There's a reason brands that start online, such as Bonobos, Amazon, and Netflix, tend to expand into brick-and-mortar storefronts and face-to-face events. When your business is based on lines of code and consumer clicks, it can be difficult to generate affinity and immerse your audience in what your company is all about. As such, Personalized Beauty Discovery Inc., dba BFA Industries, which operates the Ipsy beauty brand, had big plans for its events program – plans that, like so many others, got sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Launched in 2011, Ipsy numbers among the popular online subscription services, e.g., Scentbird (fragrances), Bark Box (pet supplies) and Stitch Fix (clothing), in which users sign up to receive curated assortments of products that are delivered to their door, typically on a monthly basis. (The premise of this business model is that subscribers get to easily try new products, often at significant savings compared to the retail price.) Every 30 days, most Ipsy subscribers receive a Glam Bag with five or more samples of beauty products ranging from cleansers and serums to mascara and blush. Each bag's contents are chosen, in part, with Ipsy Match, a proprietary machine-learning technology that analyzes hundreds of user attributes.

Ipsy is far from the only game in town, as everyone from the retail giant Sephora to the beauty magazine Allure offers similar subscriptions. Where the company differentiates itself is via its branding and messaging, which champion community, inclusivity, and empowerment. To highlight these characteristics in front of current and potential subscribers, in 2019 Ipsy marketers partnered with Performance Marketing Group Inc. (PMG) on a series of small events.

"As a digital-first brand, we wanted to engage our community in real life and drive awareness," says Nora Motaweh, Ipsy's director of experiential and creator marketing. Armed with a custom 40-foot trailer, three tents, and a geodesic dome, Ipsy set up shop at South by Southwest in Austin, TX; Miami Swim Week; and along Chicago's Michigan Avenue during the Lollapalooza music festival to promote subscriptions, dole out samples, and get some face time with its audience. "Everything went phenomenally well," says Bill Bissmeyer, vice president of operations and business development at PMG. "After this series of events, Ipsy came back to us and said, 'Now we want the biggest, baddest thing anyone could build. We want people's phones out nonstop and as many brand partner stations as possible.'"

PMG took Ipsy's wishes to heart and started designing and fabricating an all-custom 53-foot-long double-deck trailer plastered in pink graphics, filled with beauty-treatment stations, and topped with a DJ booth. The work was completed in February 2020 – after more than 70 revisions – and the Ipsy team flew to PMG's headquarters for a final inspection. "Ipsy was super stoked, and we started wrapping the trailer for SXSW," Bissmeyer says. "Then came COVID, and basically the trailer stayed parked for a year and a half." In other words, Ipsy's event was all made up but had no place to go.

Multivenue Makeover
While it's tough to say that a pandemic bringing in-person events to a grinding halt came with a silver lining, in Ipsy's case, the 18-month delay did result in a rather serendipitous alignment with the company's 10-year anniversary. So once COVID infection rates started to decline and small-scale events began popping up, the Ipsy and PMG teams set about putting a modified plan in motion. Massive face-to-face gathering such as SXSW and Lollapalooza were still on hold, meaning the company had to strike out on its own.

Knowing that COVID and its variants were still lurking around the country, marketers weren't eager to blaze new trails and instead wisely prioritized low-hanging fruit, i.e., locales that offered a sizable beauty market, a large population of Ipsy's progressively minded target audience, and few bureaucratic barriers to entry. The University of Texas at Austin checked all of these boxes, due to Ipsy's past appearances at nearby SXSW as well as an on-campus pop-up event for select invited brands. "Our relationship with the university started in 2019, and then Ipsy reached out to the administration regarding this larger plan," Motaweh says. "While this wasn't an official campus event, they were more than happy to work with us because they enjoyed partnering with us on a smaller scale."

As for a second venue, the bright lights and beauty-minded masses of New York proved too irresistible to pass up. And while not as accommodating as UTA, the spacious plaza at Hudson Yards, the multibillion-dollar retail and residential development on Manhattan's West Side, was a juicy apple Ipsy and PMG were willing to reach for.

While Ipsy's internal sales department started contacting its brand partners (i.e., the companies whose products fill Ipsy's Glam Bags) and signing them up for the 10-by-10 pergolas that would surround the double-deck trailer, PMG turned its attention to attendee and staffer safety inside the vehicle. During the height of the pandemic, PMG was contracted by a number of its health-care clients to create mobile marketing and demo facilities. As such, PMG now had an arsenal of COVID-fighting tools and knowledge it could apply to retrofitting its trailer with advanced air filters, UV lights, and even a system that disbursed peroxide into the air to sanitize surfaces. "We put the highest level of cleaning systems into place," Bissmeyer says. "I guarantee there is no other commercial vehicle out there with this degree of hygienic safety built in." Additional COVID considerations included increasing the space between the pergolas, signage encouraging social distancing, and the strict adherence to all local health ordinances.

Making Up for Lost Time
On Sept. 28 – 29, 2021, UTA students and Austinites came upon Ipsy's activation, located in a parking lot on the very edge of the campus, either by chance; because of the pre-event email and social-media campaign; or on account to the fresh beats being mixed in the DJ booth on top of the two-story trailer. After checking in at a 20-by-20-foot registration tent and providing their email addresses, attendees were free to peruse the seven pergolas, where reps from brands such as About Face and Purlisse were talking up their products and handing out samples. "We wanted this to be a turnkey experience for our partners," Motaweh says. "All they had to do was send us their product giveaways and the design files for their pergolas' back walls, canopies, and reception desks. We handled the rest."
Inside the pink trailer, visitors disovered two stories of beauty stations where they could enjoy manicures, mini makeovers, and more; a trio of photo ops featuring giant cosmetics-themed props, and even a soundproof booth for creating their own social-media content. After getting a touch-up or two, visitors could swing by the Build Your Own Glam Bag and Ipsy merch stations for even more swag. Meanwhile, a number of iPad-equipped staffers circulated among the crowd and issued a one-question, 1-to-10-scale survey: "How likely are you to recommend an Ipsy event to a friend?"

After two days in Austin, Ipsy and PMG headed for NYC's Hudson Yards to do it all over again, but on a bigger scale: 15 partner pergolas, an opening-day flash mob of dancers in branded t-shirts, and even a live drag show. "Both entertainment aspects were to create an extraordinary, celebratory extravaganza," Motaweh says.

Sitting Pretty
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but Ipsy's multivenue event scored results any marketer would be envious of. The Glamiversary trailer attracted a total of 7,345 beauty lovers, a figure 22 percent above marketers' goal. Hoping to earn a Net Promoter Score of at least 90 via the on-site survey, Ipsy again came out on top with a 92. And finally, the two-stop tour netted more than 1.7 million social-media impressions and seven feature press placements, results that exceeded marketers' objectives by 18 and 40 percent, respectively. Now that's what we call a red carpet glow-up! E