Inside Shark Beauty’s marketing strategy targeting moms

All the influencers who attended were already users of Shark Beauty’s hero product: the FlexStyle Hair Blow Dryer & Multi-Styler. The guests were creators who had previously been gifted the FlexStyle and who then “became absolute fans of the product without [a paid] endorsement,” said Bill Davaris, chief brand officer of SharkNinja, Shark Beauty’s parent company.

Coachella has become more than a music festival. It is branded at every turn and serves as an important time of year for brands to engage with influencers and customers, generate UGC, and build community. Shark is no exception.

“Coachella is bigger than just music. It’s about connecting with people, connecting with fashion and connecting with trends. It was great for our brand to be able to connect with all these cultural mavens. There’s a very diverse community that shows up — not just music lovers, but also artists and journalists, who we got to connect with. It’s also brands connecting with other brands and creating partnerships. This is why Coachella is so powerful,” said Davaris.

Also in mid-April, Shark Beauty sponsored Camp Poosh, Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s Coachella-adjacent event. It brought its eight influencers to that event, as well. It was the brand’s second time partnering with Kardashian Barker’s wellness brand. It had also been a sponsor of Poosh’s Poolside with Poosh event in 2022.

All of this came on the heels of the brand announcing its debut at Sephora on March 28. The FlexStyle went live at the retailer on April 4.

At Camp Poosh, Shark Beauty previewed its upcoming launches, as well as launches from the home and kitchen part of Shark business, dubbed Ninja. Attendees were gifted the just-launched Ninja Blast Portable Blender, which, Davaris explained, “went hand in hand with the location and eating well.” The blenders also made sense for the moms it had flown to the desert, according to the brand.

Moms are core shoppers of the brand. The trip offered its guests the opportunity to “take a break from their crazy, hectic lives, get their look right, and conquer the day with us and our stylists,” Davaris said,

On Saturday, at Camp Poosh, the influencers visited the Shark setup, which was designed like a “’90s-inspired salon.” On Sunday, the brand had celebrity hairstylist Dafne Evangelista (403,000 Instagram followers) speak to the group about “mom guilt and how she balances her complex identities as a mom and celebrity hairstylist,” according to a brand representative.

Shark deemed the trip — its first time hosting an influencer house — a success. “The measurements that matter most [to us] are comments and shares,” Davaris said. “And we’re seeing an extraordinary number of comments where people are writing, saying, ‘Oh, my God. That’s so cool,” and ‘Oh, I gotta do that one day!’ Engagement is where you learn and know that you’re striking a chord.”

Coachella and Camp Poosh were not the first incidences of Shark Beauty timing a marketing activation to a cultural event. In September 2022, the brand hosted an exclusive media and influencer event leading up to the Billboard Latin Awards, and in October, it made an appearance at BravoCon by hosting a “Certified Bravoholic” experience. It won’t be the last, either, according to Davaris.

“What is the next community? What is the next cultural moment?” Davaris said of the questions the team asks itself. “In early summer, a lot more [Shark Beauty] activations happening that are connected to other big cultural events.”