How Kulfi Beauty evolved its advertising method

After investing yrs doing work in the attractiveness sector at brands like Estée Lauder and Ipsy, Priyanka Ganjoo resolved to commence one of her individual.

In 2021, she established Kulfi, a cosmetics firm motivated by her South Asian heritage—Kulfi is the identify of a South Asian dessert that is similar to ice product. “I located that there ended up still not products that truly were being designed for my undertone, which is a small little bit olive and gold. A whole lot of South Asian individuals have that undertone,” she informed us.

Ganjoo mentioned she also felt compelled to start out Kulfi simply because of the “emotional gap” she found though conducting current market investigate, concentrate groups, and interviews. “I located a tiny gap, which I contact the ‘emotional gap,’ which was that quite a few of us did not experience beautiful escalating up mainly because we didn’t see beauty representative of us and celebrating us,” she mentioned.

Kulfi sells staples like eyeliner, blush, and concealer, as properly as merch like a crewneck and headband. The brand was portion of Sephora’s Accelerate software, a brand name incubator supporting founders of colour, and is now offered at the retailer. Ganjoo told us that given that partnering with Sephora, Kulfi has scaled generation 5x.

In accordance to Ganjoo, she initially commenced developing the brand by way of a weblog identified as Kulfi Bites. “The website was actually about showcasing underrepresented voices, chatting about splendor, wellness—all the things that we could relate to culturally,” she described.

Posts coated a range of topics, together with job information and personal essays. Ganjoo herself contributed a write-up about her shifting definition of magnificence, though a submit from contributor Aleenah Ansari chronicled her experience heading to remedy as a queer girl of shade. In addition to the weblog, Ganjoo stated the firm grew an audience for the model organically via Instagram and TikTok.

She explained Kulfi’s internet marketing system has transitioned over time from one particular “very focused on organic” brand name-developing to its latest technique, which integrates far more paid out promoting the brand has a short while ago been screening compensated ads on Instagram and TikTok.

The model has also shifted the tales it as soon as instructed on Kulfi Bites above to Instagram and TikTok as it appears to be like to leverage online video. For instance, a recent “get ready with me” Instagram video clip highlighted a creator discussing mental wellbeing, describing it as a topic that is “often relegated to taboo” throughout the South Asian diaspora.

Very last year, the brand name utilized TikTok to support it find folks to design for a marketing campaign involving a products launch in Sephora: Kulfi posted a TikTok showcasing Ganjoo spreading the term about its casting call, encouraging “BIPOC, women of all ages, and LGBTQ+ individuals” to use. 

“We got like 1,000 applications, which was incredible, and we have been ready to aspect them. It turned a minute of neighborhood celebration, because they saw them selves on Sephora.com,” she said. Types included digital creator Issah Malik and chemist Asia Rate.

Apart from social, Ganjoo stated the model takes advantage of SMS and e mail as part of its promoting combine, exactly where it sees “very high engagement.” While the model celebrates South Asian magnificence, eventually, Ganjoo is doing work to posture Kulfi as accessible to all consumers, which includes people who may not be South Asian.

“If you’re a man or woman of shade who commences a model, it all of a sudden gets to be what I contact, quotation-unquote, the ethnic class, that only people today who are South Asian are heading to use,” Ganjoo stated. “[For] my brand, which is not accurate. I use manufacturers that occur from unique cultures, occur from different destinations, mainly because I love them and I discover benefit in them.”