Bella Hadid's New Brand is a Tragedy
The difference between a well executed brand and a bad one.
GM everyone (it’s the night before posting) I am writing this from the rooftop of my friend Tyler’s apartment in Bushwick as he tries on his entire wardrobe and I tell him what to throw away and what to keep.
My keen sense of sartorial taste is only being heightened by the Stella’s he’s feeding me as a pre-dinner snack.
Today I want to switch things up and do a deep dive on Bella Hadid’s new fragrance brand, Orebella, its terrible execution, and compare it to another brand that I think really nailed their launch.
Maybe this is the first Who Do You Know series?
Also some housekeeping real quick… I got a custom domain for the newsletter. You can now find it at www.whodoyouknow.nyc
Hats are coming soon just in time for Summer trips to the Hamptons and copious glasses of wine at Le Dive.
Good Brand vs. Bad Brand
What is a ‘brand’ anyway?
The word brand is thrown around more recklessly that at any point since David Ogilvy was cranking out some of the best advertisements on Madison Ave. in the 1960s.
Ultimately, a brand is something people working at a company think they can deliberately craft, but the reality is that ‘brand’ is something we the consumers determine.
A brand is the culmination of a consumers reaction and thoughts to every single touch point— copy, web, photo, colors, behavior, product, etc.
As much as brand strategists (like myself) think we can control how a brand is perceived, all we can do is use our taste and judgement to ensure every touch point is… on point and is not degrading our brand perception, but rather elevating our ethos to a core audience and often finding some unexpectedly passionate fans too.
The tricky thing is that nailing that can lead to immense success (think Apple, Nike, or Hermes) but failing at it can lead to… Orebella.
Another Day, Another Bad Celebrity Brand
Everyday on Earth 380,000 babies are born, 160,000 people die, and 1,000,000 celebrity backed brands are launched. That’s a real stat.
And this epidemic spans sectors, from wellness and beauty to alcohol and anything in between.
It makes sense, celebrities have cultural cache and can easily raise capital.
Their public interests and stories help the new brand quickly capture attention and enter the market with a reasonable amount of general consumer awareness.
The team behind Bella Hadid’s new fragrance brand most likely thought this prior to launch. It worked well with Kin Euphorics right? What could go wrong?
Execution Really Matters
I have not tried Orebella, it’s not really for me. So I am not here to judge the brand based on the product they are actually selling, but rather critiquing the small and big things they could have done to sell a lot more to the consumers who are actually they’re target. Let’s start with the brand’s website:
I am not certain but this feels like a heavily modified Shopify website. Its incredibly disjointed and almost from another era of the internet. The font choice is baffling to me. (I would use a Chrome extension to find the font but it doesn’t work on this site?) I hate when a website starts out with a brand film it wants me to watch, especially when its an odd, esoteric, confusing brand film that really tells me nothing about the product at all. Its just another thing getting in the way of learning more about the product.
The hero header copy is even more confusing. ‘Reveal your alchemy… The First Intentional Skin Parfum’ …
What the f*ck is this supposed to mean? What does the perfume do that is so unique? Does a perfume need to do anything besides make someone smell better? Probably not.
This section really shows how the Shopify theme is breaking down. There is more than enough room to show three products all at once, but instead we have this awkward, small product slider?
One of the key selling points of Orebella is that its alcohol free. Why? Not sure besides Hadid has been notoriously sober for years. But what this entails is that the fragrance must be shaken every time before spraying. This section certainly shows how to shake the bottle, but further confuses the viewer by introducing proprietary terminolo like the ‘nourishing’ Orelixir™️
Word of advice… when starting a new brand you must be conscious of how much we are expecting the potential customer to learn all at once. Does the proprietary name matter, or is it another obfuscation getting in the way of understanding the value of this unique quality.
In terms of brand storytelling, they also really missed the mark. You have one of the most recognizable, beloved faces in the world… a literal supermodel and the best you could do to communicate why she was passionate about starting this brand is a giant block of text no one is going to read and some collage style photos.
Every part of this website screams amateur, and its shocking to me.
wrote a great article on common brand mistakes and I want to quote something relevant she said,“Bigger picture here (and truly this is the overall message of this article), is that I suggest starting with a white page on digital design, instead of filling a Shopify template with content. This forces you to really consider what things are essential to communicate, what features are absolutely necessary, so you avoid content bloat and an inefficient user experience. Your brand messaging should inform your design, not the other way around.”
