Kylie Cosmetics’ King Kylie revival proves community-driven marketing wins

Kylie Cosmetics is betting its 10-year anniversary on a revival of its 2015-2016 “King Kylie” era – the teal-haired, matte-lipped aesthetic that launched the brand. The revival addresses declining sales and evolving beauty preferences through community-driven nostalgia – bringing back the feeling and aesthetic that originally built brand loyalty among Gen Z and millennial consumers.

The approach offers valuable insights for marketers navigating similar challenges in saturated categories.

King Kylie: a cultural force

From 2014 to 2016, Jenner’s “King Kylie” era defined mid-2010s beauty culture. In 2016, searches for “nude lipstick” increased by 553% after Kylie started wearing matte nude shades, and her Instagram followers nearly doubled from 46 million to over 80 million. Makeup artist and beauty historian Erin Parsons notes that Kylie Jenner became one of the few faces that defined 2016 makeup, with her matte lip kits allowing people to overdraw lips and achieve the full-face aesthetic of that era.

When Kylie Cosmetics launched in November 2015 with three lip kits priced at $29 each, all 5,000 units of each shade sold out within seconds. By its first 18 months, the brand generated $420 million in revenue, with a single holiday launch in November 2016 bringing in $19 million in one day. Among the wave of celebrity beauty brands, Kylie Cosmetics has evolved from influencer-driven novelty to established industry player with sustained market impact.

Today, the brand operates under Coty’s Prestige division following a 2019 acquisition for $600 million. Under Coty, the Prestige category including Kylie Cosmetics saw revenues rise by 13% in fiscal year 2024, driven by growth in fragrances, cosmetics and skincare. The brand’s Social Media Value lies currently at $16.404.889, according to our analytics – showing an immense platform power and value on Instagram. Calculate your brand’s Social Media Value.

Now, Kylie Cosmetics is fully reviving the King Kylie persona with relaunched classic shades, a new eyeshadow palette, and topping it all of with Kylie’s debut song “Fourth Strike” – a nod to the decade-old Kylie Cosmetics ad featuring Terror Jr’s “3 Strikes” that sparked rumors she was secretly on vocals.
The move goes beyond product re-releases: it recreates the raw, unfiltered Instagram energy of 2015-2016 that built the brand’s initial following, executed through direct community input on which discontinued shades and design elements to bring back

The strategy behind the launch

1. Community Co-Creation
   Rather than dictating what nostalgia meant to her audience, Jenner solicited direct input. In 2022, Jenner tweeted asking fans what they’d want from a King Kylie collection. The response was overwhelming – demands for teal shades, skull packaging, and the return of discontinued classics like “Dead of Night” and “True Brown K” lip kits. Three years later, she delivered exactly that. The resulting collection includes fan-requested elements: metallic lip glosses in updated formulas, a California license plate-shaped eyeshadow palette referencing her 2015 hair colors, and the skull packaging that appeared in fan suggestions.
2. Platform-Native Revival
   The campaign launched with a Snapchat video showing Jenner in handcuffs entering a police station – directly referencing how she originally promoted lip kits through candid 30-second Snapchat stories in 2015-2016. The strategy recreates the entire ecosystem that made King Kylie iconic, not just the product aesthetic.
3. The Unexpected Amplifier
   Jenner released “Fourth Strike,” her actual debut song, creating a full-circle moment referencing decade-old speculation that she sang on Terror Jr’s “3 Strikes” track from the original 2016 lip gloss campaign. This unexpected element generated organic reach beyond traditional paid media.

What brands can learn

Listen actively, not passively: Jenner is connected to her community – asking and delivering, using that time to perfect the execution.

Nostalgia needs contemporary relevance: The most effective nostalgic marketing combines retro elements with contemporary relevance rather than pure reproduction. Updated formulas and virality effect in packaging reminding customers of their first ever lip kit bridges past and present.

Target the right demographic: Gen Z shows higher nostalgic engagement than other generations, making them prime targets for retro-themed campaigns when executed authentically.

Create moments, not just campaigns: The King Kylie Collection transcends traditional marketing by tapping into a specific cultural era that fans lived through or discovered through social media archives.

Kylie won this one

Kylie Cosmetics’ King Kylie revival demonstrates that effective nostalgia marketing isn’t about mining the past – it’s about understanding what your community wants. Makeup artist Anastasia Soare, founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills, observed that Kylie remained very connected to her audience, understanding exactly how to monetise her transformation by creating products that gave them what they wanted.

The numbers validate this approach. Kantar research shows nostalgia-based campaigns can increase brand likability by up to 20%, and email campaigns using nostalgic themes outperform standard formats by 19%. A Nielsen report from July 2025 revealed that nostalgia-led series generated 22% higher average watch time than originals without legacy IP.

When paired with genuine community listening and bold execution, nostalgia becomes more than a marketing tactic. It becomes a bridge between what was and what could be – and that’s a strategy worth remembering.