My Market Insight, the company for data, commentary and analysis across various media platforms, has revealed its weekly beauty insight today with a focus on Nails. Although nail PR mentions predominantly derive from consumer magazines, there is a decline in the total number of mentions from 2015 to 2016. Compared to December 2015, nail PR mentions have decreased by 26% in consumer magazines, from 378 to 279 mentions. Similarly, in December 2016, online publications experienced a 21% decrease when compared to December 2015.

In December 2016, nail products produced 13% (757) of all cosmetics mentions across all media channels (see graph below). From a social media perspective (Twitter, Instagram & YouTube), nail brands are not so focused on these channels, achieving 158 mentions across the 3 platforms in December compared to 279 in consumer magazines.

In December 2016, Nails Inc had the most product mentions in print across its brands (31 mentions). However, their most mentioned product was Nail Inc’s Nail Polish, which came 5th with only 8 mentions. Therefore, this indicates that Nails Inc focuses on the breadth of their product range (16 different products that achieved PR in December) rather than pushing their resources on an individual product.

Although not featured in the top 10 most mentioned nail brands, Nailberry achieved 4 beauty awards in 2016 from publications such as Stylist. Their overall advertising value equivalent rose from £313 (December, 2015) to £11,057 (December, 2016).

Essie outperformed any other nail brand in online publications receiving 31 PR mentions in December. Essie’s most popular online publication was refinery29.uk who contributed 9 mentions.

Barry M is the most ‘social focused’ brand in the nails category. Predominantly, Barry M utilises Twitter for its PR activity (68% of their social mentions) while Instagram and YouTube represent 22% and 8% respectively.

When compared to other cosmetic sub-categories, nails are the least social focused in terms of number of PR mentions with 158 mentions in December. This supports the earlier point that nail brands predominantly use consumer magazines in their PR strategy. 

In December 2016 HELLO! Fashion Monthly saw a large increase in nail PR mentions when compared to 2015. However, print publications as a whole saw a 26% decrease in nail PR mentions.  Although not being featured in the top 10 print publications for nail PR mentions, Fabulous offer the highest PR AVE value of £22,347 to the nail category.  

As previously mentioned, nail brands apply less focus on social media platforms. This is reflected by the overall action count when compared to other cosmetic categories. The most popular nail product on Twitter in December was Catrice Victorian Poetry Collection’s Satin Matt Nail Lacquer, with 100 likes and 270 retweets. This was achieved through an individual tweet from makeupmonster_ promoting her competition.

Sally Hansen’s Complete Salon Manicure achieved the most social actions on YouTube with 5,779 likes and 231,146 views. This was FleurDeForce’s only nail PR mention from her video ‘BEST BEAUTY PRODUCTS-2016!’.  Velvetgh0st led the way in terms of YouTube actions achieved for nail products in December. Her most mentioned products were Barry M’s Speedy Quick Dry Nail Paint, Sunset Daylight Curing Nail Paint and Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Paint, which achieved 7,382 likes and 90,536 views each.

DIARY directory subscribers can find nail brands listed in DIARY directory. 

My Market Insight delivers to the beauty industry, a PR and Communications business tool that can track any brand in the market across print, online and social media. If these insights interest you, call for more information. You can gain access to My Market Insight's data for as little as £750 and one of the many benefits of being a DIARY directory member is being eligible to receive a 20% discount!

Leo Eckley, leonora.eckley@mymarketinsight.com / 020-8831 7570