When Brand Value and Consumer Value Collide

Brand Under The Microscope: Charlotte Tilbury

Sep 03, 2026

What happens when your audience’s perception of value differs from the value your organisation assigns to the brand?

Strategy Brief

After looking closely at Charlotte Tilbury and the recent online backlash regarding dupes, it is clear that the company’s values and its consumers’ values are diverging. To protect the business moving forward and mend their relationship with the audience, they need to stop fighting the wrong battle and remove their focus from the dupe market. Instead, focus on the parts of the brand they can control, such as their craftsmanship, expertise and emotional connection, and the parts of the brand that cannot be copied.

They need to test their assumptions. Being clear on their customers’ expectations and their offering, and whether a gap exists, is essential. Listening to the audience and their feedback is a first step in nurturing the relationship and is a hidden insight your audience is giving you on your plate. When a founder’s face is the brand’s landmark, vulnerability comes with that. Considering building on a broader purpose, such as a shared belief, purpose or cause, will help preserve or protect the brand. Ultimately, if Charlotte Tilbury wants to survive this changing market, it is essential for the brand to remain culturally relevant.

When Luxury, Prestige and Dupes intertwine

Before exploring the tension between Charlotte Tilbury and its audience, it is useful to distinguish between luxury, prestige and dupes. This helps explain why the discussion around dupes has not been well received and what lessons brand owners can take from it.

The concept of luxury is subjective and constantly evolving. Its definition cannot be captured by a single meaning. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, luxury is not simply something expensive, but something that is not necessary.

Prestige is when someone or something is given respect and admiration because of their social influence, reputation or success. Prestige is associated with respect and high status. While luxury and prestige overlap, they are not identical. Luxury is often associated with exclusivity, scarcity and exceptional experiences, while prestige is more broadly associated with success, status, reputation and perceived quality.

‘Dupe’ is short for duplicate. In the beauty world, a dupe is often understood as a more affordable product that looks, feels, or functions similarly to high-end or expensive items. A dupe is when other brands take inspiration from a premium brand by imitating its style, trend, or aesthetic, offering consumers a glimpse of the original product without having to buy the actual product.

How can a brand become a victim of its own popularity?

People who cannot afford or might not want to pay the original price may still want a piece of the meaning, aesthetic, or cultural association attached to it.

Charlotte Tilbury has been under the spotlight for its comments about dupes in a 2026 BBC News interview. In the interview, Charlotte mentioned:

‘When you dupe, you dupe the consumer. That’s not the quality and formula you’re going to get these amazing performance that empowers people to look and feel that way.’

The problem begins when a brand’s definition of value differs from its customers’ perception of value.

The luxury market is undergoing a period of change

According to Bain & Company, the personal luxury goods market declined to €363 billion in 2024, representing a 2% decline from 2023 at current exchange rates, while remaining flat at constant exchange rates. Based on Bain & Company’s figures, this decline may indicate a shift in consumer mindset and in how consumers perceive luxury. This may signal that consumers are increasingly prioritising personal value over luxury goods.

For premium and prestige brands, this creates a more challenging environment. With ongoing disruption, rising prices, macroeconomic uncertainty and shifting consumer preferences, luxury consumers, particularly Gen Z, are becoming more selective about discretionary spending and how they spend. Consumers are not weighing Charlotte Tilbury’s price in isolation; rather, they are evaluating it within their current economic reality.

Beauty consumers are rewriting prestige value

The beauty market is being shaped by consumers; this market is increasingly dynamic. Consumers are more conscious about how they spend and evaluate products. Cost-conscious spending is influencing the rise of dupes, and make-up is no longer one aspect in the beauty category but rather is becoming an integrated part of the wider beauty routine.

Where Charlotte Tilbury sits in the beauty market

Charlotte Tilbury is a leading beauty brand within the premium beauty segment. Since 2020, Charlotte Tilbury has been part of the Puig Group portfolio. The group reported that growth was led by fragrance and make-up, with make-up maintaining its excellent performance, led by Charlotte Tilbury.

Charlotte Tilbury’s competitors are Bobbi Brown, Pat McGrath, Huda Beauty and Glossier; the list is non-exhaustive. On a more affordable level, names like Makeup Revolution and e.l.f. Cosmetics are the brand’s competitors.

What does Charlotte Tilbury promise?

The brand’s human voice: The brand’s personality is bold, expressive, enthusiastic, passionate, romantic, glamorous, charismatic, magnetic, approachable, affectionate and friendly, calling its audience ‘darlings’ in a distinctive British way.
Beauty for everyone: The brand purpose is to bring professional make-up artistry and Hollywood beauty secrets to everyone, everywhere. It aims to help people feel empowered, glamorous and embrace the best version of themselves so they can unlock their confidence.
A beauty world built around glamour: Charlotte Tilbury’s aesthetic is influenced by boudoir style and Old Hollywood vanity stations, a style that extends from stores, across social media, tutorials, live events and e-commerce platforms, creating a recognisable experience across multiple touchpoints.

Who is the brand really speaking to?

Charlotte Tilbury’s community is at the heart of how the brand is experienced and discussed beyond the brand’s own communications. The brand’s core audience has historically encompassed Millennials, while Gen Z is becoming an increasingly important audience.

Millennials and Gen Z are digitally engaged audiences. The community encompasses influencers, beauty creators and consumers turned storytellers, all of whom contribute through product comparisons, reviews and recommendations. This audience is interested in beauty trends, self-care, aspirational lifestyles and luxury beauty, with Instagram, TikTok and YouTube playing an important role in discovery, recommendation and product evaluation.

