Unpacking the confusing Emily in Paris x Augustinus Bader collaboration
"She’s done dyeing her hair; now she’s just dying to live!"
In a world where scepticism is at an all-time high and our attention levels are at an all-time low, how can a beauty brand monopolise a moment in the zeitgeist? Enter: brand integration.
For streaming shows that don’t feature intrusive commercial breaks, brand integration offers a seductive opportunity for lifestyle brands to place their products in an unskippable advertisement on a subscription platform. The brand messaging and visuals are baked into the context of the storyline, forming a lasting link between the two in the mind of the audience.
However, it’s a very delicate balancing act for the brand. Tip the scales too heavy on product placements and you risk alerting an ad-averse audience to the manufactured nature of the partnership. Just ask makeup brand E.l.f, which was slammed with unfavourable discourse on TikTok for “forced” product integration within the Mean Girls musical reboot.
Despite E.l.f’s avid popularity, the product placement was deemed too obvious by many viewers, who also felt that characters such as Regina George wouldn’t be caught dead using a drugstore makeup brand. They claimed the brand was ultimately the wrong fit for the feature, which resulted in the opposite outcome to a successful brand integration – conspicuous commercialisation.
Get it right, however, and you might just go viral for all the right reasons – as Augustinus Bader can attest. The prestige German beauty purveyor scored global exposure when a bottle of its cult moisturiser The Cream appeared on the vanity of Succession’s Kendall Roy. Perhaps that’s why the brand chose to opt in to a confusing partnership with Netflix’s Emily in Paris, which dropped a new season last week.
If you haven’t yet inhaled season four’s delicious frivolities, allow me to summarise the related scenes in episode four, whereby esteemed beauty brand Augustinus Bader approaches the fictional Agence Grateau – where main character Emily Cooper works – for creative assistance on a campaign to promote its new haircare line that targets “mature” women.
As a fictitious representative for the brand tells Cooper and the team, the “legendary skincare line” Augustinus Bader is “an open secret among celebrities from Victoria Beckham to Margot Robbie”. That’s straight facts right there, but it’s also an attractive premise to a millennial and gen Z audience that loves pop culture and being in the know.
So here’s where it gets a little… clunky for me. “Now we're planning to revolutionise beauty with a new shampoo specifically formulated for women of a certain age,” explains the fake AB exec. Obviously, 29-year-old Emily is tasked with the pitch and subsequently parses her personal life for ideas.
A brainwave ensues, which sees Emily position the product’s target customer – women who are ready to give up ammonia for good, in favour of their naturally greying hair – as a metaphor for embracing life’s ‘grey areas’.
As Emily details her campaign idea, she attempts to connect the virtues of living life on your own terms with having casual sex on a rooftop, before making a number of incongruous statements about who the Augustinus Bader customer is.
“She’s done dyeing her hair; now she’s just dying to live!”
“Going grey isn’t giving up… it’s glowing up!”
“She’s living… in the grey area.”
Believe it or not, the cringe factor isn’t my biggest point of contention – after all, one of the reasons we collectively surrendered to Emily in Paris is its endearing lack of sincerity – but Augustinus Bader has serious scientific clout, with innovative formulations backed by 30 years of clinical research. The proprietary technology at the centre of the products was developed by Professor Bader to treat burn victims.
The silliness of the scenes unintentionally highlights an awkward disparity between the show and the brand, as Augustinus Bader has always strived to project the polar opposite; that is, a quiet luxury brand with serious credentials and a stylish clientele. It’s the discrete elegance of The Row to Emily in Paris’ ludicrously capacious puff sleeves, pumps and prints.
As one of the biggest shows on Netflix, there’s no doubt that appearing in an episode of Emily in Paris is an effective avenue for mass exposure – a number of high-end fashion houses work extensively with the show’s wardrobe department, to multi-million-dollar success – but for fans of the cult skincare line, it felt like a significant departure from Augustinus Bader’s brand identity.
