Thread Beauty, The Lip Bar Founder Melissa Butler’s Second Brand At Target, Focuses On BIPOC Gen Z Consumers
In the midst of celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Lip Bar, founder and CEO Melissa Butler launched a new brand targeting BIPOC gen Z consumers.
Thread Beauty is available nationwide at 500 Target stores and on its own website. It’s debut collection contains three multiuse beauty sticks: Face It Complexion Stick, Blend It Multistick and Color It Lip Color. The travel-friendly products are designed to be blended with fingers. The products are priced at $8. Face It is available in 24 shades, and there are 14 shades each of Blend It and Color It.
Butler decided to introduce the brand to Target to make it attainable to customers both in terms of price and convenience. “We really wanted to make sure that we were creating a brand that was communal, but also accessible,” says Butler. “The bulk of beauty consumers who are shopping at prestige stores like Sephora may only be able to afford one product, whereas with Target being a mass retailer, it allows that customer to really focus on the freedom of their beauty routine.”
Butler is excited to push the boundaries of what shoppers expect to see in a retailer such as Target with campaigns featuring people she describes as not identifying with “normal social constructs,” including gender-fluid models and people who are transitioning. Butler says, “For too long, a lot of these people have lived on the fringes, and so we are looking to serve them and make sure that they know that their experiences are very relevant.”
In a different twist on nonconformity, Butler isn’t interested in telling Thread’s customers precisely how to use its products. The intentions of some are obvious—the complexion stick is formulated for the face and the lip color for the lips—but, for the most part, anything goes. She encourages customers to do what works for them, and notes she’s spotted trends of young consumers putting blush across the bridges of their noses and lining their lips with brow pencils.
“The way we are approaching it is really with this freedom to discover and to play with it,” says Butler. “I think that makeup has just become stuffy, and I think gen Z is really leading the charge and showing us a new way of beauty and self-expression, just look at the makeup on ‘Euphoria,’ and I really hope that Thread can be alongside them helping to push the narrative.”
Gen Z’s affinity for individuality influenced the product’s bright Tiffany-blue packaging. “Often, when people think of makeup, they think of this old elegance and brands like MAC or NARS or even Anastasia, and it’s this black on black on black packaging,” says Butler. “But, if you’re 21, you’re not necessarily thinking about sophistication, you’re thinking about fun, you’re thinking about hanging out with your friends, you’re thinking about your newfound freedom. We wanted to pick a color that will stand out, but also automatically inspires our customers to be in this creative state.”
Thread will be a TikTok-first brand since TikTok is where gen z congregates, but it’s not skipping showing up IRL. Events are expected down the line. Live and stagnant billboards advertising the brand will pop up in Houston, Atlanta and New York. The ones in New York are placed within subway stations.
“We know that our customer probably isn’t spending a ton of money on Uber, they are probably taking the subway because that is the more affordable route. So, we’re really looking at out-of-the-box marketing that goes after our customer exactly where they are as opposed to trying to get our customer to come to us to us,” says Butler, adding, “I want to build the brand that they want to believe in, that they want to shop with, that they lean on and that they can trust is going to do the right thing.”
The Lip Bar is big on billboards as well. The brand has unveiled celebratory billboards in Detroit, Atlanta, Houston and Washington, D.C., in honor of its 10-year anniversary. The billboards cheekily call out television program “Shark Tank.” Butler appeared on it in 2015, and her pitch was rejected by its five hosts or “sharks.” The shark Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, referred to The Lip Bar’s funky shades as clown makeup, and insisted that Butler and The Lip Bar creative director Rosco Spears wouldn’t be able to grab market share with the brand.
Butler went on to receive a $2 million investment from New Voices Fund in 2018. The Lip Bar is currently a multimillion-dollar business, and its sales have doubled annually for the past four years. The brand is stocked at 1,000 Target doors.
Butler maintains that the billboards aren’t supposed to prove anything to naysayers like Mr. Wonderful, but rather to pass along a message about hurdles that entrepreneurs face as they try to build a successful business. “I think the entrepreneurship has become incredibly trendy over the past several years,” she says. “Everyone wants to be their own boss, everyone is thinking about quitting their traditional nine to five and moving on to follow their dreams, which I think is really beautiful, but I also think that people aren’t getting the full story of entrepreneurship, the trials and the tribulations.”
She hopes the takeaway is she kept going in spite of the noes. “It can serve as inspiration for that other person who wants to be an entrepreneur or who’s thinking about giving up on their business,” says Butler. “If you believe in something and if you continue to put the work in day in and day out, you will achieve it. It’s impossible to continue to work on something and not see progress.”
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