Rimmel London vs competitors: what the data really shows

Influence is shared, and often organic

Looking more closely at the content itself, another pattern becomes clear.

A large portion of high-performing content is not exclusive to a single brand. Creators frequently feature multiple products within the same video, often without clear indication of whether the content is part of a paid collaboration.

This becomes particularly visible when analysing the top-performing content ranked by EMV in Kolsquare’s Listening dashboards. When you sort content this way, the posts generating the highest value are rarely single-brand placements. Instead, they tend to be routine-based videos where several products are used together, often within the same look or tutorial.

This has a direct impact on how performance should be interpreted.

First, value is often shared. A single piece of content can contribute to the visibility of several brands at once. What appears as a strong performance for one brand may, in reality, be part of a broader ecosystem where attention is distributed across multiple players. This overlap becomes even clearer when comparing brands side by side in the share of voice view, where a brand’s visibility is measured within the wider competitive set rather than in isolation.

Second, creators are not operating within exclusive relationships. Most work with several brands within the same category over a relatively short period. This is particularly visible in beauty, where routines naturally involve multiple products and brands. When exploring the top creators ranked by EMV, you can see that the same profiles repeatedly appear across different brands, often contributing value to several of them simultaneously.

At the same time, the formats that consistently perform best remain relatively stable. Get ready with me videos, tutorials and routine-based content continue to drive the majority of engagement. These patterns are easy to identify when reviewing the format breakdown and content distribution metrics, where short-form video consistently dominates in both reach and engagement.

Much of this activity sits outside tightly controlled campaign structures. It is often driven by product seeding, ongoing relationships or simply creator preference. Paid collaborations still play an important role, particularly when brands want to highlight a specific product or message, but they tend to sit alongside this broader layer of organic content rather than replacing it.

For brands, this shifts the challenge. The objective is not only to activate creators, but to ensure your product becomes part of the content that creators naturally produce and audiences already engage with.

Share of voice depends on what you measure

Rimmel accounts for roughly a quarter of total EMV across the brands analysed, placing it ahead of competitors on this metric, within a relatively competitive mid-tier group.

But one of the strengths of Kolsquare’s Listening feature is that share of voice is not limited to EMV alone. In the share of voice dashboard, you can compare brands across multiple indicators, including content volume, creator activity and engagement.

Looking at these dimensions side by side quickly changes the picture.

While Rimmel leads in EMV, it does not lead in content output. Brands like Space NK and BPerfect publish significantly more content over the same period. Switching the view from EMV to content volume shifts the ranking, bringing these high-frequency players to the top.

The same applies to creator activity. Some brands activate a larger number of creators, increasing their presence across the market, even if that does not translate into higher overall value. However, across the dataset, most brands rely on similar creator mixes dominated by micro and nano profiles, making execution and content strategy the main differentiators rather than creator size alone.

Engagement adds another layer, with certain brands achieving stronger interaction on individual pieces of content, despite a lower overall share of visibility.

Taken together, these views show that share of voice is not a fixed position, but a function of how visibility is defined.

Rimmel’s strength lies in converting activity into value. It appears consistently in content that performs well, which allows it to lead in EMV without dominating in volume. Other brands are more visible in terms of frequency or creator reach, but that visibility is more dispersed.

Timing shapes performance more than expected

When looking at performance over time in Kolsquare’s Listening dashboards, a clear seasonal pattern emerges.

Across the six-month period analysed, activity peaks in November, driven by Black Friday and broader retail momentum. This is followed by a noticeable slowdown in December, despite it being a key shopping period. Performance then picks up again in January.

This trend is visible in the EMV over time view, where spikes and dips highlight when brands are most active and when the market becomes more competitive.

Looking more closely, there is often a small content peak in late December, reflecting a final push from some brands looking to capture last-minute gifting demand. However, this activity remains limited compared to November, suggesting that most brands reduce their influencer investment once the peak retail window has passed.

One likely explanation is saturation. In December, increased advertising pressure makes it harder for content to stand out. By contrast, January offers more space, allowing campaigns to gain visibility more easily.

For brands, this shifts how timing should be approached. Rather than aligning activity strictly with the retail calendar, it becomes just as important to understand when attention is available.

What this means for your strategy and how social listening gives you the edge

Looking across the data, a few patterns stand out.

Performance is not directly tied to volume. Brands producing the most content are not necessarily generating the most value. What matters more is how content performs, where it appears, and how it fits within the wider creator ecosystem.

Format selection plays a central role. Short-form video consistently drives visibility, while more immediate formats tend to support conversion. The balance between the two reflects a brand’s underlying objective, whether that is reach, engagement or direct response.

At the same time, influence is not contained within individual campaigns. Creators work across multiple brands, and high-performing content often includes several products at once. Much of the visibility brands benefit from sits within this shared, partially organic environment.

Taken together, this means that looking at your own activity in isolation is not enough.

This is where social listening changes the way you plan. By bringing competitor data into the picture, it becomes possible to understand how your strategy compares in terms of output, format, creator mix and overall impact.

Instead of reacting to trends, you can see how they form. Instead of focusing on isolated metrics, you can evaluate performance within the context of the market.

That shift allows brands to move beyond a single model of success and understand which approach best fits their positioning, whether that is scale, engagement, or a balance of both.

Outsmart your competition with Kolsquare

Rimmel London’s recent performance is not the result of a single tactic. It reflects a broader shift in how the brand approaches influence, from content formats to creator relationships and timing.

These are the kinds of patterns that only emerge when you analyse the market as a whole.

Kolsquare’s Listening feature is designed to support that process. It allows brands to benchmark their performance, understand competitor strategies and identify where influence is actually being generated in real time.

In a space where everyone is active, the advantage comes from knowing how the market works, and adapting accordingly.