Allure sought clarification from an Augustinus Bader rep in relation to the feature, who claimed that it wasn’t paid placement but instead an “organic storyline integration” that had been pitched to the brand by the producers of Emily in Paris. So what was the thought behind such a partnership, other than (apparently) free promo?
If it was to use the opportunity as a vehicle to generate positive sentiment towards Augustinus Bader, the spotlighted product range – a haircare line for “mature women” – doesn’t really align to the show’s youngish viewers, who are probably a decade away from greys (and almost certainly can’t justify upwards of $180 for shampoo and conditioner).
A quick glance at Augustinus Bader’s TikTok seems to indicate that it does want to attract a younger customer. Since its debut on the show, the brand has doubled down with a calculated roll-out of paid creator partnerships on social media to celebrate #BaderInParis – but I suspect it hasn’t had the impact they’d hoped for.
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If it had been a more universal product from the range that Emily herself had been using throughout the series, such as The Cream (my HG moisturiser!), it would have been far more enticing to the audience. Honestly though, the most obvious character choice would be Sylvie, whose very demure French opulence and beauty effortlessly translates to the discerning skincare lover with significant disposable income.
Upon further investigation, I also discovered that Augustinus Bader doesn’t actually have a shampoo or conditioner for greying hair in their haircare repertoire, and instead this line was fabricated entirely to fit the theme of the episode. So there isn’t a direct promotional link from the storyline to a new launch, which would surely have been far more lucrative for the brand.
As customer acquisition becomes increasingly fractious – in fact, the incredible Anastasia Soare of Anastasia Beverly Hills told me this week that it was the biggest challenge facing global beauty companies right now – we can certainly expect to see brands continue to experiment with brand integration, to varying degrees of success.
Speaking of…
Good Gets
Things I’m obsessed with this week
Okay, I was sceptical about this one but I’ve been trusting ghd with my hair since 2005, and please – there’s no need to do the math. For that reason, I’m always intrigued to try their tools and omg, I truly believe this is their best release yet. It’s a blow dry brush with a girthy barrel (I’m so sorry), which means it can capture a whole lot of hair and deliver major volume.
I use it on wet hair, wrapping sections around the barrel and pulling the hair up and out for elevation around the crown. I then wrap and pull down around the front sections and the ends to give a 90s rounded finish. It dries my hair relatively quickly as it styles, and the volume lasts for days. Despite the big brush head it’s also great for giving my fringe some bounce.
I’ve complimented multiple people in the last few weeks on their hair, and 3 out of 4 said they used this tool, so you know it’s good (the other had used the Dyson Airstrait, which I’m also obsessed with – so let me know if you want a review on that one).
Confession: I have been gatekeeping these lip stains!!! I know, I’m sorry. They’ve been around for some time and I’ve used them off and on in the past, but last week I was reminded of the Cream Lip Stain supremacy when I got my hands on my new fave shade, 80 Honeymoon.
I’ve been obsessed with deeper rust-mauve tones for the lip lately, and this formula is perfect – like, literally perfect. It doesn’t cake, it’s super pigmented but it’s still buildable and stays on forever without transfer. The price is SO good and there are loads of shades. It has a matte finish, but also layers easily with a gloss (ie. plays nice with others).
Beauty Blind Item
On occasion, I’ll be dropping some hints here about exciting beauty news doing the rounds. While the rumour can’t be revealed (yet!), be sure to check back in for the reveal…
A much-hyped makeup brand of fashionable origins is finally set to launch in Australia next month. This brand is particularly well-loved on TikTok, and is one of the top three most-mentioned in my comments when discussion turns to beauty brands that’re absent in Aus.
Any guesses?!
See you next Tuesday,
KL x
I unironically ironically love Emily in Paris but still agree it was a weird partnership. I’d like to imagine the AB internal meeting where they had to approve whether to go ahead or not with this; I guess if it was unpaid they were like “sure, use our logo and colours and go nuts”.
Loved this, will love The Cream until my grey area days (and beyond!)