The rise of influencer-owned brands marks a significant shift in the business landscape, where content creators have moved from merely promoting products to building their own enterprises.
This trend has given rise to brands like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, KSI and Logan Paul’s PRIME drinks, and Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, which leverage the existing following of an influencer to drive consumer engagement. By blending entrepreneurship with their online presence, influencers are creating businesses that feel intimately tied to their identity, reshaping the way we think about modern retail.
Molly-Mae has entered the mix with the launch of her new clothing line, Maebe. We’re diving into the brand’s launch, why it was successful, and what we can learn from it. We’ll also take a look at the response since launch and where Molly-Mae may need to pivot to keep this engagement up!
The rise of influencer-owned brands
The rise of influencer-owned brands has transformed the digital landscape into a modern gold rush. Here, the new currency is relatable content, and influencers are the entrepreneurs. Content creators have flipped the script, taking control of creativity and commerce to build their own empires.
What makes this shift so powerful is that these creators are deeply in tune with their audiences. They aren’t just selling a product; they’re selling a lifestyle, a vision, and most importantly, themselves. Beauty gurus, fitness buffs, fashionistas, and even tech enthusiasts have moved from brand ambassadors to full-blown CEOs of their own companies. They know their followers’ desires, frustrations, and dreams because they’ve cultivated trust through shared experiences and relatability.
Influencers like Kylie Jenner with her line of curated cosmetic essentials, or KSI and Logan Paul with their hydration drink empire, are reimagining what it means to engage with consumers. By leveraging their platform and personal connections, they cut out the middleman, delivering products that feel like an extension of their personality. It’s not just about selling; it’s about creating an intimate consumer journey, one that feels handcrafted for their community. This fusion of personal branding and entrepreneurship is rewriting the rules of modern retail.
Who is Molly-Mae Hague?
Molly-Mae Hague is a British social media influencer, reality TV star, and entrepreneur. She gained widespread fame as a contestant on the 2019 season of Love Island, where she finished as a runner-up. Following her appearance on the show, Molly-Mae’s popularity skyrocketed, leading to lucrative brand partnerships and a massive social media following. She became the creative director of the fashion brand PrettyLittleThing in 2021. Known for her style, beauty content, and candid discussions about her life, Molly-Mae has become a prominent figure in UK influencer culture, leveraging her platform to build a successful business.
Why is Molly-Mae Hague so popular?
Molly-Mae Hague is popular due to her rise to fame on Love Island in 2019, where her relationship with Tommy Fury and likable personality gained her a huge following. Her authenticity and candidness about personal topics, including struggles and successes, make her relatable to her audience. Molly-Mae’s strong social media presence, where she shares fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content, keeps her followers engaged. Additionally, her business ventures, including becoming creative director for PrettyLittleThing, showcase her entrepreneurial side. Her combination of aspiration, openness, and influence in fashion and beauty has solidified her status as a leading UK influencer.
Molly-Mae has become even more of a relatable personality to her audience by becoming a mother, and most recently splitting from former partner, Fury. These factors have only increased the amount of support her followers have for her.
What is Maebe by Molly-Mae?
The influencer-led brand economy has evolved yet again. Molly-Mae has launched into the creator-brand mix with her new clothing line Maebe.
Last year, Molly-Mae stepped down from her role at PLT, leading her devoted fanbase speculating that something new was just around the corner. They were right.
Maebe is set to make waves. Arguably the most successful contestant to ever exit the Love Island villa, Molly’s goal is to deliver ‘accessible luxury’ to the next generation of women, without the heavy price tags.
Her brand is all about blending chic designs with a modern twist, drawing a lot from her personal style. Molly-Mae has drawn upon her understanding of fashion’s ever changing landscape using it to create pieces that strike the balance between trend and perpetuity.
Maebe’s official launch party took place in London’s Covent Garden. The sellout event had fans queuing from around the block, with many of those fans taking to social media to share their first-hand experiences.
Molly-Mae herself described the launch as a crowning achievement, an event she’ll “never get over”, she shared via Instagram.
The pop-up shop event was designed to give fans a sneak peak at what to expect before Maebe’s full launch into fashion retail. On the day, attendees were given a first glimpse of Maebe’s clothing line, which featured a range of vests, jeans, oversized blazers, and more. Fans were even treated to an appearance from Molly-Mae herself, some luckier than others as they managed to snap photos with the influencer.
Why the Maebe launch was successful
Molly-Mae’s following is highly devoted
A loyal following is the heartbeat of an influencer’s success. These devoted fans champion every move, amplifying a creator’s voice far beyond just social media. They’re not just an audience, they’re a community that trusts their favorite influencer’s vision, style, and endorsements.
Molly-Mae’s fansbase is as loyal as they come, and have stuck by her every step of the way. Influencer-led brands are often most successful when the fanbase adores the influencer. Molly-Mae’s fans have stuck by her through thick and thin. Recently, her fans showered her with support from her split with Tommy Fury, and with the release of Maebe the fanbase has created a lot of noise across social media.
Leveraging UGC content to create hype on social
User-generated content is fantastic for creating noise across social. This is a formula regularly used by brands to generate awareness around particular products or, in Maebe’s case, the brand itself.
