Since starring on her family’s reality television show, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”, Kylie Jenner has transformed into a pop culture icon whose influence spans across the globe and appeals to a wide audience. Impressively, at nineteen years old Kylie has already established a successful and diverse career as an actress, model, businesswoman, designer, and socialite with a net worth of $17 million (Bonaventura). Kylie is able to expel her influence among multiple different media platforms which allows her to expand her audience and utilize each form of media to effectively adhere to specific goals. In order to market her cosmetics, clothing line, and herself, Kylie takes advantage of technology and social media by creating her own website, Kylie Cosmetics, filming commercials for her clothing brand, Kendall and Kylie, and posting Snapchat stories to provide society with updates of her everyday life and new products she is releasing.

In launching her website Kylie Cosmetics https://www.kyliecosmetics.com/ Kylie creates a platform where people can easily access her makeup products, view specific details about products, and place orders. The website is made visually appealing as Kylie chooses a combination of black and white backgrounds and texts to create contrasts and allow for her products to stand out. To attract the attention of her online audience and create a sleek layout, Kylie bolds and enlarges the majority of the text on the website. Kylie formats her website by using subcategories with links to other pages and displays a limited amount of products on each page to maintain organization and avoid overwhelming the viewer with crowded pages. Organizing her webpages in a simplistic layout is practical because it makes her products more easily accessible and therefore increases her online sales.

Kylie assures that her makeup products fit into the “high end” cosmetics genre by designing them to have a look comparative to other high end brands like NARS and MAC Cosmetics. This is an effective sales tactic because customers are likely to value and compare her cosmetics to other well respected companies. The prices of her cosmetics are relative to most higher end brands to enable her to be an active competitor in the market and generate higher profits. Setting a higher, comparable price leads to increased sales because people are generally willing to pay more if they believe a product is of high quality and value. Kylie wants her products to be similar enough to her competitors in order to fit the high end genre, however, to ensure that customers reach for her products rather than other high end brands she must create her personal brand. To personalize her products and isolate them from competitors, Kylie graphically designs her products and packaging to look like dripping or melting makeup and clearly labels her brand “Kylie” on each product. By crafting a personal brand, customers can easily recognize the dripping graphic and label that distinguishes Kylie’s company. Branding is a key factor in Kylie’s sales. To demonstrate her creativity and emphasize her brand name, Kylie calls her eyeshadow “kyshadow” and her eyeliner “kyliner”. Kylie creates a balanced layout by combining a simplistic web design with eye-catching products to contribute to the visual aesthetic of her website.

Kylie utilizes visual and auditory rhetoric by filming television commercials to advertise her “Kendall and Kylie” clothing line. One of the most successful commercials that Kylie and her older sister Kendall released was “Desert Wanderlust” from their back-to-school clothing line affiliated with Pacsun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ge8utKv5QU . The video advertisement features the two sisters modeling the clothes they designed while an indie pop song from the band XYLO plays in the background, introducing a tranquil mood. Kendall and Kylie want to give off a “wild and free” vibe so they film in a desert with the wind blowing through their hair and clothes as they pet horses and hold foxes. The sisters want to let the clothes sell themselves so they avoid seeming like typical clothing advertisements where most often there is an obvious focus on selling individual clothing pieces. Kendall and Kylie appeal to pathos by incorporating scenes of the two of them appearing to be laidback and carefree to persuade the audience that the people who wear their clothes live an attractive lifestyle and look beautiful, and that they should aspire to be like them. To further emphasize their “chill” vibe, the video is filtered with green and blue tints as these hues are said to evoke feelings of calmness, tranquility, freshness, and harmony (Brittan). 

Video proves to be an effective media for selling clothing as it combines visuals with audio and appeals to more senses than a visual or audio recording could alone. The commercial is shot from multiple different angles with quickly changing frames that alternate between close, far, high, and low to maintain the viewer’s interest. By incorporating background music, alternating angles, and modeling their clothes in a manner that appears to be effortless, Kendall and Kylie persuade their audience that their clothing line is trendy, effortless, and cool.

Another way Kylie influences her fans to want to be trendy, cool, and beautiful like her is by posting regularly to her Snapchat story. Kylie posts photos and videos on her story so she can advertise her products and lifestyle instantaneously and without cost. Kylie implements ethos in her snap stories by posting photos and videos of makeup looks she creates using her own products thus demonstrating their authenticity, as Kylie would only use high quality products. To prove her authority as a successful businesswoman and advertise the high demand for her cosmetics Kylie posts stories informing her fans each time one of her products sells out. To ensure that her fans continue eagerly watching her Snapchat stories and following her everyday life, Kylie makes her snaps as interesting as possible. Kylie announces upcoming reveals and releases to get her fans excited about new products. When presenting her new products to Snapchat, Kylie slowly pans along the makeup and packaging while playing enticing music in the background. Kylie often plays slow RnB songs and includes captions the names of the products and color swatches to make the videos more appealing. Kylie loves to get feedback from her fans and get them talking about her products so she posts questions such as “Which is your fave?” or “What do you think?” The responses she gets to these questions provide her with information to improve her brand and increase its success by listening to what her fans would like to see.  

Kylie chooses Snapchat as her primary method of advertising because she is able to communicate directly with her fans and customers. This personal form of advertising works well because it is authentic and there is no second party for information to be passed and potentially swayed through. Through using Snapchat Kylie provides a more “one-on-one” feel and allows viewers to see her personally excited about selling her products and asking for feedback. The people who follow Kylie on Snapchat and watch her stories are likely to buy her products because they are fans of hers and are constantly receiving information about her new products and release dates. Snapchat is likely the most dynamic form of media that Kylie uses as it enables her to record herself speaking to fans, advertise products using visuals and audio, and send out information about what is happening in her life in real time.

Kylie Jenner has worked tremendously hard to set herself apart from her sisters and the rest of her family by creating a name for herself on multiple platforms to establish her status as a pop culture icon. Much of Kylie’s success is due to the emotional appeal she sells to her fans. Many young people aspire to be like Kylie and are inspired by her makeup looks, fashion sense, and lifestyle. By encouraging people to want to be like her, Kylie is able gain fame and sell her products with ease. However, Kylie could not sell her products solely on a pathos based foundation. The media platforms she chooses and the way in which she uses them contribute greatly to her success. Kylie has a clear understanding of which platforms are most useful for sharing information and selling products. Her website, Kylie Cosmetics effectively displays and sells her makeup products, her Pacsun commercials successfully advertise her clothing line Kendall and Kylie, and her Snapchat stories provide a personal and comfortable setting where she can share her everyday life and further promote her companies.