A Digital Born Brand, Grows Through The Pandemic

In July 2020, when the Covid-19 outbreak had slightly eased, Sculpted by Aimee officially launched its full range in the UK – exclusive to Boots.com. With the brand at the time, unknown to the UK media and with an abundance of NPD trickling through in the coming months, we had multiple focuses in order to raise the level of noise:

Traditional Pitching

We kicked of the campaign armed with a hero product release, carefully curated by the Sculpted team featuring popular products with the highest sales and reviews. Each product selected also embodied the ethos the brand; multi-purpose, fool-proof make-up for the everyday woman.

As a team, we split media targets and personally pitched to each contact with a full brand introduction and suggestions on specific story angles. Within the first month, we were featured in leading digital titles Get the Gloss and Sheerluxe, as well as in multiple regional papers via PA media.

Given our rich background in working with experts, we were thrilled to be working with another aspirational talent – founder Aimee Connolly, who is a professional make-up artist. We crafted a bio release which was pitched to specific contacts, offering Aimee for a one-on-one or expert quotes – this resulted in a feature in the Irish Examiner, coverage in Warpaint Magazine, Beauty Independent and multiple titles including Yahoo Style.

Pro Seeding

When Aimee created the brand, she wasn’t merely thinking of the general public’s wants and needs – she also had her own in mind, as she longed for a more streamlined kit to take on jobs. With this in mind, it was key for us to target and seed to the professional community.

Instagram Lives

Given the brand’s social credentials, another lockdown on the horizon and a growing number of eyes on social, it was a no-brainer to extend the brand’s Instagram live series to the UK media for some digital brand networking. We approached key experts, journalists and influencers who are highly active on social, whose followers consisted of other key players in the industry.

As a result of carefully selecting our co-hosts and working closely with them on an engaging narrative, we gained ‘brand fans’ who have stayed loyal to the Sculpted brand and have featured products on numerous occasions. This consistent airtime in the UK press’ digital playground created key moments for other major players in the industry to notice the brand and in turn, strengthened our pitching process.

Key Looks Challenges – Tutorials with Aimee

One thing we know from Aimee’s background, is that she is extremely influential in her field. With this in mind, we developed the ‘key looks’ concept, which we distributed via bi-weekly video tutorials where Aimee created a specific look using key Sculpted by Aimee products. This was accompanied by an editorial-style review of the products with a call-to-action for influencers, make-up artists and press to call in product to recreate the look.

These key activities were repeated from launch until the end of 2020, with elements adapted to suit key calendar dates or launches.

With the brand firmly on people’s radars, we decided to end the year with an intimate Zoom launch with Aimee and the UK media, giving them the ultimate chance to get to know the brainchild behind the Irish wonder brand and take a deeper dive into the range with a classic ‘make-up-along’. Guests were sent a breakfast in collaboration with Glow Bar London which promised them a glow from inside-out and selection of products to be used during the event.

We gained full attendance within the first day of sending out the invite with guests eager to meet Aimee and learn more about the brand. We found that, unlike other Zoom launches, guests were happy to keep their camera’s on and interact more to learn more and full immerse themselves.

As a result, we gained an instant feature in Stylist, coverage on Harper’s Bazaar Online and in Platinum Magazine and a total social reach of 1,204,164 from event posts. A key guest included BBC Glow Up Contestant Eve Jenkins, who is now a huge fan of the brand.

All activities combined achieved unparalleled results, especially for such a young brand. We were featured in high circulation national titles including Metro, Evening Standard and the Irish Examiner, gaining us a total combined media reach of 884,101,574. Our targeted professional seeding had given us the expert stamp of approval and the Sculpted by Aimee collection has now graced the face of Michelle Keegan….

With so many avenues and continued NPD throughout the year, we’re confident in the foundations we’ve laid and can only strive for further success in 2021 and with a Sunday Times Style feature under our belt from the Beauty Director Sarah Jossel – our mission to get the brand on ITV’s this morning is just around the corner.