E.l.f., Gap, Wendy's branch into original music — SkimNews
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- E.l.f. Beauty released its second original album "Mirror Mix" featuring seven artists including a WNBA player and a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Roblox, following 2024's "Get Ready With Music."
- E.l.f. first entered music in 2019 with viral hit "eyes.lips.face."; CEO Tarang Amin now calls the company "an entertainment company that happens to sell beauty products," with unaided brand awareness tripling from 13% to 45% over five years.
- Gap announced a multiyear partnership with boy band Just Your Type to produce a docuseries, national mall tour, and clothing collection under a newly created "fashiontainment" platform overseen by chief entertainment officer Pam Kaufman.
- Wendy's debuted an emo album "Songs to Listen to in a Wendy's Parking Lot" with comedic tracks like "She Said She Didn't Want Fries"; its lead song has topped 450,000 Spotify streams and the Instagram announcement drew hundreds of thousands of likes.
- E.l.f. plans to fully reinvest $50 million in refunds — issued after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's "liberation day" tariffs — into pricing and marketing, with marketing already exceeding 20% of fiscal Q1 net sales.
- A United Talent Agency report found 90% of Gen Z notice culturally relevant brands, 87% think favorably of them, and 68% buy from them, framing cultural relevance as a direct driver of the purchase funnel.
Why it matters: Brand competition is shifting from product features to cultural relevance, and UTA's data ties cultural relevance directly to purchase: 68% of Gen Z buy from brands they view that way. E.l.f.'s decision to plow $50 million in tariff refunds into marketing and the creation of Gap's dedicated chief entertainment officer role show executives now treat entertainment output as core operating expense, not stunt marketing.
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