On today's episode, we discuss where augmented reality (AR) lands on the gimmick to utility scale, what AR looks like beyond fashion and beauty, and what the Carolina Panthers' new mixed-reality mascot might mean for marketers. We then talk about what authentic social commerce really means, why Stories never worked out for LinkedIn, and what we expect the reaction to Twitter's Super Follows will be. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Jasmine Enberg.

As Amazon raked in more than $11 billion in Prime Day sales worldwide, health and beauty product sales boomed on the platform. In a survey conducted by Numerator throughout the event, 28.0% of US Prime Day buyers said they made a purchase in that category. Consumer electronics also made a spark: 27.5% of respondents reported buying tech gear and gadgets.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring ActionIQ’s Tamara Gruzbarg, head of customer insights, and e.l.f. Beauty’s Brigitte Barron, director of global CRM and customer growth. They discussed how e.l.f. Beauty is driving its D2C transformation and expanding customer loyalty.

The past year has been a whirlwind for many brands as they readjusted their marketing efforts to keep up with the changing landscape. One such brand, direct-to-consumer (D2C) company Peace Out Skincare, learned to be more nimble as it navigated a then-emerging platform—TikTok—and the Gen Z customers it caters to.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring ActionIQ's CMO, Leah Pope, along with panelists Ekta Chopra, chief digital officer at e.l.f. Beauty, Carrie Tharp, vice president, retail and consumer at Google Cloud, and Elizabeth Shaw, strategist and CMO Advisor. They discussed why marketers must unify external and internal silos to create a CX-centric organization.

Ulta Beauty and Estée Lauder have both deployed tools to allow consumers to virtually apply foundation, makeup, and other products. Ulta Beauty’s GlamLab had over 19 million virtual shade try-ons during the pandemic up to June 2020, according to the company’s chief digital officer Prama Bhatt.

Toto Haba, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Communications, Benefit Cosmetics. Benefit doesn’t use an agency of record model or have a roster of agencies always working. “We are opportunistic in working with agencies on an ad hoc basis when we have a specific campaign or when we think it’s necessary.

Cosmetics Applied What It Learned on TikTok to Its Campaign on Triller. e.l.f Cosmetics was one of the first well-known marketers to embrace TikTok. Its 2019 #EyesLipsFace challenge, featuring a hip-hop song written expressly for the campaign, inspired users to submit 5 million videos that were viewed a combined 6 billion times.

Cosmetics: The beauty brand recently partnered with gamer Loserfruit, also known as Lufu, for a series of makeup tutorials on Twitch.

Cosmetics was what inspired the brand to join the platform. “We were seeing, without any effort or work from the brand side, that there was a pretty sizable organic presence that had already been built on TikTok,” said Gayitri Budhraja, vice president of brand at e.l.f. “There were over 3 million posts against the hashtag #elfcosmetics that we had absolutely nothing to do with.