Key Takeaways:
- Multigenerational campaigns drive stronger growth for beauty brands.
- Influencers remain beauty’s most powerful visibility engine.
- Brand relevance now spans five consumer generations.
Beauty has always been competitive, but today’s market is uniquely complex. Gen Alpha, Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers are all active beauty consumers simultaneously, each with distinct values, channels, and expectations. As competition fragments across generations, the stakes are rising.
According to McKinsey & Company, the sector grew 7% annually between 2022 and 2024, but it is now projected to slow to 5% through 2030. In a decelerating market, organic growth is no longer enough to sustain momentum. Instead, brands are increasingly competing for market share, often by taking it directly from one another.
That pressure is already driving strategic change. Having overindexed on Gen Z in recent years, many leading brands are now shifting toward more multigenerational strategies designed to broaden relevance and protect long-term growth.
A recent report from AI-powered brand data company Launchmetrics analyzed the brand performance of companies marketing to multiple generations using its proprietary Media Impact Value (MIV) metric, which assigns a monetary value to media placements, influencer content, social posts, and brand coverage to measure visibility and impact.
Over the past year, the top 20 brands across skincare, makeup, fragrance, and haircare generated a combined $22.7 billion in MIV. Within that dataset, brands that actively targeted multiple generations in at least one campaign saw MIV growth of 42% from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026, compared to 36% for those...
