In its determination to celebrate beauty later in life, Laura Geller Beauty made the bold decision to only feature women over 40 in all of the brand's marketing and advertising in 2021. In 2022, Laura Geller conceived National Mature Women's Day on April 9th, a nationally recognized holiday to honor women over 40! In April 2023, to celebrate the second annual National Mature Women’s Day, Laura reinforced the brand’s view on ageism in the beauty industry with the launch of the “Invisible Woman” campaign. In partnership with actress, author, and producer Ali Wentworth, the brand released a short comedic film that positions women over 40 as the backbone of society and sheds light on the common phenomenon that affects women of that age: feeling invisible in society. The goal of this campaign was to continue the conversation around embracing age and challenge the current narrative that youthful beauty is the gold standard with a lighthearted tone.
Continuing to challenge the beauty industry with intentional initiatives and partnerships that put the joy in makeup and aging, Laura Geller Beauty created a campaign film titled “The Invisible Woman” with 58-year-old Ali Wentworth to celebrate National Mature Women’s Day.
The film starts off black and white with Wentworth at a crowded bar as she describes the universal experience of feeling invisible for women after 40. In several instances, she tries to engage in conversation with people around her but nobody seems to notice her presence, with attention either fixated on much younger or older women. In turn, color comes back to the film and Wentworth reminds the audience that middle-aged women are the backbone of society – they are executives, creators, moms, and more. Acknowledging the confidence that should come with age, she applies Laura Geller lipstick and goes back into the bar, and we see those who were ignoring her before, mesmerized by her presence.
Using playful language and Wentworth’s signature humor, this film aims to empower mature women and ignite their confidence to reclaim their role in the world and remind everyone else that they’re a force to be reckoned with. Invisible? Says who?
In addition to conceptualizing this campaign's mission of destigmatizing aging in the beauty industry and shooting the campaign video with Ali Wentworth, Laura Geller Beauty created and executed a press strategy, and developed supported web assets, email marketing, and social posts across the brand’s channels. This resulted in 19 earned media placements and over 1.1B impressions. Ali Wentworth also posted across her social media channels and participated in press interviews with outlets such as Women’s Health and Glamour.
Laura Geller Beauty faced one significant challenge during the planning process. This was the challenge of finding partner brands, celebrity talent, influencers, and models who were not only proud to embrace their age but willing to have honest conversations about aging. This included finding talent that would show their age proudly in visuals and sharing their experiences through meaningful copy and dialogue. Thankfully, the brand found that strong person in Ali Wentworth for this campaign.
A secondary challenge the brand faced was being a family-owned business with smaller budgets compared to some of its VC-backed and/or corporate competitors. Therefore, the brand relies heavily on its authenticity and elevated creativity to work with small budgets when it comes to paid media and exposure for campaigns.
As a result of its efforts to destigmatize aging in the beauty industry, Laura Geller Beauty paired The Invisible Woman campaign with an age-based discount on laurageller.com on National Mature Women’s Day, April 9. The discount enabled a reward proportional to your age, for e.g., if you’re 50, you get 50% off, reiterating the value of getting older.
As a result of this campaign, Laura Geller engaged its core demo, mature women over 40, with this strategy that yielded 15k+ email sign-ups to receive the age-based discount, which was a substantial 30% increase from last year, including 4k+ new customers – all in ONE day!
As a result of all her hard work towards raising the visibility of mature women in the beauty industry and challenging industry norms, Founder Laura Geller was recognized in this year’s Forbes 50 over 50 list.
On the press front, the campaign secured 1.1 billion+ media impressions in top-tier outlets such as Glamour, People, Women’s Health, and more, amplifying the brand's message nationwide.
