Elf, Wendy’s and Gap lean toward original music

Look at Sony. A new music producer has arrived. And this time it’s the same brand that makes my favorite lip gloss.

elf beauty announced late last month the release of their original album “Mirror Mix,” featuring songs by seven up-and-coming artists. The album comes as cosmetics companies ramp up marketing spending, driven in part by tax rebates.

Elf’s pursuit of music is part of a growing wave of retailers merging shopping and entertainment.

The album features artists including WNBA players and Grammy-winning singer-songwriters. It can be streamed on spotify, apple music, Amazon and robloxaccording to a press release.

In addition to elevating the voices of independent artists, the new music aims to help Elf better connect with its customers, Chief Integrated Marketing Officer Patrick O’Keefe said in an interview with CNBC.

“When you put community at the center of everything you do…programs and campaigns and building music that evokes emotion…it changes the conversation, and we want to put community first,” O’Keefe said.

Mirror Mix is ​​Elf’s second album, following the company’s 2024 release Get Ready With Music, The Album. His first foray into music, the song “eyes.lips.face.” debuted in 2019.

“We were one of the pioneers on TikTok, and we created an original song about eyes, lips and faces that went viral. It took the brand to a new level,” O’Keefe said. “People didn’t know what the eyes, the lips, the face, the elf stood for. And we created this song to embrace what it stands for and what it means as a brand.”

The music released by Elf is part of the company’s strategy in “disruptive marketing,” or marketing aimed at creating moments where consumers pay attention.

Elf also launched a TikTok reality show, launched a channel on Twitch, and became one of the first brands to offer live shopping on the platform.

CEO Taran Amin said at the Deutsche Bank dbAccess Global Consumer Conference in early June that “our marketing is most effective when we start to see the viral nature of innovation, our ability to feed it, sustain that demand, and build a growing franchise.”

“We’re an entertainment company that happens to sell beauty products,” Amin joked.

Elf isn’t the only foray into entertainment.

A few days before Elf’s album debut, gap announced a multi-year partnership with boy band Just Your Type (JYT). The clothing retailer will be responsible for developing a multi-episode documentary, a national mall tour and clothing collections with emerging pop stars, according to a press release.

This venture marks the first collaboration under the company’s newly created ‘Fashiontainment’ platform. The move comes as the company has been undergoing a multi-year turnaround after closing about 2,000 stores and seeing annual sales decline by $3.5 billion between 2001 and 2021.

Pam Kaufman, Gap’s chief entertainment officer, will oversee the project and said in a press release that the partnership with JYT “creates something much bigger than a campaign.”

“Gap has always been at the intersection of style, music and culture, and our fashiontainment platform builds on that tradition by putting our brands at the center of the stories and cultural moments that matter to people,” Kaufman said.

Gap CEO Richard Dixon tapped into a similar sentiment earlier this year, saying traditional advertising campaigns no longer work.

“Fashion is entertainment, and today’s customers aren’t just buying apparel, they’re buying brands that tell compelling stories and advance cultural conversations,” Dixon said in a statement in January announcing the creation of the role of chief entertainment officer.

In the last few weeks, wendy’s He also debuted an emo album titled “Songs You Listen to in a Wendy’s Parking Lot.” Unlike Elf and Gap’s earnest attempts to create music that resonated with fans, the fast food chain produced humorous songs like “She Said She Don’t Want French Fries” and “The Best Combo Meal on the Worst Night of My Life.”

The lead song generated over 450,000 streams on Spotify, and the announcement received hundreds of thousands of likes on Instagram.

Wendy’s CEO Bob Wright cited marketing as one of the company’s key areas of focus during a recent earnings call.

“We have one of the most recognizable brands in the industry, and we need our messaging, media and creative efforts to make meaningful connections with our customers and drive foot traffic to our restaurants,” he said.

That need is especially strong as younger consumers increase their purchasing power.

“Cultural relevance drives the entire purchasing funnel, especially for Gen Z,” United Talent Agency said in a June report. “Consumers who perceive a brand as culturally relevant are more likely to notice it (90% of Gen Z), think favorably of it (87% of Gen Z), consider it (81% of Gen Z), and ultimately purchase from that brand (68% of Gen Z), proving that the ROI of culture goes far beyond brand awareness.”

At Elf, O’Keefe said he uses the concept of unpaid awareness, or a consumer’s ability to name a brand without prompting, as a metric for measuring marketing success. Free awareness of Elf Beauty has tripled in the past five years, rising from 13% to 45%, he said.

The company reported that its profits doubled in its most recently reported quarter, marking the cosmetics brand’s 30th consecutive quarter of growth.

At the same time, the company has prioritized spending on innovative marketing campaigns. More than 20% of first-quarter net sales were reinvested in marketing and digital, according to the company’s latest financial report. The company says this percentage is expected to increase throughout the remainder of the year.

The increased marketing efforts will be partially funded by customs duty rebates. The company received $50 million in the three months ending June 30 after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s “Emancipation Day” tariffs and a federal judge ordered them to be returned.

“Our plan is to fully reinvest that capital into both our pricing, our superior value proposition, and strengthening our marketing across our portfolio of brands,” CEO Amin said in an August interview with CNBC. “We feel the tariffs should never have been in place in the first place. So let’s invest in our brands to drive the strength we’re seeing.”