For a moment, ‘eye patch gate’ looked like a beauty brand’s nightmare.
Fenty Skin, Glow Recipe and Huda Beauty revealed ‘first-to-market’ under-eye patches dispensed by strikingly similar twist-to-slice packaging in quick succession.
The obvious question was not so much who copied whom, given the timing, but how three major beauty brands arrived at essentially the same innovation at almost the same time, each seemingly believing they were bringing something new to market.
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This could easily have become a crisis communications exercise: carefully worded statements, defensive explanations, brands retreating to their respective corners.
Instead, Fenty Skin posted an under-eye patch dispenser-themed version of the famous Spider-Man pointing meme – in which three identical Spider-Man characters are pointing at each other – and the story became much more interesting.
From a CMO’s perspective, the remarkable thing is what happened next. An awkward product comparison became a conversation people actively wanted to join.
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