Ding dong, who's there? Your Grandma's beauty brands are fighting for their lives.
There's a question that says more than it seems to: "Isn't Mary Kay just for grandmas?" It's the kind of thing a 24-year-old might type into TikTok. It's also, as it turns out, the exact question Mary Kay decided to put at the center of its own marketing campaign, because sometimes the best offense is acknowledging the obvious.
Mary Kay and Avon were built on nearly identical premises: women selling beauty products directly to other women, bypassing stores and building micro-businesses in the process. Today, those two brands represent a stunning split in what happens when legacy direct sales models meet a generation that shops on online and discovers products on Instagram.
Avon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2024, burdened by over $1 billion in debt and more than 380 product liability lawsuits. Younger consumers have been gravitating toward Instagram-friendly brands, while large online retailers offer the kind of convenience door-to-door sales simply cannot match.
Mary Kay, meanwhile, is telling a different story--at least for now. In 2024, nearly 30% of new Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants were under 35, and 38% of the brand's social following is made up of next-gen audiences. The company reframed its pitch around the language of this generation: flexibility, entrepreneurship, side hustle.
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The honest question these brands force us to ask is whether peer-to-peer selling, the original social commerce, is ahead of its time or permanently behind it. Because in an era of affiliate links and influencer marketing, a Mary Kay consultant and a TikTok creator aren't doing something all that different. One of them just has a better PR problem.
A new UCLA study found that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are rejecting hypermasculinity in film and TV, with young audiences eager for male characters to move away from "isolation and other masculine stereotypes and towards vulnerability and connection." The findings come from the Gen Alpha and Gen Z: Evolving Masculinity report, published by UCLA's Center for Scholars & Storytellers, which surveyed 1,500 people ages 10–24.
The data is striking. Joyful fatherhood was the single most-requested portrayal of masculinity, nearly 60% of respondents want to see more fathers openly showing love and enjoying parenting. And 46% are seeking content that shows men asking for help, including with their mental health.
Think less Vin Diesel, more Phil Dunphy. Shows like Ted Lasso and Shrinking have become wildly popular precisely because they allow men to be powerful while also being vulnerable, a combination the old Hollywood playbook rarely allowed.
Younger generations aren't rejecting masculinity; they're rejecting one-dimensional masculinity. What resonates are characters who feel human rather than heroic.
For content creators and brands, the takeaway is clear: creators have a rare opportunity to provide the authentic representation that young audiences are actively seeking.
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