02 executive suMMary

Tower 28 is a makeup and skincare company founded by USC alumna, Amy Liu, in 2019. She struggled with sensitive and eczema-prone skin her whole life and created Tower 28 after seeing a gap in the clean makeup and skincare market. Tower 28 emphasizes the importance of clean ingredients that are effective while also being non-toxic and beneficial for the person using it. In fact, Tower 28 is the only makeup brand to 100% follow the National Eczema Association ingredients guidelines. The effectiveness and overall quality of Tower 28’s products are reaffirmed by high ratings on Sephora and experts at Allure, as their cream blush was awarded the prestigious Best of Beauty award in 2021. Tower 28 manufactures and sells a variety of makeup and skincare products including tinted sunscreen, cream bronzer and blush, lip gloss, and facial serums.

As our primary and secondary reveal, a major problem Tower 28 is facing is they lack brand awareness. Despite having high quality and effective products, Tower 28 is seemingly glossed over by consumers who gravitate towards beauty companies with endorsements by celebrities and with a heavy presence on social media.

Due to Tower 28’s brand values and minimalistic products, our team thought it would be a perfect opportunity for the company to redefine the “clean girl aesthetic” that became popular via Tik Tok. The stereotypical clean girl aesthetic is problematic due to its classist, racist, and fatphobic nature.

To accomplish this, our team devised the following marketing campaign. We created unique messaging, promotional strategies, and a media strategy to drive forward our campaign “Clean is Inclusive”. Our promotional strategy consists of four prongs which we will dive into further later in this report. The first prong is the implementation of three diverse influencers who work to redefine the stereotypical clean girl look. The second prong is implementation of a college ambassador program which will help Tower 28 more effectively reach their target audience. The third prong involves hosting pop-up events at unique locations and a partnership with Lala Land Cafe. The final prong involves teaming up with Kinder Beauty, a clean beauty subscription box, which will allow a very large audience to sample Tower 28’s products.

Both primary and secondary research conducted revealed that the main problem Tower 28 is facing is that customers simply have never heard of them before. This creates a lose-lose situation as makeup lovers are missing out on Tower 28’s high-quality products and Tower 28 is missing out on profits.

To gather our primary data, we created an online survey that consisted of 8 questions to gauge our target audiences’ purchasing behaviors, opinions on clean makeup, and perceptions of the “clean girl aesthetic”. We received a total of 18 responses which were all from USC students. Due to our relatively low response rate, and the lack of representation of our respondents (since they were all USC students), we acknowledge the limitations of our primary research results. Thus, we utilized a plethora of secondary sources to strengthen our rationale and overall campaign.

To create the bar chart below, we asked respondents which clean makeup brands they have heard of before. While most have heard of top competitors such as Glossier, Milk Makeup, and Rare Beauty, fewer have heard of Tower 28. Secondary research from Google Trends further illustrates this problem as Tower 28 does not appear as a related topic or query when someone searches Google for “clean makeup.”

The beauty industry as a whole is extremely saturated with companies. More recently, celebrities and influencers have been creating and bringing their own brands to the market. Much of their consumer base is drawn to their product simply because it is associated with the celebrity or influencer, even if their products are not the most effective (Strugatz). As a result, brands like Tower 28 often get glossed over. Just having amazing products is not enough to gain immense popularity and break through the clutter.