How Holme Beauty is disrupting traditional makeup marketing tactics

Makeup artist turned brand founder Hilary Holmes is challenging traditional beauty marketing tactics that leverage and profit from consumer insecurity through her cosmetics company Holme Beauty.

Now, the brand is spreading its message of self-love to consumers across the country via a double-decker bus that just rolled into Sydney after stopping in Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Wagga Wagga and Canberra. 

Dubbed the ‘Holme Coming Tour’, the initiative is a way for consumers to experience the brand’s makeup products and receive free masterclasses from Holmes and her team.

Becoming Holme to community

Holme Beauty flips the narrative of makeup marketing campaigns that focus on covering up ‘flaws’ and encourages consumers to embrace their own beauty.

The brand’s innovative line of high-performance makeup products is made with skin-loving ingredients that are vegan and cruelty-free, and it aims to leave a lasting impact on consumers long after their make-up is washed off.

Holme Beauty was founded in 2021 in Melbourne, but the idea had been brewing for almost two decades prior. Holmes worked as a makeup artist overseas in the UK and locally.

“My number one goal is to change the way the beauty industry impacts the customer and the way that I can do that is to see a very large gap in the industry closed, and be a brand that speaks to the customer,” Holmes told Inside Retail.

“No one is in service to the customer, everyone thinks the customer is in service to them,” she said.

“I’m changing that around through Holme Beauty by exploring how I can create and communicate with the customer front of mind.”

The wheels on the bus

At the heart of the brand’s ‘Holme Coming Tour’ is a mobile retail store that offers customers the opportunity to be colour-matched to the brand’s new Hytride Flex Concealer and other products.

Decked out with Holme Beauty products, the bus aims to bring the brand to new and existing customers in real life along the East Coast.

As a consumer-centric brand, the tour is a way to further strengthen its relationship with the community and guage their feedback in order to continue developing products and curating events that service their needs and wants.

“Every decision I make on this bus, for a product range and in the way we communicate, has the customer experience [at its heart]. And that’s something that you can see in everything that we do,” Holmes said.

The first 20 customers to board the bus at each location received a Holme Beauty goodie bag with the complete Holme Beauty collection inside. To be eligible, they just need to RSVP ‘going’ to the Facebook event.

The brand offers two masterclasses at each stop, as the education element is a pivotal part of the brand and its ethos of empowering customers.

After pulling up under Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge with an unrestricted view of the Opera House, the bus is now headed to Newcastle, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast and Brisbane.

As the founder, Holmes is the face of the brand. 

In the case of the ‘Holme Coming Tour’, that has meant having an unretouched image of her face on the side of a double-decker bus. While Holmes admitted the idea of it was daunting, she felt there was no one better to champion the brand’s ethos than herself.

“I feel super grateful and this tour is amazing because I get to see the direct response to having the people who use it,” Holmes finished.

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