Multigenerational Campaigns Drive Major Gains for Top Brands

by · WWD
Demi Moore for Lancôme.Courtesy of Lancôme

Beauty for all?

While a number of brands have been founded specifically to target a Gen Z audience or other demographic groups like Boomers, a new report by Launchmetrics suggests that not choosing between generations may be the best approach.

Over the past year, the top 20 brands across skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care generated a combined $22.7 billion in Media Impact Value, the industry-standard metric which assigns a dollar value to every post, placement and piece of coverage a brand generates.

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Within that, the data showed that brands that made distinct efforts to target multiple generations in at least one campaign saw their MIV jump an average of 42 percent from fourth-quarter 2025 to first-quarter 2026, compared to 36 percent for brands that maintained a less inclusive campaign approach.

“Over the years, I’ve had a lot of conversations with brands about focusing on Gen Z,” Krista Johnson, director, brand insights at Launchmetrics, said. “We’ve found that there’s no longer ‘we need a strategy based on a single generation, but multiple generations.’ Millennials and Baby Boomers have twice the amount of disposable income as Gen Z does. A lot of top beauty names have felt that they’ve over-invested in how much they’re focusing on Gen Z, and they’re trying to pivot now.”

The challenge for brands, she said, is that not all three of these generations live in the same place.

“They don’t trust the same voices, and they don’t always take in the same content. So brands who are very deliberate with this kind of strategy have seen a 6-percentage-point growth for those who have active multigenerational campaigns,” Johnson continued.

In makeup, it highlighted how MAC, the top brand by MIV, hit its highest monthly peak of $116 million in September 2025, driven largely by the launch of the “I Only Wear MAC” campaign featuring a cast spanning five decades: Kris Jenner, Kristen McMenamy, Cortisa Star, Bach Buquen, Kiko Mizuhara, Gabbriette, Doja Cat, Devyn Garcia and Amar Akway. Jenner alone drove $3.5 million in MIV in one week.

In skin care, Launchmetrics pointed to the launch of Lancôme Absolue Longevity MD in May, with the marketing strategy built around a single message: longevity is for everyone, every generation, and Zoë Saldaña, Demi Moore and Ella McCutcheon fronting the campaign. This generated $6.5 million in MIV in a single month.