Just because it’s Pony Park – Power of Influencer Marketing

Written by: Cheng Yi Nam Elim

One of the recent highlights in the cosmetics market that catches makeup maniacs’ eyes is the “Pony Park” collection, a makeup product line launched by MAC Cosmetics, and designed by the ultimate Korean-beauty multi-hyphenate Pony Park.

Pony is known as a prominent Korean beauty vlogger with over 5.2 million subscribers. Besides launching her own cosmetics brand, her résumé also includes makeup artist, model, author, and now an MAC collaborator. MAC describes Pony as “one of the first Korean influencers to merge music, dance and makeup” with the launch of a promotional music video featuring Pony wearing the “Pony Park” collection, as well as the Tarot card-inspired product line. Despite not revealing detailed information of the new products, the 30-second music video teaser has gained over 235 thousand views on Pony’s YouTube channel “PONY Syndrome” within a month, which reflects the success of using influencer marketing for the to-be-launched MAC product line.

Although influencer marketing is not a new concept within the industry, it has become a wildly favored marketing tactic for the past few years, with the rising popularity and impact of KOLs and social media influencers. According to a research from Mediakix, 80% of marketers find influencer marketing an effective strategy. Influencer marketing is often mixed up with endorsement marketing. While the latter is a form of marketing strategy that simply attaches fame of a well-known person to brands or products to help promote and raise awareness, the former involves collaborative work and creates word-of-mouth advertising with trusted figures that possess an expert level of knowledge, experiences or social influence in their respective fields to create brand loyalty. With this strategy, influencers are building up brand image in the minds of their followers.

Choosing the right influencer is the key to success. Despite being a leading global makeup brand, the introduction of K-beauty features into the products by Pony, the icon of K-beauty, further establishes MAC’s status particularly in the Asian market. Moreover, Pony’s huge fanbase mostly made up of young Asian makeup enthusiasts matches with and could further expand MAC’s target audience. As Pony said by herself, “My collaboration with MAC is super meaningful to me in that I am able to bring K-beauty, Korean culture, and Asian beauty and culture to the global market.”  Moreover, Pony’s credibility and professionalism in makeup, which could be reflected from her makeup tutorials and her reputable self-launched products, has secured her followers’ trust and faith in the collaborated products between MAC and Pony.

Although the “Pony Park” collection will only be available in stores across different countries in late September and early October, it has already attracted around 200 thousand likes on Pony’s Instagram posts within a day. Some beauty bloggers have even received samples and have already released positive product reviews. While sales figures are yet to be released, the new MAC collection is certainly going to take the global cosmetics market by storm – just by looking at the massive attention and anticipation gained through social media promotions done by the influencer on Instagram and YouTube – just because it’s Pony Park.

References

MAC Pony Park. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.maccosmetics.com/mac-pony-park

Abelman, D. (2019, August 22). MAC Is Collaborating With K-Beauty Star Pony on an Extremely Dreamy Collection. Retrieved from https://www.allure.com/story/mac-pony-park-collection

PONY Syndrome. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-_4GqC-yLY1xtTHhwY0hA

How Effective Is Influencer Marketing in 2019? [Infographic]. (2019, September 10). Retrieved from https://mediakix.com/blog/influencer-marketing-effectiveness/

Council, Y. E. (2018, July 30). Understanding Influencer Marketing And Why It Is So Effective. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/07/30/understanding-influencer-marketing-and-why-it-is-so-effective/#2f3283af71a9

What is Influencer Marketing? An in Depth Look at Marketing’s Next Big Thing. (2019, September 12). Retrieved from https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-influencer-marketing/

Schneider, D. (2016, June 4). Celebrity Endorsement Marketing – An Effective Way to Promote. Retrieved from https://ninjaoutreach.com/celebrity-endorsement-marketing/

How Influence Marketing Differs from Celebrity Endorsement. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/influence-marketing-differs-from-celebrity-endorsement/