Urban Decay's Identity Crisis

Urban Decay x Dove Cameron: A Campaign in Search of a Core Audience

Insights from a B2B strategist by trade and a B2C consumer by nature.

Summary

• Urban Decay’s new partnership with Dove Cameron looks promising, but feels directionless.

• Both the brand and the talent are in transition, lacking a clear audience fit.

• The real comeback won’t come from who’s on the billboard; it will come from what’s on the shelves.

Last month, Urban Decay announced a new partnership with Dove Cameron, a campaign “rooted in transformation, high-performance artistry, and beauty that refuses to behave.”

That tagline alone made me pause.

If you’ve been in the makeup scene long enough, you’ll remember: Urban Decay used to define beauty that misbehaved. It was one of the first brands to make “weird” feel wearable. One of their original taglines from the ’90s? “Does pink make you puke?” Enough said.

Over the past 10+ years, the messaging has remained loud, but the products behind it haven’t quite matched the same energy.

2009 Urban Decay Holiday Collection

A Brand That Lost Its Grip (and Its Audience)

Urban Decay hasn’t been the same since 2012, which is the year L’Oréal acquired the brand. Longtime fans felt the shift almost immediately: the grittiness got polished, the products got safer, and they entered the Chinese market, requiring animal testing, something that directly contradicted the cruelty-free values that many loyalists felt defined the brand. (They eventually pulled out, but the backlash lingered.)

Then came the Naked-ification of everything.

The original Naked palette? Groundbreaking. The sixth iteration? Exhausting. L’Oréal did what big corporations do best: ran the product line into the ground, with minor tweaks, repackaging, and not a lot of innovation. Urban Decay went from being the rebel to the repeat offender.

The original Naked palette, launched in 2010. Despite it being a shift away from their norm, consumers were obsessed with the product itself and the felt case, and would be for years to come.

This isn’t to say Urban Decay’s products don’t perform well, because they do. However, the brand has earned a reputation for discontinuing fan favorites over the years. Combined with a shift away from the bold products and branding that once set them apart, it’s left Urban Decay feeling more like one of many on a shelf, rather than one in a million.

Dove Cameron as the New Face

I’ll admit: I had to Google Dove Cameron.

Despite being older than me, Dove Cameron rose to fame through Disney when I was no longer spending my days tuning into channel 40 after school. While her Disney past is undeniable, her public image is clearly evolving, and this Urban Decay campaign seems like a calculated move to mark the transition: I’m no longer just a Disney star. 

The campaign messaging leans heavily into anti-conformity: “Be soft, be sweet, be a princess, be a good girl. I say, not a chance.” It’s a clear rejection of both the dominating clean girl aesthetic and any preconceived notions fans may have about Cameron.

Cameron's Urban Decay ad, which pictures double Camerons, a play on her Disney breakout show, 'Liv and Maddie', where she played two twin sisters.

What Cameron and Urban Decay potentially have going for them is the tried-and-true “Disney star to stardom” formula, a path recently followed by the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter. However, Cameron’s efforts to reach peak stardom have been inconsistent, leaving her fanbase more dormant than loyal. She recently opened for Dua Lipa in her first live performance in two years, which suggests she may be gearing up for a bigger push. But as of now, it’s still unclear whether she can reignite that brand loyalty or if her audience will respond to this new partnership with Urban Decay.

Lack of Internal Alignment

The Dove Cameron partnership could have worked if the products matched the promise. But right now, Urban Decay’s marketing is saying, “We’re back to being bold,” while the products themselves are whispering, “Here’s another neutral palette.”

If you want to counter the “clean girl” movement, your product line needs to hit like the antithesis of Glossier, gritty, high pigment, maybe even borderline messy in the best way. Instead, we get warm and cool tone combos that I’ve seen since 2016.

So here’s my unsolicited advice:

Get back to bold. Urban Decay literally wrote the blueprint in the ’90s. To truly reclaim their rebellious roots, they need to get clear on who they’re speaking to, and achieve internal alignment on both product and messaging. It’s not about flashy campaigns or celebrity faces; it’s about delivering the innovation and edge that made them iconic in the first place.