When your audience becomes your brand’s storyteller

From its early development, one of Charlotte Tilbury’s strengths has been its focus on community. The brand understands the power of creators and consumers turning into creators in shaping how products are experienced and discussed online. Without positioning itself exclusively around one generation, its collaborations with creators across generations help the brand maintain its cultural relevance. Customers, influencers, micro-influencers and everyday users become important storytellers and are the brand’s most active ambassadors.

Selling more than the product

Thanks to its social media appeal, Charlotte Tilbury resonates with Millennials and Gen Z. The brand operates within the premium and prestige beauty market, implementing elements associated with luxury — such as aspiration, exclusivity and elevated experience — to create desirability. Charlotte Tilbury brings professional make-up artistry and technical expertise to consumers. The brand is doing it through products designed to be easy to choose and use. With empowerment and confidence at the centre of the brand experience, its positioning combines aspiration, glamour and accessibility.

What makes Charlotte Tilbury distinctive

The founder is part of the brand: The founder’s personality brings the brand alive and consumers can relate to it.
The brand extends beyond the store: Beyond the physical store and digital environments, Charlotte Tilbury connects its brand ecosystem through its e-commerce, social media platforms, tutorials and live events.
The brand’s ecosystem: It seamlessly moves between its physical and digital environments. Its multichannel presence makes the direct-to-consumer experience frictionless.

Where the value gap appears

When consumers express their dissatisfaction, it is an opportunity for the brand to pause and listen. A reaction from your audience often reveals what they are experiencing and what their expectations are. It might also indicate that the brand promise is no longer aligned with their expectations.

As a brand, one needs to understand which fight to pick. Should a premium brand fight, ignore, or strengthen the parts of its brand that are being copied?

When assessing competition, it is important to understand how a brand operates within its market. While two products may look similar, the customer buying from a brand such as Ralph Lauren might not be the same customer buying from J.Crew. In the same manner, a customer buying a dupe is not necessarily a lost Charlotte Tilbury customer.

Brands need to recognise that consumers make conscious decisions based on their own needs, circumstances, and perceived value. Telling consumers what to buy or how to spend risks damaging the relationship between the brand and its audience. When an audience chooses lower-priced alternatives, it may signal that there is a demand the brand is not currently serving. Whether those consumers are existing ones or people who aspire to the brand, this may demonstrate an unmet need in the market.

From the business perspective, dupes may be perceived as lower quality and a threat to the value of the original product. Having similar alternatives may make it seem like your brand reputation is affected by competition. However, going after the competition, or your audience, is not the solution. The brand’s and its audience’s perspectives can coexist.

Consumers’ comments and feedback can reveal a misalignment between the brand and how its audience perceives it. From the consumer’s perspective, a dupe may be a purse-friendly alternative that meets their needs. Viewing the situation through the lens of their audience could open an opportunity for Charlotte Tilbury to consider different routes to market.

What should Charlotte Tilbury do next?

1 - Don’t fight the wrong battle: Often a brand that is culturally relevant will be coveted and copied. The question is not about wondering how to eliminate alternatives but rather which part of your brand cannot be easily copied: the experience, community, craftsmanship, expertise, emotional connection and meaning attached to the brand.

Calling out dupes and the buyer’s decision can create tension. If your brand’s philosophy is centred on consumer empowerment, dismissing the purchasing choices of price-conscious consumers risks creating a gap between the brand’s intended message and how that message is experienced by your audience.

Moving forward, monitoring the brand’s relevance as well as its audience’s perception and reevaluating what the brand is, what it stands for and whether its actions remain culturally resonant with its audience is an important step for brands to consider implementing.

For Charlotte Tilbury, this means staying true to the foundations of its brand promise: creativity, craftsmanship, quality, aspiration and the emotional experience of beauty.

2 - Always test your assumptions: Brands need to constantly test their assumptions and clarify why customers buy from them. A brand may believe its offering is unique, while the customer may be asking a very different question: Will this product deliver the result I expect? Understanding this gap between your offering and your customers’ expectations can reveal when the perceived value of a brand is no longer aligned with the customer’s reality.

3 - Listen to constructive feedback: One needs to note that consumer criticism can be uncomfortable. However, nurturing ongoing conversation with your audience is essential, as it might reveal where expectations and brand reality are beginning to diverge. Listening to and addressing feedback rather than blaming gives your brand a chance to gain insight into what your audience is actually experiencing.

4 - Protect the brand beyond the founder: Charlotte’s charismatic and approachable personality brings the founder, brand and community together. Her presence as founder, expert and make-up artist gives the brand a recognisable human face, helping to build an emotional connection with its audience.

But what happens when the founder’s voice becomes inseparable from the brand’s voice? A founder-led brand can be powerful, but the brand can also become vulnerable when the founder’s identity becomes closely enmeshed. Building a community around a broader purpose, cause or shared belief can help create a relationship that extends beyond the individual founder.

Lessons beyond Charlotte Tilbury

The controversy around dupes is not simply about whether dupes are good or bad. It reveals a gap between how the brand understands value and how parts of its audience perceive value. A brand can shape its message, experience and promise, but it does not own the meaning. Ultimately, your audience determines the perceived value.

Research Note: The company information and market figures reflect the sources available at the time of writing. As new information becomes available, this information may change.