Will Fenty Beauty's launch in Nigeria affect its sales?

Over the weekend, Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin launched in eight African countries. The event in Lagos, Nigeria was a star-studded one with many celebrities in attendance.

The event was dissatisfying to other makeup and beauty influencers who felt that more people in the beauty industry should have been there. Even though, few beauty influencers like Dimma Umeh and Anita Brows were in attendance.

It is important to look into what the people had to say about the launch, as it is popularly said vox populi vox Dei which means the voice of the people is the voice of God.

From conversations on Twitter, many people felt that many people were invited because they were popular celebrities, not because of their expertise - it wasn’t what you would have expected from a beauty and makeup product launch.

We expected to see makeup artists, skin care professionals and enthusiasts, reviews and demonstrations, but we just saw celebrities partying.

Even though the event did a good job of publicizing the arrival of the brand, the products took a back seat.

It isn’t over yet, there is still time to send those PR packages to influencers for tutorials.

In all, perhaps people want to feel the personal touch of the brand, they want to see their favourite reviewer talking about the product and how to get it.

In a place where influencer marketing is really trendy and the fact that people want to get beauty and makeup tips from them, leveraging on these influencers will have brought the product home to the average Nigerian women.

Even though popular influencer, I am Dodos, did a mini-review of the product, we would like to see more of that and perhaps more affiliate agents instead of a centralized unit.

But it is Rihanna! Even though projected sales figures are not out now, we know it won’t be a total loss, her brand name is enough to attract clients. However, involving more beauty influencers would have made Fenty a household makeup product.