Amazon bets on K-Beauty, Ulta Beauty embraces Squishmallows, and 3 Glossy Pop Award winners share their campaign success secrets

7 snips

Oct 2, 2025

Guest

Nilofer Vahora

Leslie Ann Hall, Founder and CEO of Iced Media, shares her insights on the successful TikTok strategy behind MoroccanOil’s fragrance launch, emphasizing social commerce dynamics. Dana Paolucci, Dove's Head of PR, discusses the impactful community-driven approach of the Dove x Crumbl Cookies campaign, which generated substantial user-generated content. Lastly, Nilofer Vahora, CMO at Amika, reveals how their Superfruit Star launch blended cultural storytelling and professional credibility, driving impressive engagement and awareness.

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INSIGHT

Amazon Bets On K-Beauty

Amazon launched a dedicated K-Beauty storefront as the category grows three times faster than Amazon's beauty average.
K-Beauty now represents over 20% of beauty searches on Amazon and drives strong Prime Day performance.

ADVICE

Launch With Full-Funnel TikTok Shop

Use TikTok Shop to collapse discovery, consideration, and purchase into a single moment for product launches.
Combine mega creators with TikTok Shop affiliates and full-funnel TikTok media for launch day impact.

ADVICE

Don't Rely On Discounts For TikTok

Avoid relying solely on discounts on TikTok Shop; plan strategic launches and media instead.
Use upper-funnel awareness plus GMV-max tools to drive discovery and seamless checkout without promotions.

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What does it take for a beauty campaign or brand to cut through the noise in 2025?

Our second-annual Glossy Pop Awards is one place where our team recognizes the best and most culturally relevant beauty and fashion campaigns, people, products, and brands.

In today’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, we welcome three esteemed beauty executives to discuss the secret sauce behind their Glossy Pop Award-winning campaigns.

These winning campaigns drove audience engagement, generated buzz and successfully met their set business goals.

To start, host Lexy Lebsack welcomes Leslie Ann Hall, founder and CEO of Iced Media (18:50). She and her team partnered with hair-care brand Moroccanoil to launch the brand’s first fine fragrance. The teams at Iced Media and Moroccanoil executed a campaign that levered social media for awareness and sales. They took home the Glossy Pop Award for "Best Use of TikTok."

Next, Lebsack sits down with Dana Paolucci, head of PR and influencer at Unilever-owned Dove North America (30:02). Paolucci and her team worked with communications firm Edelman to take home two Glossy Pop Awards for its Dove x Crumbl cookies body-care collaboration. They won "Best Product Launch Campaign" and "Best Community Engagement Strategy."

In our final mini interview, Lebsack welcomes Nilofer Vahora, Amika’s CMO, to discuss the hair-care brand’s "Best Use of Video" award win for its Superfruit Star Lightweight Hairstyling Oil launch with marketing company January Digital (40:03).

But first, Lebsack is joined by host Emily Jensen to discuss this week’s top beauty and wellness news.

Squishmallows, the TikTok-famous plush toy brand launched in 2017, made headlines this week for its foray into fine fragrance. Squishmallows parent company Jazwares, a Florida-based toymaker that was purchased by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2022, has tapped longtime beauty executive Joel Ronkin, current founder and CEO of Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie hair care, to lead the project. The scents launched at Ulta Beauty this week in two sizes, priced $38 and $58.

Lebsack and Jensen also discuss rumors that beauty conglomerate Coty is looking to sell heritage mass color cosmetics brands CoverGirl, Rimmel and Max Factor.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is also in the news this week for the closure of its 2-year-old mass beauty experiment, Good Clean Goop, which sells under-$40 skin care through Target and Amazon. The duo discusses the closure and what it means for masstige skincare.

Finally, the hosts walk through Amazon’s new ambitions in K-Beauty with this week’s launch of a dedicated storefront. It's a smart move considering the rise in popularity of K-Beauty products and the stunning sales on the channel. To wit: K-Beauty is growing three times faster than Amazon’s average beauty category.