Lush: A Brand That Has Shown It Has Life Beyond Social Platforms

To tackle the challenge of capturing consumer attention, an increasing number of brands are resorting to an effective trick – shutting down their profiles. It turns out that shutting down is a move that works flawlessly and, besides being regularly reported by the media, it causes confusion, tension, and even excitement among consumers: ‘Why did they do that? What is the message? What are they aiming for? Something new must be coming!’ And yes, after provoking such a reaction, brands revive their profiles and usually showcase something new, whether it’s a new marketing strategy, a new business direction, or new products.

However, one brand has taken the profile shutdown a step further. Its goal is not to attract attention with this trick (and then return to the networks with fanfare), but to operate against the current and completely remove itself from the virtual world to solidify its position, as well as its mission, in the real one.

This is, of course, the cosmetic brand Lush, which two years ago removed itself from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Amazon. It has also pledged to sever all ties with Google, Apple, and Microsoft by 2026 and become independent of big tech companies. This move has raised a number of questions, among others: is it even possible to be visible on digital channels in this way, and can a brand be and remain relevant?

As reported by the marketing portal The Drum, Lush has managed to answer these questions positively, thanks to its collaboration strategy. Collaboration with partner brands has brought it an additional fifteen million pounds in revenue in just twelve months, as well as more excitement and online searches than at any point in the brand’s history.

Driven by Intuition

Each of the eight collaborations it has established this year has increased the number of customers by about thirty percent. Meanwhile, the 12-month rolling revenue on Lush’s site has increased by 1.2 percent compared to last year. Its first licensed collaboration was with the Japanese anime series ‘One Piece’. After launching the collection, Lush Japan recorded a 71 percent increase in new digital customers and managed to sell out all stock by 2 PM on launch day.

The most successful collaboration was with the animated characters from the hit ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ and the gaming phenomenon ‘Super Mario Bros’. A recent collaboration with Barbie is proving lucrative so far, and the volume of sales will soon be revealed as the collection was not launched simultaneously in all regions.

As the brand’s chief brand officer (CBO) Annabelle Baker told The Drum, even the company did not believe that the collaborations would be so successful, but they knew there was potential in that strategy, especially if creativity is taken into account and products are created that will resonate with both new and existing customers.

Unlike a large number of brands that choose collaborations based on data analysis, trend research, and audience dissection to determine which demographic group will best click with a potential partner, Lush, as Baker stated, relies more on intuition. Thus, at first glance, the collaboration with gaming giant Nintendo seems an unexpected choice for a natural cosmetic brand like Lush, but it has proven to be an excellent move.

The Most Important Product

With its ‘Super Mario Bros’, it launched a line that includes shower gel, body spray, and a bath bomb that ultimately generated ten million pounds in sales. A similar situation occurred with ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’. Had they analyzed the data, it is likely that this Paramount cartoon and Lush would not have been a good match, but this collaboration also brought in a nice four million pounds. As the brand head explained, instead of making decisions based on data analysis, they prefer to make decisions after discussions with employees who share their wishes and ideas about what could be interesting and exciting.

– So, we start from an idea that can be given by someone from the team or a potential partner. Then it all comes down to the creative process because we do not want to license according to the traditional system, but rather dive deeper into the creativity behind each brand and find a way to enrich it – Baker told The Drum.

Their goal is for each collection to offer something new, unique. This would not be possible if Lush did not have complete control over the production process, and that in seven development locations around the world. Baker and her marketing team visit these workshops, live relay information about what is being developed, how it is produced, and how it ultimately must look. Although brands typically spend seventeen percent of total sales on advertising, Lush states that their budget for advertising collaborations is nowhere near that amount as all money is invested in product development.

Additionally, they stopped investing in social platforms, which they consider a cheap way to reach a wide audience, two years ago because they were not satisfied with the results. The brand had relied on word-of-mouth marketing even before shutting down the platforms and insists on that strategy today. Thus, these collaborations are successful because they do not rely on any paid marketing (a minimal budget is invested), but rather on the product that creators voluntarily promote on social platforms.

The Loyalty Challenge

However, as Baker stated, attracting new customers through collaborations is the easier part of the whole story – retaining them in the long run is trickier. Currently, they are putting creative effort into devising a retention strategy and how to encourage them to try the products, especially digitally. Therefore, they are increasingly experimenting with offerings, so, for example, if a certain scent is popular, they strive to develop additional products that provide that sensation or explore which product from the collaboration could become part of Lush’s permanent offer. Although the brand was launched in the ‘distant’ 1995 and has built its position in the cosmetics industry, leaving social platforms in 2021 has somehow brought it back to the beginning.

Now it must learn again how to break through in a world dependent on social platforms, attract customers through classic offline sales methods, collaborations, or word-of-mouth marketing. In this sense, Lush is a pioneer in the industry, the first brand to answer the question: is there life beyond social platforms? If judging by its results so far, there certainly is.