These contracts are so highly coveted that there’s an entire business behind getting and maintaining one. Large talent firms like UTA and CAA have agents in-house who work on getting clients endorsements. Companies like Hunter or LTK specialize in integrated marketing—i.e., getting consumers’ eyes on their clients’ products—often matching up talent with campaigns or activations from brands like Revlon or Coty.
If you’re working on the brand side, “everyone wants to be your friend,” says another former cosmetic executive, whose job description once included finding the right talent for a certain makeup brand. “Managers and publicists wanted their [celebrity] clients to be invited to the events where corporate execs might be.”
In the fashion industry, the unspoken matchmakers between brands and celebrities are stylists. Law Roach is said to have been very instrumental in getting Zendaya’s deals with Bvlgari, Valentino, and now Louis Vuitton. In the beauty realm, makeup artists and hairstylists often make introductions. “I got my insider info from celeb makeup artists. They know everything about everyone because they’re spending so much time with talent, sitting in their chairs and chatting,” says Dianne Vavra, who worked in public relations at Dior for over 18 years before she opened a vintage store, Vavra New York. “They would tell me about young, up-and-coming people; I remember someone saying that Jessica Biel is the next big thing.” That was back in Biel’s Seventh Heaven days.
“I have gone to bat for celebrities and thrown my clients’ hats into the ring for beauty deals many, many times,” says one makeup artist. “Maybe they are rising stars that weren’t obvious choices.” A deal can be good for the beauty pro, too, leading to their own partnership with a brand. But the scale is very, very different. “Think $5,000 versus $500,000 for a similar deal,” says the same makeup artist.
Sometimes a relationship forms more naturally when a brand is charmed by a star who embodies exactly what it’s looking for—as when Lancôme connected with Lupita Nyong’o in 2014. “We were looking for a woman of color, and in terms of messaging and credibility with darker-skinned women, she was such a good spokesperson,” says a former executive who was familiar with the campaign.
The game of how an actor or musician might go about landing a contract has changed in the era of social media. Last June, a tube of Prada Beauty’s Moisturizing Lip Balm in Astral Blue appeared in Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” music video. Two days after that, the singer posted a 15-second TikTok video of herself applying the same icy blue balm before a performance at Governors Ball in New York City. Faster than you can say “Espresso,” it was sold out at Sephora and Nordstrom. By the end of September, Carpenter was named an ambassador for Prada Beauty.