Dive Brief:

• Glossier this week became the first brand to sell products through YouTube Shorts, the video-sharing platform’s TikTok-like feature. YouTube’s first Shoppable Shorts Challenge features Glossier’s newest eyeliner, the No. 1 Pencil, per details shared in an email with Marketing Dive.

• Glossier enlisted singer Kehlani to promote the challenge in a post on the makeup brand’s YouTube channel, which has 150,000 subscribers. The brand is also working with more than 100 creators to produce short videos showcasing the eyeliner on their own pages. Each video will have the #WrittenInGlossier hashtag, which connects the viewer with Glossier.com to buy the new product. The challenge began on June 8 and runs until June 23.

• Glossier also plans to offer the No. 1 pencil for sale online during YouTube’s second annual Beauty Festival on June 16. The shoppable shorts feature isn’t available in the U.K., but Glossier is partnering with several YouTube creators to give viewers a way to buy the product in private shoppable links, according to the announcement.

Dive Insight:

Glossier’s collaboration with YouTube on the platform’s first shoppable video for Shorts is notable as the latest combination of content and commerce. As YouTube rolls out the feature, more brands will have an opportunity to create shoppable videos that are geared for viewing on mobile devices. They also can enlist influencers and creators to showcase their products, as Glossier is doing with its Shoppable Shorts Challenge that offers viewers the first chance to buy its latest product.

Shoppable video is a high-growth area for marketers that seek to engage consumers with livestreams or video ads on connected devices like smart TVs and mobile phones. Forty percent of advertising executives said shoppable video ads are a standard part of their media mix, while another 35% are in a “test and learn” phase, according to a study commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

A key motivation for embracing shoppable video is its power to achieve key performance indicators at all stages of the consumer purchase funnel. More than half (55%) of ad executives who use the shoppable video format said it achieves upper-funnel objectives, such as brand awareness and consideration. A similar percentage (56%) said shoppable video ads deliver lower-funnel performance such as sales conversions, the IAB found.

For Google’s YouTube, the collaboration with Glossier is another sign that the video-sharing platform is seeking to push into TikTok’s turf. YouTube used to be a key source of growth for parent company Alphabet, but the video platform’s revenue grew 14% from a year earlier to $6.87 billion during the first quarter of 2022, less than the consensus forecast of about 25%.

To regain growth, YouTube is expanding into a short-form video area that is TikTok’s key strength. TikTok’s ad revenue is forecast to triple this year to $11.64 billion, putting it on course to equal YouTube’s yearly haul by 2024, according to Insider Intelligence. YouTube Shorts now draws 30 billion daily video views, four times higher than the audience it drew a year ago.