Rhode’s $27M Day Shows Why Most Brand Campaigns Are Too Small
Rhode did $27 million in DTC sales in one day. Most founders would call that a great year, then ruin it by treating the campaign as the strategy.
Rhode did $27 million in direct-to-consumer sales in one day from its Summer ’26 collection. That is not a nice marketing result. It is an indictment of how timid most brands have become. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
Most founders are still asking whether they should post more on LinkedIn, hire a creator, or add another 10% discount code. Rhode is building a world people want to join, then making the checkout button the obvious next move.
That is the real story behind Hailey Bieber’s beauty company this week. Not the tiny Pocket Pearl blush arriving on September 15 with influencer and art historian Alexandra Leclerc. Not the handbag charm or the apple-scented lip tint. The story is that Rhode has turned marketing into a commercial machine with enough force to produce a $27 million day. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
Rhode did not win with a celebrity. It won with a system.
Let’s get the obvious bit out of the way: Hailey Bieber is famous. Fame helps. Anyone pretending otherwise is having a lend.
But fame does not create repeat customers by itself. It certainly does not explain why more than 70% of sales on Rhode’s Summer ’26 launch came from existing customers, while the launch still brought in 90,000 new customers. Rhode also collected more than 700,000 waitlist sign-ups before the release. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
That combination matters.
A celebrity can get you a first purchase. A product people like, a brand people recognise, and a launch system that creates anticipation can get you the second, third and tenth purchase. That is when marketing stops being an expense line and starts behaving like an asset.
Rhode calls its approach “surround sound”: one campaign idea carried across social content, product design, packaging, creator gifting, physical activations and retail moments. For its summer collection, that included a travelling R-shaped kiosk that appeared in cities including Newport, Dallas, Vancouver, Copenhagen and the Amalfi Coast. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
That sounds flashy. It is also ruthlessly practical.
A pop-up is not just a pop-up if it generates product trial, short-form video, earned media, customer photos, email sign-ups and social proof at the same time. One decent idea can do six jobs. Most marketing departments, meanwhile, have six separate agencies billing to produce six mediocre ideas.
The $1 billion acquisition was really a bet on demand, not lip balm
E.l.f. Beauty bought Rhode in a deal valued at up to $1 billion. At the point the transaction was announced, Rhode had generated $212 million in net sales in the 12 months ended March 31, 2025. ([jpmorgan.com](https://cws-main-ndc.jpmorgan.com/insights/banking/mergers-and-acquisitions/rhode-elf))
Plenty of people look at a deal like that and see a celebrity skincare brand selling expensive little tubes. That is surface-level thinking.
What E.l.f. was buying was a demand engine: a founder with reach, yes, but also a narrow product proposition, recognisable visual codes, fast cultural instincts and a customer base trained to pay attention before a product is available.
That last bit is worth sitting with. A waitlist is not merely a database of email addresses. At its best, it is a measure of pre-sold intent. It tells a business how much attention it has earned before it asks for money. Rhode’s 700,000-plus sign-ups gave it a very loud answer. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
The new Alexandra Leclerc collection follows the same logic. It is a small, visually specific collaboration: a shimmery mini blush, a tint, a butterfly charm and a branded carabiner. It launches at 9 a.m. Pacific Time on September 15. ([rhodeskin.com](https://www.rhodeskin.com/pages/alexandra-leclerc-collection?utm_source=openai))
None of those items will cure cancer or improve civilisation. That is not the point. They are designed to be seen, carried and talked about. Rhode has understood something many founders miss: in a feed-driven market, the product is no longer just what a customer uses. It is also what they display.
The overlooked lesson: Rhode is selling identity before inventory
Here is the contrarian bit: the cleverest part of Rhode’s playbook is not scarcity.
Scarcity gets overpraised because it is easy to spot. A product sells out, people panic, founders congratulate themselves, and customers get annoyed because they could not buy the thing. Used badly, scarcity is just poor forecasting wearing a trendy jacket.
Rhode’s more durable advantage is identity density. The brand has packed a lot of meaning into simple products: a phone case for lip treatment, a blush that clips to a bag, a beach kiosk shaped around its logo, packaging that makes the customer feel part of a recognisable visual world.
That gives people something more useful than a discount. It gives them a signal.
The company has borrowed from fashion rather than traditional beauty marketing. It treats casting, locations, objects and timing as part of the product. Leclerc was not plucked from nowhere for a one-off paid post; she had appeared in Rhode’s Lip Case campaign in 2024 and later co-hosted a Rhode event in Miami. Now she is a collaborator. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
That progression is smart because it feels earned. The audience has seen the relationship develop. Compare that with the usual influencer deal, where a stranger holds a product for 14 seconds and calls it their obsession. Consumers are not idiots. They can smell rented enthusiasm.
There is another hard truth here for operators: Rhode’s brand work only works because it sits on top of a product people reorder. Lauren Ratner, Rhode’s cofounder and chief brand officer, has been clear that buzz gets attention but product strength sustains a business. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
That is the bit founders love to skip. They want the campaign before the proof. They want the cinematic launch film for a product customers have no reason to buy again.
Don’t do it backwards.
The danger of copying Rhode badly
You should not walk away from this thinking you need a celebrity cofounder, a European pop-up tour or a butterfly charm.
That would be cargo-cult nonsense.
Rhode has built a business around a very specific customer: beauty-aware, social-native, design-conscious and happy to use products as accessories. A mining software company doing a shimmery blush collaboration would be ridiculous. So would a tequila brand pretending it belongs in a subculture it has never supported.
The useful principle is not “be everywhere.” It is “make every appearance reinforce the same valuable idea.”
Rhode’s campaigns work because the product, the visual language, the talent, the retail experience and the content all point in the same direction: polished, playful, portable beauty. There is very little cognitive friction.
Most businesses create the opposite. Their paid ads say premium. Their website says discount. Their sales team says bespoke. Their onboarding says confusing. Their founder posts motivational rubbish while the product is ordinary.
That is not a branding problem. That is a lack-of-decisions problem.
What this means for you
If you are a founder, investor or operator, steal the discipline—not the aesthetic.
First, pick one product truth worth amplifying. Not your mission statement. Not your five company values. The thing a customer can repeat to a mate in one sentence. Rhode’s products are designed to be useful and visibly collectible. What is yours?
Second, build launches as systems, not announcements. Before your next release, map every touchpoint: waitlist, email, product page, customer proof, creators, retail, founder content and post-purchase referral. If each channel tells a different story, you have not got a campaign. You have got a pile of activity.
Third, measure repeat purchase separately from launch noise. A big first day is lovely. The serious question is whether the people who arrived in the frenzy come back. Rhode’s mix of more than 70% existing-customer sales and 90,000 new customers is the kind of scoreboard worth watching. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/karineldor/2026/09/09/inside-rhodes-brand-building-playbook-with-cofounder-lauren-ratner/?utm_source=openai))
Fourth, make your product easier to talk about. You do not need to make it gimmicky. But give people a visual, ritual, phrase or use case they can show. The best marketing is often the part customers willingly carry into public.
Finally, stop treating brand as the paint job applied after the real work is done. Rhode’s $27 million day is what happens when the real work—the product, the demand, the distribution and the story—gets built as one machine.
That is harder than buying ads. It is also why it works.