Glamnetic Founders Launch Gen Z- And Gen Alpha-Focused Press-On Nail Brand Digi As Ulta Beauty Exclusive

Glamnetic co-founders Ann McFerran and Kevin Gould have spent the last six years donning the nails and lashes of millennials. Now the pair have their sights set on gen Z and gen alpha with new press-on nail brand Digi, which they believe is the first such brand to make a direct appeal to young consumers skipping nail salons in favor of at-home products.

Entering retail exclusively at Ulta Beauty, where Glamnetic has been sold for three years and has expanded from 32 to 46 stockkeeping units in over 1,200 doors, Digi is rolling out to 450 locations and online. An in-line display will showcase the brand’s 18 press-on nail designs in opaque and semi-translucent finishes. Sets with 24 press-on nails are priced at $10.99, and Clingy Brush-On Nail Glue goes for $6.99. Industry sources estimate Digi could hit $10 million in first-year sales. It will make its direct-to-consumer debut on Jan. 30.

“What we started to see over the last few years, particularly in retail and Ulta, was there was this younger gen alpha, younger gen Z consumer coming in, super interested in press-ons and the brand, but we weren’t actively marketing to them,” says Gould. “We started to brainstorm, as we were seeing this 18 to 24 months ago, what could a brand look like if we were to specifically actually target gen alpha and younger gen Z?”

Digi looks bright and colorful, with press-on nail designs that pop on the hand and social media. Their names include Electric Day Z, Color Crush, Check You Later and Espresso, and they feature flowers, pastel swirls and gingham prints. “We really stand on the point of self-expression and your nails being a way to express yourself just like you would through your outfits. We really wanted to make nails almost like fashion,” says McFerran. “[Digi] is really loud, it’s expressive, it’s meant to inform people to be bold and to be themselves.”

Glamnetic co-founders Kevin Gould and Ann McFerran

According to a biannual survey by investment bank Piper Sandler, starting in fall of 2023, Sephora nudged out Ulta Beauty as the No. 1 preferred beauty shopping destination of American teens, and Ulta is aggressively trying to restore its edge with the next generation of consumers. Part of its strategy is exclusive brands and products. Preceding Digi, Ulta introduced Daise, a gen alpha body care and fragrance brand from incubator Zuru Edge. 

Digi is meeting young consumers where they are on TikTok. Assuming the platform isn’t banned, it will be the brand’s main marketing channel, although it will concentrate on Instagram and YouTube if the ban is enacted. Digi is tapping gen alpha and gen z content creators for user-generated content, influencer partnerships and imagery. It’s seeded around 250 boxes to content creators. McFerran is the face of Glamnetic, but is interested in the community being the face of Digi. She plans to enlist customers to co-create one press-on nail launch a year.

McFerran started Glamnetic out of her Koreatown apartment in Los Angeles in July 2019 with easy-to-apply magnetic lashes. Fueled by social media, in its initial year on the market, it generated $40 million in revenues. “I was filming ads out of my bedroom saying, ‘Hey, if you struggle with lash application, I have a perfect solution for you,’ and I would literally demonstrate the application process right there,” says McFerran. “People loved the instantaneous nature of how fast this product worked.”

Glamnetic ventured into press-on nails two years later, and nail products overtook the lash category for the brand when nail salons shut down during the pandemic and people resorted to doing nails themselves. Today, Glamnetic is considered a nail product-centered business with a complementary lash business. Gould says sales of its press-on nails have reached “well into the mid-eight figures in annual revenue.” Along with Ulta, Glamnetic is available at Sephora and on Amazon. Its sales are roughly evenly split between online and retail. At Digi, Gould says, “Our focus has been on achieving strong, profitable growth. Our goal is to continue driving double-digit growth in both the top and bottom line over the coming years.”

“We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible in the nail category.”

Nail has been a notoriously difficult category for beauty dealmakers as investors view it as niche. However, Gould argues the total addressable market for press-on nails is in its early stages and predicts adoption will rise. Last year, deals for nail brands Nails Inc., which was acquired by brand holding company Pacific World Corporation, and Olive & June, which was acquired by Helen of Troy, were signals that acquirers could be warming to nail brands.

Gould says, “We are currently heads down building Glamnetic and Digi and focused on the year ahead and are currently not in market, but I think Olive & June was a big win for the category, and it shows that nail is grabbing consumer attention, and there is real scale in a category that may have been historically overlooked by the strategics.” He elaborates, “There’s probably five to 10 years still of huge runway in the market for press-ons because there’s still a huge part of the market that hasn’t even explored it or tapped into it.”

Not surprisingly, McFerran is bullish on the market, too, and mentions that Glamnetic customers buy at least nine sets of nails per year on average. “The DIY trend really stayed after COVID,” says McFerran, adding that, with press-on nails, consumers “get to change out their style whenever they want. There’s less of a commitment, less damage. There are all of these benefits you get from moving on to press-ons, and people stay loyal.”

Once it attracts young consumers to Digi, the brand hopes they will graduate to Glamnetic when they’re older. Among gen alpha consumers, Gould says, “It’s the first time where it’s not salon and then DIY conversion, it’s DIY first. So, hopefully, for us, we’re capturing that audience early on and then we’re going to help grow with them.”