Why DIBS Beauty’s Success Proves You Shouldn’t Market to the Status Quo
DIBS co-founders, Jeff Lee and Courtney Shields take questions from the crowd at SXSW 2025.
Kicking off my SXSW 2025 recaps with a brand that’s doing it right — DIBS Beauty, whose strategy proves that knowing your real consumer beats chasing trends every time.
If you’re a business owner or marketer, you know how important it is to build a brand for your consumer. But here’s the catch: you can’t build for them if you don’t deeply understand who they are. It’s more than their age, household makeup and annual income. It’s knowing what lights them up and what keeps them up at night. What makes them laugh? What fills their cup? And, of course, their pain points.
DIBS Beauty has a pretty firm handle on this, but they’ve cranked the target audience dial up a notch — by meeting their consumer WHERE they are.
Meet DIBS Beauty:
Multi-Tasking Makeup for Real Life, Real People
First, let’s back up a bit and answer why I’m talking about DIBS in the first place. I attended SXSW last month, and one of the first sessions I attended was “How DIBS Beauty has a 50-State Presence Amplified by Omnichannel”. The co-founders, beauty influencer and Creative Director Courtney Shields and CEO Jeff Lee, peeled back the curtain to reveal the brand strategy that has positioned them as inclusive AND accessible in the beauty space.
For anyone wondering, the name "DIBS" stands for "Desert Island Beauty Secrets," reflecting the brand's focus on creating versatile, essential makeup products that you’d want to have even on a desert island. Their products have an emphasis on multi-purpose, easy-to-use, vegan and cruelty-free, and they’re intentionally designed to simplify beauty routines while enhancing natural features.
How DIBS Beauty Achieved a 50-State Presence
But back to the 50-state presence claim… what does that actually mean? It stems from the fact that they’re the first brand to have an event in all 50 states at once. You might’ve read that just now and wondered how that’s never happened? Surely, another brand has made that claim to fame. Think about it, though. Brands tend to activate in markets with larger populations – NYC, Chicago, LA. But the secret that DIBS has known all along is that some of the most loyal and makeup-obsessed people aren’t living in big cities. They live in small towns and rural areas. They’re more suburban than urban. They may not have an Ulta or Sephora within a 50-mile radius. But that’s not stopping them from stepping up their glam all day, every day.
Reaching Beyond Big Cities:
The Overlooked Power of Rural Consumers
When beauty brands paint portraits of their consumer, they might be detailing the working woman in New York City – you know, the social media manager working at a trendy fashion startup in SoHo. By day, she's planning photo shoots, writing witty captions and tracking engagement metrics. By night, she’s checking out new restaurants in the West Village, going to art shows in Brooklyn or curating her own personal brand on TikTok and Instagram.
Meanwhile, in a small town hours away, there’s a girl who’s just as makeup-obsessed – maybe even more. She’s working the front desk at a dental office or running the register at her local pharmacy, but her mornings still start with winged liner and a contour routine sharp enough to slice. She watches every GRWM on YouTube, knows every DIBS launch before it drops and turns heads at the grocery store with a full beat.
That’s the consumer DIBS knows and loves. They knew the untapped potential of beauty lovers living in areas that are often overlooked and that big beauty energy can live anywhere. As a beauty influencer, Courtney saw it herself. Her followers weren’t necessarily living in high-rise condos. They were giving full face glam on Main Street in mid-America and serving face in southwest suburbs.
Marketing Takeaway:
Don’t Chase the Ideal, Serve the Real
Here’s the big takeaway. If you want to build a brand that actually resonates, you have to stop marketing to the “ideal consumer” you think you should have and start showing up for the real people who already love what you do. Dig deeper than the data points. Listen harder. Go beyond the usual suspects and challenge the industry default. When you understand your audience at a human level – not just as demographics, but as people – you unlock loyalty, community, and growth in places you may have never thought to look. DIBS didn’t follow the crowd. They followed their consumer. And that made all the difference.
The right message needs the right audience. Contact me to book a consultation and let’s craft a clear, compelling picture of your customer.