There is nothing especially revolutionary about putting a pop star in a Christmas advert. It is almost a seasonal utility, somewhere between fairy lights and a perfectly timed gift-with-purchase. The interesting part of Ulta Beauty's new holiday campaign is not that it has two famous faces. It is that both have something on the shelf.
Ulta's The Magic Starts with You campaign began rolling out on 31 October 2026, with Selena Gomez and Tate McRae appearing alongside a returning Mrs Claus character. Gomez's Rare Beauty has been sold through Ulta since February; McRae's TATE 01 fragrance is presented by the retailer as an exclusive in the United States. The films connect familiar personalities to identifiable products, rather than asking celebrity recognition to do all the commercial work (Rutnik, 2026; Ulta Beauty, 2026a; Ulta Beauty, 2026b).
For British beauty founders planning Christmas 2026, that makes this a useful case study in celebrity beauty brand advertising. It is also a reminder that famous talent is not a marketing strategy. A good partnership gives someone a reason to care, a product worth considering and a purchase journey that actually works.
The campaign is a shop window with a storyline
The creative, developed by Tamara Group and directed by Nema Vand, brings back Mrs Claus for a second year. Instead of a generic procession of glamorous faces, the workshop narrative asks a simple shopping question: what might someone want? One execution features Gomez presenting a Rare Beauty brow set; another features McRae and her fragrance. Adweek reports that the work was planned across television, streaming, digital and social placements, alongside in-store experiences (Rutnik, 2026).
That combination is more commercially precise than the typical celebrity cameo. The character supplies a recognisable festive world. The performers bring their own audiences and cultural associations. The products provide the next step. Ulta's own online holiday gift guide brings the same idea into the shopping experience: it features Selena's Lash & Brow Duo and TATE 01 among Mrs Claus's picks (Ulta Beauty, 2026a).
The important distinction is between having a celebrity in your ad and designing an ad around a legitimate product relationship. Both can attract attention. Only the latter necessarily answers the question a customer is likely to ask afterwards: And where do I buy it?
Rare Beauty's appearance has a nine-month backstory
This is not a newly invented festive relationship. On 5 January 2026, Rare Beauty announced it would expand to more than 1,500 Ulta Beauty stores and the retailer's website from 1 February. Its announcement identified the move as Rare Beauty's first retail expansion since its 2020 launch and named two Ulta-exclusive sets, including Selena's Lash & Brow Duo (Rare Beauty, 2026).
That context changes how a marketer should read the November campaign. Gomez is not simply an expensive shortcut to attention. She is the founder of a brand that has spent much of the year establishing a new retail presence. Putting the founder in the holiday work can remind existing fans that they now have another place to buy, while giving unfamiliar Ulta customers a recognisable route into the assortment.
The January rollout also included dedicated merchandising and a charitable donation initiative. Those details were part of a wider retailer–brand relationship, not evidence of sales caused by the holiday advert. This distinction matters: a campaign can be strategically well connected without publicly demonstrating incremental revenue or profit (Rare Beauty, 2026; James, 2026).
For an independent UK cosmetics brand, the equivalent is rarely a global celebrity. It may be the founder, a respected makeup artist, a formulation expert or a creator with an unusually strong connection to a particular product. The asset is not merely fame. It is credible product ownership.
Tate 01 gives the same casting idea a different job
Tate McRae brings a different commercial proposition. TATE 01 is a newer fragrance offer, and Ulta's own brand page marks both the eau de parfum and a matching hair-and-body spray as Only at Ulta in its US assortment (Ulta Beauty, 2026b). The campaign therefore does not just put a familiar face beside a bottle. It links an artist-led product to a specific retailer.
For a newer product, that can make three messages possible at once: this is who it comes from; this is what it is; this is where you can find it. A fragrance is a difficult object to sell through a screen. The shopper cannot smell a chorus, however catchy. Creative direction still has to establish mood and identity, while the product page must do the unglamorous work of describing notes, sizes, availability, delivery and returns accurately.
This is where beauty advertising gets wonderfully practical. A striking film may earn a second look, but a retailer-exclusive fragrance still needs a clear product tile, truthful descriptions and a frictionless way to purchase. Nobody has published a verified attribution study showing how much of TATE 01's sales came from the holiday film. We should not pretend otherwise.
A casting brief should start with the shopper, not the follower count
Imagine two possible Christmas briefs for a new skincare gift set. The first says: Find someone with a million followers. The second says: Find someone whose audience has a genuine reason to trust this routine, who can explain why the set exists and whose appearance can be connected to a retailer or brand-owned checkout experience.
Only one tells a creative team what the partnership is supposed to achieve.
The same principle applies from a £5,000 campaign to a national advertising buy. Before approaching talent, answer five questions. Who are we trying to reach? What product should they notice? Why does this person make that product more relevant? What must shoppers learn before buying? Where does the next action happen? If those answers are vague, a glossy casting deck is unlikely to solve the underlying problem.
Think of the budget as a sequence rather than a single celebrity fee: rights, creative concept, production, adaptation, paid distribution, retailer placements, landing pages, product content and measurement. Buying a name before designing that system is an expensive way to discover that nobody agreed the objective.
