ICYMI: Unpacking Rare Beauty's Substack Newsletter Playbook

An interview with MacKenzie Kassab, Rare Beauty's Director of Creative Strategy

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Rare Beauty just launched a Substack newsletter.

Selena Gomez’s beauty brand has always been ahead of the curve — I saw it be early to new and emerging platforms (like loyalty platform TYB). But this move caught my eye. Substack is best known for indie writers and journalists, not necessarily consumer brands. So… what’s the play here?

Naturally, I had a lot of questions for the brand’s Director of Creative Strategy, MacKenzie Kassab, who — spoiler alert! — writes Rare Beauty Secrets as the anonymous “Rare Insider.”

Why Substack? Who’s their audience here? Why a pen name? And what happened that made MacKenzie scrap their entire editorial calendar after launch?!

Let’s get into it.

ICYMI: I have so many questions! I'm so glad that you guys agreed to this. So, you’re one of the first brands on Substack, a platform more commonly associated with individual writers. What made you guys choose this platform, why did you think it was a good fit?

MacKenzie Kassab: It definitely came about very organically. A lot of us in the office are Substack super fans, and I've always got multiple Substack tabs open for personal and professional reasons.

One of our ongoing struggles as a brand is that there's always so much going on between our mental health initiatives and the Rare Impact Fund and new launches and products and artistry and the list goes on. And, to be honest, it's just very difficult to find the right place and time to talk about all of this stuff.

So it was a light bulb moment for a bunch of us. ‘Wait a minute, there is this platform that's like old-school blogging; people actually want to read there; it's not just three seconds of a TikTok video… What if we use that platform to tell these stories that we can't really fit anywhere else?’ And that was how it came about. It was very much problem solving using a tool that we all like.

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ICYMI: Are there any specific Substack newsletters that served as inspiration for you personally or when you were looking to establish Rare Beauty on here?

MK: It's very interesting, the different approaches. We've been watching other brands, and the approaches are very different between a RealReal and a Saie. And it's not necessarily influencing how we're using the tool, because we went into it with a very clear vision of stories to tell — we want to talk to our community and expand the dialog.

But we've been watching just in the sense of curiosity, because it's such a new platform and seeing how other people are doing it in such a creative and interesting way. Dianna Cohen from Crown Affair is a great example. It’s a very personal newsletter for her inspiration and shopping tips, which is very different from, say, a RealReal, which is very industry focused.

We're just looking at everything and feeling inspired, not directly, but by all the interesting things that are happening.

ICYMI: Yeah, it’s hard to point to other brands right now, there are maybe four brands on the platform (I’m exaggerating). So, were there specific beauty or fashion or lifestyle writers that you thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting’?

MK: It's not someone specific. If I'm being honest, I'm going through Notes, literally just refreshing and I'm following that rabbit hole. I think the most interesting thing about Substack, it's the sense that you click on one thing and you read the comments and you're taken to another path.

So I wouldn't say that it's one thing, it's more the exploration that's the most exciting. But definitely following the beauty and fashion pages most carefully and closely.

ICYMI: It’s funny, for the longest time I didn't even realize Notes existed because I was just busy writing a newsletter. And then I realized, ‘Oh my god, this is where you're all hanging out.’

MK: It's such a feel-good space, which is also why I think it felt like the right fit for us. We really care a lot about our community, and we really want everyone to feel good, that's part of our ethos. And then to get on Substack and see how much encouragement people are giving each other and how nice people are, and what a lovely space it is… It just felt really good for us to be a part of that.

Even as the person working on it, it's a respite in the day to go on Substack and see how nice people are and how encouraging they are, and how they talk each other up. Someone will post, “I've got a Substack and four people read it, and I'm feeling great.” And everyone's giving claps and everything. It's like, ‘This is great. I love this.’ This is the good side of the internet

ICYMI: I hope it lasts! You mentioned talking about wanting to reach your existing community and then maybe some new audiences. Who were you thinking the audience would be?

MK: Honestly, we're not thinking demographic. We're thinking anyone that's curious about Rare because obviously we're shining a light into what's happening behind the scenes there. But also the goal is anyone who's interested in beauty and interested in understanding how products are made. We did one recently that was about how our newest blush was made. Of course the point was: What's the inspiration behind the blush and how is it made? But I think the feeling was also showing people how this process works.

How the Blush is Made

ICYMI: How did you come to be the person writing the newsletter? And where do you sit in the org: Do you sit on the comms team or the marketing team?

MK: My background is in editorial and copy, and now I am the director of creative strategy here, so I work on high-level campaign stuff. I was just really close to a lot of the things that we wanted to talk about. And having this editorial background, it was really exciting for me to take this on.

In terms of resources, obviously it's more work but it's super exciting. It’s a really fun project. When it's something that you're excited about, it doesn't really feel so much like work.

I have been thinking about myself as a representative of the community, and that's why I've been really active on Notes to have that conversation and to ask, ‘What do you want to know? Is there anything you want to ask us?’ And because I don't always know the answer — I'm on the creative team which is under marketing — I don't always know what's happening on the product development side or whatever. So, I've taken on this self appointed role of spokesperson for the community.

I've been pinging people saying, ‘Someone asked this about a product. Can I sit down with you next week and get answers and then we can respond?’ And everyone has responded internally really well to that, everyone's very enthusiastic about sharing what they do and the projects they're working on.

ICYMI: I've been having this conversation with a couple of different people who write Substacks and I think having an editorial background is super helpful. I wonder if this is going to become a growing role in the next year or two?

MK: It's interesting. There have been evolutions, like blogging. There was that time when every brand had a blogging site on their dot com. There's always a desire for it, and I think people are always excited. It's just finding out, where are people hanging out right now? And how do we fit into the conversation in a way that feels natural? We don't have a dedicated, huge team for this. How can we be nimble and flexible and and make it work for us given everything that we've got going on?

ICYMI: Right! I wanted to ask about you being anonymous as Rare Insider. And the newsletter name, Rare Beauty Secrets. How did you guys think about that? And do you think that mystery is something that you're going to continue?

MK: It wasn't ever meant to be like, ‘You’ve got to crack the code’ type of thing. I am hopeful that everyone sees themselves in me. I'm a representative of the community. It doesn't matter who I am. You have a question, I'm gonna go find out the answer for you.

In terms of the ‘Secrets’ part, our vision early on was that this is really flexible in terms of the information that we're putting out. To be completely honest, we have a strategy and we have an editorial plan, But based on feedback and things that we're seeing online and engagement, everything’s changing daily.

We're experimenting because the goal is that community piece and to keep that dialog going. And so in terms of the word ‘Secret,’ it's more like, ‘Oh, if there's something that I can share that I just learned yesterday, I'm gonna share it.’ It's not necessarily meant to break NDAs, it’s more things that we could share that wouldn't fit anywhere else. This is your place where you can come see what's behind the scenes that you wouldn't really get anywhere else.

A Note from an Insider

ICYMI: I love that you guys are adapting hourly, or daily, based on feedback.

MK: I have stories that I had worked on before launch, thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be something people will like,’ and then seeing the comments, now I'm scrambling to try to answer questions. So I'm setting up interviews with people internally daily just to try to get answers.

I'm already like, ‘Is weekly enough?’Because we're publishing weekly now, but I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, there's so much I want to share, and they're going to love this. And someone had a question, I need to answer it.’ So, it'll be interesting to see how it evolves.

ICYMI: You mentioned you had ideas lined up. How far out are you planning the newsletter and has that changed pre-launch to post-launch?