Her and her co-host Nick Axelrod discussed the botched launch in-depth on their excellent podcast Eyewitness Beauty. Go give that a listen.
This rollout is not really Bella Hadid’s fault, its the team of people she’s surrounded herself with to launch this. This could have been a forward-thinking, coherent, fresh new brand, but what may be a decent product is hidden behind a corny Shopify site with horrible copy and a bad UX.
Okay Here’s a Good Brand
This week Kelly Slater, a highly decorated pro surfer, launched his own SPF brand called Freaks of Nature. Where Hadid’s new brand has a dated, confusing web experience, FoN really spent the time and care to craft a unique digital experience.
The typography, layout, and color choices instantly pull you in and visually communicate this is something different, and ultimately something scientific. They also have a brand video in their hero header, but this video seamlessly loads, and actually does a great job at introducing the brand, who Kelly Slater is, and demonstrating their expertise.
The question with any new iteration of a product (we all use sunscreen, its nothing new) is what is different? Freaks of Nature is aiming to fill a performance niche, its for active consumers who need a sunscreen that actually works in water and under extreme circumstances. They do an incredible job at visually demonstrating the science behind the product.
They are riding the wave of highly optimized, science backed products someone like Huberman would recommend on his popular podcast.
Next, they have created a bold, unique packaging design that aims to achieve ‘shelf ubiquity’ and will be easily recognizable. I’ve said this before but when you launch a new brand, if you want to make a tangible impression you want to look at your competitors in the space and do anything to intentionally set yourself apart.
The issue is that everyone wants to start a brand, but doesn’t want to do the labor of communicating to the world why they should care about the brand, or intentionally marketing towards a niche base. Divisiveness can be a good thing, and its better to build a brand around a passionate niche than to make it so general you barely make a dent in culture.
I think Freaks of Nature has crafted a brand that actually stands for something and they’ve invested heavily in creating unique packaging, a bold digital experience, and copy that makes sense. They are setting themselves up to build a devoted customer base and release further products in the future.
Oren John did a great TikTok on the brand, watch that here—
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Customers Aren’t Dumb
We can easily tell when a new brand is cutting corners, rushing to get an MVP to market, or when they truly have no taste whatsoever. This is a lesson in taking the time to look inwards first and discover why you want to start a brand and what makes you unique, and then look outwards at your space and determine what you could do to add unique value.
Then the hard work comes when you craft your touch points around a core ethos, and are laser focused on ensuring every photo, color, and button on your website makes sense and is additive to a brand experience.
What Do You Think?
I am really curious what you all think about Bella and Kelly’s new brands. Drop a comment and let’s discuss.
I hope you enjoyed this new series. It was nice to switch it up from the daily news and do a deep dive.
Developing a taste for branding doesn’t happen overnight and it takes a lot of time looking at bad things and figuring out why they are bad, then surrounding yourself with the most beautiful inspiration possible.
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
To learn more about Jake visit www.jb.studio
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But did it work well w Kin? I am not sure about now, but at the start of their merger it did not and very much felt like brand that is not doing well attaches celebrity name as bandaid. And this is at no fault to Bella. I don’t know her well but she always been incredibly sweet and has such radiant energy. I really like her and I just wish she had better people around her. I also wish people would learn that lots of followers / fame + idea does not automatically translate to success. The biggest example of this is Beyoncé. All of her stuff (but her music) continuously flops. The whole celeb brand culture is all just very lazy
Thanks for the mention, Jake! The Kelly Slater brand is interesting, and as you say, it looks to be executed well a la Humanrace. In a theoretical scenario in which I'm his manager, I would've had him do a collab with an established sun care brand. He's certainly not pivoting to "beauty founder" in his day to day life, so I question how this brand will grow over time? Vacation is a little too kitsch for Kelly's personal brand, but to the benefit of Vacation, he could definitely provide the legitimacy angle if they were to ever launch a hardcore performance sunscreen (vs. the lifestyle/fragrance slant). Hmmm.. I think honestly I would try to get him a fat check for a partnership with a brand like Khiels to do a huge performance sunscreen push with one product. Kelly's fanboys (dad surfers) aren't really the type to shop d2c, but probably a lot of them have a big ol bottle of Facial Fuel, do you agree? Plus this would open him to Equinox, though rumor is that they are pivoting to Aesop.