enormous attention for his docu-series on personalities like ex-Disney Channel actor and controversial YouTuber, Jake Paul. Star – beauty influencer, brand owner, and, in 2006, the most-followed person on My Space – had a brief music career, during which Akon called him “the next Lady Gaga”, but left the industry in 2013 and turned to beauty.
“The marketing feels undetectable”. Now there’s a goal for today’s agencies.
I don’t know. Not much of a masterclass when you already start out YouTube famous and are given a 100% investment by someone who is arguably one of the most famous players in the industry you are launching a product in. This was a good business decision. JS bet on the ever hungry consumers and they delivered millions as a pay off. It’s a business achievement for sure, a person triumph for Shane but a masterclass in marketing or sales…meh
A marketing masterclass….eh?
Sounds like something a journo with 3 years experience would write.
You have no idea.
Seems to me to be a “masterclass” in vacuous narcissistic self indulgent one dimensional pretentiousness. I had never blundered into those realms of youtube before. If there are people out there who actually aspire to be like that then evolution has taken a very wrong turn somewhere along the line. Some of the worst of cultural imperialism from Uncle Sam. Kath and Kim would have a field day with all of this.
You might have just said how wonderful the Kardashians are to market. It would have been the same thing.
Yup.
The naysayers that aren’t acknowledging the sheer marketing power and of this duo among the Gen Z cohort + the amount of careful planning that went into this campaign are pretty foolish. The pair and the product are trending globally, including a sheer domination of TikTok + Youtube. Dinosaurs should take note or be left behind