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On Wednesday, US-based cosmetics brand Tarte flew 50 beauty influencers and their plus-ones to Dubai for an extravagant three-day trip. As content poured in across TikTok from stars like Alix Earle, Monet McMichael and Meredith Duxbury, backlash bubbled up. Is the midst of a cost-of-living crisis the best time to flaunt a lavish vacation?
Some users were excited about the trip and its high-profile attendees. But others felt an opulent trip to Dubai was inappropriate when the US and Europe are facing an economic downturn. “Am I the only one who thinks this is a really weird marketing move from Tarte?” asked TikTok creator Lindsay Borow, who has over 21,000 followers (the video has 56,900 views). “I kind of feel they’re being a little tone-deaf. In this economy, it’s so unrelatable.”
Produced in collaboration with Sephora Middle East, the Tarte trip, which ends Saturday, flew guests on Emirates business class from across the US and Europe. The influencers are staying in private villas filled to the brim with Tarte makeup, plus gifts and goodies from other brands. TikTok users debated how much the flights would have cost (at the time of writing, a return business class Emirates flight from New York to Dubai costs $13,254, per the airline’s website).
Tarte founder and CEO Maureen Kelly is aware of the response. “This isn’t our first trip, but I can, of course, understand how people may have a knee-jerk reaction to seeing content overload like this,” she says via email from Dubai.
The brand, which is owned by Japanese multinational Kosé and stocked at leading retailers like Sephora and Ulta, has captured Gen Z with its influencer marketing and affordable product range. Its Tarte Maracuja Juicy Lip Plump — priced at $24 — went viral on TikTok last summer. To date, the #tarte hashtag has over 588 million TikTok views. Lavish trips are part of its playbook: previous “Trippin with Tarte” outings took influencers to Bora Bora (2016), Costa Rica (2018), Hawaii (2019) and Florida last year.
“Every day, brands make decisions about how to spend their marketing budgets. For some companies, that means a huge Super Bowl commercial or a multi-million-dollar contract with a famous athlete or musician,” says Kelly. “We’ve never done traditional advertising, and instead, we invest in building relationships and building up communities. We hope that as people see what we’re doing together and what we’re all about, they’ll understand and have a stronger connection with Tarte.” Sephora Middle East declined to comment on the trip.
Some TikTok users have reacted positively. “I love a good brand trip,” says user Arion Zhane (@arionee_) in a video. “No, I don’t feel like I need to buy more products from the brand or whatever… but I just love seeing the influencers in a new place, exploring, seeing the fashion.”
Others pointed out that, in this case, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. TikTok creator Melis Cifcili (@homewithmel), a beauty strategic planner herself with 31,400 followers, posted that she thought the trip would help Tarte boost awareness and ultimately sales, despite being “tone deaf”. “Returning to my laptop after 1.5 hours of laying on my roommate's bed talking about Tarte’s Dubai influencer trip,” another user wrote in a video that’s hit 43,300 likes and 450,000 views.
Influencer economics
One of the most circulated reaction videos comes from podcaster Jack McGuire, whose tongue-in-cheek “investigative journalism” video questions how Tarte can afford such a trip. “The economics of this trip do not make sense,” he says in his first video, which reached 4.3 million views. In it, he suggests the trip is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars per influencer.
McGuire speculated that the United Arab Emirates government paid for the trip in a second video to boost Dubai tourism. Tarte says there was “definitely no involvement” from the UAE government or tourism board; Dubai was chosen because the Middle East is one of Tarte’s fastest-growing markets, Kelly explains, and the brand will make donations in every attendee’s honour to Middle East-based charities focused on education and advancement of women around the world.
Other commentators pointed out that such trips, which can seem so expensive, often deliver a high return on investment in the form of brand awareness. Tarte is not the only brand that uses exotic trips to drive brand awareness or engagement. Revolve has funded trips to Thailand and Turks and Caicos. Luxury brands Chanel and Dior flew influencers and press to Senegal and Egypt, respectively, for their cruise shows last December.
Tarte is not paying for posts about the trip, it confirms, and most of the guests have posted multiple videos already. Alix Earle, one of the talents, is one of TikTok’s fastest-growing beauty influencers (her following has surged from just under 900,000 followers in November to 3.9 million). She posted nine TikToks of the trip as of Friday, with a combined total of 33 million views. A post from any of the influencers on the trip would normally cost in excess of $100,000, Cifcili estimates.
“I used to work in influencer marketing — this is not expensive for Tarte,” says TikTok creator Tess Barclay, who calls the trip “genius” and predicts the cost will be offset by the brand awareness it creates. User-generated content is useful in generating virality for a brand, adds Joe Gagliese, CEO and co-founder of social media agency Viral Nation, especially when authentic, relatable voices are sharing the content via social media.
Still, brands at the affordable end of the market should remember that their consumers are worrying about mortgage payments, food prices and gas costs, Gagliese says. “The brands that develop ways to connect with communities that are being most impacted by the shifting economic crisis will be the brands that consumers continue to support and build an emotional connection with,” he says. “Influencers play a role in not only educating consumers but also being a medium for change, and that can be a perfect vessel for brands to conjoin messaging and reach their target market authentically.”
Brands need to carefully consider the type of content they’re publishing and their tone of voice, adds Permele Doyle, co-founder and president of creative agency Billion Dollar Boy. As platforms like BeReal surge, which are more focused on authentic, raw content, brands need to rethink influencer activations. “Rather than aspirational, perfectly curated content featuring luxury items or inaccessible travel destinations, brands and creators may consider pivoting to more informative or supportive content which is attuned to the wider population’s own experience,” she says.
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