Rare Beauty, the cosmetics brand founded by Selena Gomez, has launched a global campaign supporting its second fragrance. Campaign and scent share the same name, Rare Beginnings, an eau de parfum positioned around the idea of opening up rather than shutting down.
The hero film runs 45 seconds, is directed by Hans Neumann and features Gomez. It borrows from Greek mythology, using the nymph as a metaphor for self-revelation. A studio set is transformed into a moss-covered space filled with flowers, with footage projected onto veiled fabric.
Where the campaign runs
Media spans social, out-of-home, retail and paid digital across key markets. Still photography features Gomez alongside the fragrance itself, shot for quiet, painterly compositions rather than the high-energy frames that dominate most beauty advertising. That restraint is the point: fragrance sells on mood, and mood does not survive fast cuts.
The mythology angle also lands at a useful moment culturally, with The Odyssey performing strongly at the global box office. Borrowing from a reference audiences are already primed on lowers the cost of comprehension.
The agency relationship
The work comes from Fred and Farid Paris, which describes itself as a long-term creative partner to Rare Beauty. The agency’s Los Angeles office produced the brand’s first global campaign, Every Side of You, in 2024. Agency co-founder and chief executive Frédéric Raillard framed Rare Beginnings as turning five years of permission-to-be-seen positioning into an actual feeling.
That continuity matters more than the creative idea itself. Two global campaigns from the same partner means the brand codes stay consistent while the story moves forward.
Business context
- Valuation: Rare Beauty was founded in 2020 and carries an estimated valuation of 2.7 billion dollars.
- Teen ranking: It placed second among beauty brands in Piper Sandler’s most recent Taking Stock With Teens survey.
- Retail: Originally Sephora-exclusive, the brand expanded to Ulta Beauty in February and broke that retailer’s launch-day sales record. The new fragrance, however, is sold only at Sephora.
- Ambassadors: This month the brand named Ella Bright, a star of Prime Video’s Off Campus, as its first brand ambassador, joining Gomez as the marketing face.
What marketers should note
- Channel-exclusive launches still work. Expanding distribution to Ulta while keeping the fragrance at Sephora protects the partner relationship and creates urgency.
- Founder-led brands need a second face. Adding Bright reduces single-person dependency without diluting Gomez’s role.
- Cultural timing beats cultural volume. A mythology reference riding an existing box office wave gets attention without paying for the trend.
- Category-breaking craft is a differentiator. Slower, painterly imagery stands out precisely because beauty advertising defaults to motion and energy.
Rare Beginnings is less a product launch than a proof that the brand’s founding message can stretch into new categories. For a five-year-old business moving from colour cosmetics into fragrance, that stretch is the real test.
