Skincare brand Starface wants its pimple patches to feel like jewelry. The zit-zapping star stickers are packaged inside a square smiley-face compact, which the company calls “Big Yellow.” On store shelves, that smiley is nested inside an electric-lemon box, emblazoned with playful bubble letters. It’s like a cutesy matryoshka doll for acne.

“On a shelf of other acne-specific products, everything is a little drab and lackluster. So we definitely wanted to bring joy,” Starface’s president and general manager Kara Brothers-Phillips told Retail Brew.

The minimalist aesthetic that was so popular among millennials is coming to a close, and you can thank Gen Z. They look for products with attitude and personality, explained Hamish Campbell, VP executive creative director at the brand design agency Pearlfisher: “We’re now into maximalism.”

• “This is probably one of the biggest generational shifts in mindset, to be really promoting who you are,” he told us.

Pearlfisher—which works with companies like Blue Bottle Coffee, McDonald’s, Wild Turkey, and Pyrex—has noticed a growing interest in younger consumers among its clients. “Almost every brief I get is now looking to how we move these brands to be more Gen Z appropriate,” Campbell said.

Scrolling through memory lane: When helping companies strategize and design for this audience, he emphasizes Gen Z’s creativity, mixed with their penchant for nostalgia.

Beauty brand Youthforia, a Gen Z favorite, packages its lip gloss and blush in neon tubes that click together like magnetic Legos. Founder and CEO Fiona Co Chan told us she wanted the products themselves to spark childhood memories. “[It] kind of brings you back to the first time you’ve ever bought makeup…I wanted it to kind of be reminiscent of a toy.”

Click here to read more.—JG

Get out the balloons: Party City CMO Julie Roehm recently spoke with Marketing Brew’s Alyssa Meyers about the retailer’s new and improved social media strategy.

Start strong: One of the first things Roehm did at Party City—coincidentally, her tenure started just a few months before Covid hit the US—was to move most of the retailer’s media budget to digital platforms, including Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Google.

• In the past year, its spend on social has doubled, according to Roehm.
• This January, Party City’s paid media-buying efforts led to a nearly 10% YoY increase in traffic. And from 2020 to 2021, paid social traffic improved 30%, she said, primarily driven by Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Share the fun: Roehm also established the company’s first internal influencer team and created partnerships with creators, including “mom influencers.”

“Social has been a gift that keeps on giving for us,” she said, explaining that Party City’s influencers not only post content for the brand, but also provide feedback about what’s working and what isn’t. “It helps us a lot to refine our go-to-market positioning and strategy.”

+1: Another priority? Pinterest. Click here to read the full story on Marketing Brew.—GT

Owned brands are having a moment, and DSW parent company Designer Brands wants to step up.

The company laid out a five-year financial plan on Friday, in which it aims to hit $4 billion in annual revenue and a gross profit of 35%—all by fiscal 2026.

• To reach that goal, Designer Brands is counting on doubling the 19% of total revenue it currently derives from its owned brands to nearly one-third—mainly through DTC channels including DSW and The Shoe Company.

The company previously noted its owned-brand sales in Q4 increased 69% YoY, while private-label sales via DTC channels grew 98% YoY. “We needed to get in more control of our destiny,” Designer Brands CFO Jared Poff told Footwear News. “Not just be a retailer of other people’s brands, but truly be a brand builder.”

Zoom out: Designer Brands is not alone in seeing the value of selling directly to consumers—especially as companies like Nike have also accelerated their shift toward DTC and cut down on business with wholesale partners. Under Armour has also been rethinking its wholesale channels, while Adidas is counting on DTC making up 50% of its sales by 2025.—JS

Upcycling, circularity, sustainable sourcing…what do these all have in common? Answer: The potential to be nothing more than catchphrases—or the power to become impactful initiatives.

If you’re a retail professional at the director level or above and ready to put more impactful sustainability initiatives in place, join us on April 27 in NYC (yes, in person!) for The Checkout: Sustainability in Retail forum. We’ll be in conversation with Liz Hershfield, SVP and head of sustainability at J. Crew Group and SVP of sourcing at Madewell, to learn about how to set audacious, actionable goals while also creating accountability.

Spots are first come, first serve, so register here.

Today’s top retail reads.

Great expectations: A hard look at US consumer culture. “We’re always being set up that whatever we’re looking at or considering to buy is better,” said David Mick, a professor of commerce at the University of Virginia. (Vox)

Early birds: Yes, some retailers are already putting in their holiday orders. (Forbes)

Bowl over: PetSmart is pushing into fresh and frozen food to keep pet parents coming back. (Modern Retail)

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At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

Last week, online luxury retailer Farfetch announced a global strategic partnership with Neiman Marcus Group (NMG), owner of Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, which included a minority investment of up to $200 million.

Under the deal, both luxury retailers will sell products through Farfetch’s marketplace, which reaches 190 countries, providing a potential sales boost for the retailer that filed for bankruptcy in May 2020.

• Farfetch will support Bergdorf Goodman’s website and mobile app through its white-label tech services. Bergdorf Goodman will also be expanding its own website abroad, planning to debut its first international website in 2023.

NMG CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck told Bloomberg the move will also help the company reach an emerging demographic of younger luxury shoppers.

You tell us: Do you expect other retailers to make similar moves to cash in on the growing global luxury market? Cast your vote here.

Circling back: Last week, after warehouse workers on Staten Island voted to form Amazon’s first union, we asked our readers how they think a unionized Amazon warehouse could affect the industry. One reader said it will start a “domino effect” of private businesses unionizing, while another reader noted that it could lead other warehouses and manufacturing companies to raise wages and improve working conditions to keep workers from switching over to the e-comm giant.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Authentic Brands Group’s Jamie Salter on rebooting Reebok
• ThredUp CEO James Reinhart talks resale’s big picture
• How Wellfare is working to “flip the food-pantry model”