Hundreds of fans showed up to the event, many of them documenting their experience via Instagram and TikTok. Here, fans that missed out on the pop-up could immerse themselves in the experience on social, giving them and insight into what’s to come from their favorite creator.
With the majority of those who attend the event recording some form of content for their social channels, the hype for the brand has only increased. We’re eagerly anticipating the brand’s full launch on September 29th.
The anticipation for the brand launch was huge
Say what you like about fear, it’s an excellent motivator. How many of you have attended plans, not for the desire to be there, but because the fear of missing out on something is too strong.
Molly-Mae has mastered the art of anticipation. In the days leading up to the launch, Meabe saw 600K new followers, 1M likes across, and over 16M views across its social handles.
Molly-Mae and her team executed a perfect strategy. This growth wasn’t the product of coincidence, the creator had been dropping hints left, right, and center on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. These strategic paparazzi-style shots captured her conveniently showing pieces from her soon to be clothing line. Every post; a teaser and subtly placed hint for her fanbase to sleuth over.
Turning potential challenges into marketing wins
With any new launch, whether that be product, brand, big announcement, there’s always twists and turns, it’s rarely a straightforward process.
A great example of this, albeit from the gaming sector, is Grand Theft Auto 6. Prior to the game’s existence, fans of the series had leaked gameplay videos online, speculated about its launch date, and hacked into the publisher’s mainframe to uncover secrets. These bumps in the road led Rockstar Games into a legal battle, likely pushing back the game’s development.
Maebe experienced its own hurdles, but instead of fighting against them, the brand’s creator rolled with them. Molly-Mae didn’t just embrace the leaks, she leaned into them, posting a TikTok on Maebe’s account reading, ‘3 years keeping it a secret and you guys guessed it with one week to go.’
While many brands strive for a pristine launch, Molly-Mae rolled with the punches, taking every hurdle in her stride by leaning into leaks and using them to twist the narrative in her favor.
What can brands learn from the Molly-Mae Maebe launch?
The rise of influencer entrepreneurs
Content creators have evolved from endorsers to business owners by launching their own brands. With direct access to their audience, Molly-Mae leveraged the personal connections and trust she has with her audience, turning them into customers. By merging content creation with entrepreneurship, Molly-Mae is once again scaling, building a trend-driven business and with redefined modern retail strategies.
Selling a lifestyle, not just products
Influencer-owned brands focus on selling a lifestyle rather than just products. Followers buy into a vision that reflects the influencer’s personality, values, and experiences. This personal connection creates an emotional bond with consumers, making the brand feel like an extension of the influencer’s life and identity. Maebe reflects these values with pieces of clothing that are heavily inspired by Molly-Mae’s personal wardrobe. For her devoted followers, this is about buying into the Molly-Mae lifestyle with luxury fashion that is affordable.
The power of FOMO and anticipation:
Influencers masterfully generate excitement through anticipation and the fear of missing out. Strategic teasers and limited-time offers spark curiosity, driving consumers to act quickly to avoid missing exclusive experiences or products. This psychology behind this tactic enhances urgency and boosts pre-launch interest and engagement. Molly-Mae had her followers hooked with teasers across her Instagram and YouTube channels, giving them hints that she knew would spark conversation, and ultimately create a buzz around the impending brand launch.
User-generated content amplifies reach
UGC is a powerful tool for influencer-owned brands. It allows followers to become brand ambassadors. By sharing personal experiences and reviews online, fans organically spread brand awareness and generate engagement for brands, products and services. This type of content creates a ripple effect that attracts new audiences through relatable, peer-generated promotions. The Maebe launch was a great example of how UGC can create huge levels of engagement on social. Hundreds of people showed up to the pop-up, creating day-in-the-life content, and snapping pictures next to Molly-Mae, which were then shared across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more.
Embracing imperfections
Rather than resisting leaks or challenges, influencers often turn them into marketing opportunities. By leaning into the unexpected, they create buzz and engage followers in real-time storytelling. This approach humanizes the brand, making it more relatable while allowing influencers to control and shape the narrative to their advantage. Molly-Mae turned potential challenges into opportunities, embracing hurdles rather than resisting them. This helped her control the narrative and turn disruptions into marketing wins.
What does Molly-Mae need to do next for Maebe to succeed long-term?
Despite the success of Maebe’s launch, the brand itself hasn’t been without criticism. In the days following, some creators and customers have expressed disappointment in the products themselves, particularly the high price points which seems contradictory to Molly’s core Gen Z customer base. Others have suggested that there isn’t enough originality to the brand and clothing items to keep people interested long-term.
Where many influencer brands go wrong is that they lean too heavily and for too long on the influencer’s name and popularity. Where the likes of REFY and Rhode are succeeding is that they’ve worked hard to create a brand that exists independently of their famous Founders. Hailey Bieber herself stated that she wanted to create a skincare line where, if in two years she fully stepped away, the brand would still be successful.
Right now, Maebe still feels a little bit like merchandise for Molly-Mae over an actual brand, but of course it still needs time – Rome wasn’t built in a day! Where Molly and her team will need to focus is on creating a clear brand identity and story, outside of Molly, that customers can connect with and buy into.
That’s all for this one but don’t forget you can keep up to date with the latest trends and stories every week on our blog!