The strongest retailer campaigns do not end at the end card
Ulta's holiday guide is an instructive detail because it translates the campaign's fictional gift workshop into browsable products. The cross-channel idea is visible without asserting that it has already delivered a particular conversion rate (Ulta Beauty, 2026a).
For UK teams, the creative and digital work should be planned together. A cut-down film might foreground the product within its first few seconds. A social placement could explain the gift set in an accessible, captioned format. The retailer listing must show the precise SKU, accurate shades and any conditions. A brand's own site can add a richer story about the founder or formulation. Email and organic social can extend the idea with genuinely useful gifting guidance, rather than replaying the same 30-second advert everywhere.
A particularly telling detail in the Ulta example is that the stars perform different jobs. Rare Beauty can reinforce a distribution expansion, while TATE 01 can introduce a newer exclusive. One creative universe contains distinct commercial tasks. That is smarter than assuming every product should have an identical story.
If multiple brands share a retail campaign, create a simple responsibility matrix. Which team supplies product data? Who approves creative? Who owns photography rights? Which claims require evidence? Who manages customer questions or returns? How will each partner see results? The glamorous answer is 'synergy'. The useful answer is a document with names next to decisions.
A UK beauty campaign has some non-negotiable fine print
Celebrity endorsement does not suspend the advertising rules. The UK's Committee of Advertising Practice advises that endorsements should be genuine, factual claims must be substantiated and production techniques must not create a misleading impression of cosmetic effects (CAP, 2025). Its October 2026 influencer disclosure guidance also sets out when commercial relationships require a clear advertising label (CAP and CMA, 2026).
The precise application depends on the placement and relationship. A clearly branded official advert, a founder post, a gifted creator video and an affiliate recommendation may involve different disclosure and substantiation considerations. Brands should assess the actual arrangements rather than copy another campaign's labels blindly.
For skincare and beauty in particular, check what is being claimed in words and images. A face filter, retouching choice, demonstration or before-and-after frame can imply efficacy. Do not use a famous person's presence to suggest product properties they cannot substantiate. Confirm music, image and likeness permissions, territorial rights and the permitted duration of usage in every required format. This is editorial guidance, not a substitute for legal advice.
Ulta's US-specific promotion is also not a UK retailer launch. British brands should take the principle from the case, not assume the product ranges, exclusivities or advertising rules are identical on this side of the Atlantic.
How to build the smaller, sharper version in 30 days
Week one: work out the real shopping problem. Choose one hero product or a tightly connected set. Review search questions, customer service queries, stock constraints and the point where customers hesitate. Write a single-sentence proposition. If the brand's campaign can only be summarised as 'we have a celebrity', rewrite it.
Week two: cast for a connection. Compare potential talent against audience relevance, creative fit, authenticity, category knowledge, professional reliability and rights. It might be your founder. It might be a specialist artist or an established niche creator. Check the commercial relationship and agree the disclosure approach in advance.
Week three: design one recognisable idea for several destinations. Produce a hero concept, retailer-ready product assets, vertical social variations, a product-detail module and an accessible, mobile-first landing experience. Agree claims and product-accuracy checks before final delivery. The aesthetic should feel like one campaign, not five unrelated content requests.
Week four: test what matters. Compare qualified product-page visits, add-to-cart behaviour, sales where attribution is available, returns, contribution margin and branded search against a sensible baseline. Separate creative engagement from business performance. Small samples and attribution limitations should be reported, not hidden.
A good team can do more with one believable advocate and one well-built shopping journey than with a pile of disconnected celebrity content.
What the Ulta example does not prove
It does not prove that celebrity-founded products always outperform other beauty brands. It does not tell us how the campaign's media budget was allocated or whether the return justified the costs. It does not establish uplift for Rare Beauty, Tate 01 or Ulta. None of those figures are publicly evidenced in the sources used here.
What it does demonstrate, visibly, is a creative architecture worth interrogating: a recurring character, recognisable partners, identifiable goods, retailer-specific availability and a shopping destination that repeats the campaign logic. Those are observable choices. Whether they work commercially requires data Ulta has not supplied.
That distinction is the difference between looking at good work and making unsupported case-study claims about it.
The takeaway: be famous for something
The most expensive face in a campaign is not automatically the most useful one. Ulta's new holiday work has a more interesting thesis: relevance is strongest when a personality, a product and a place to buy belong in the same sentence.
For fashion, fragrance and beauty brands, the question is not who can we afford? It is who can make this product mean something to the right customer, and can we deliver on that promise when they click?
If the answer needs better creative direction, digital marketing and ecommerce design (https://www.thedigitaldollhouse.co.uk/services-1) or a more coherent campaign journey, The Digital Dollhouse (https://www.thedigitaldollhouse.co.uk/portfolio) is a Knutsford-based digital marketing and creative technology agency that connects the thinking with the execution. Tell us what you're launching (https://www.thedigitaldollhouse.co.uk/contact-2).
For related reading, see our guide to selling fragrance online (https://www.thedigitaldollhouse.co.uk/post/how-to-sell-perfume-online-2026) and our editorial on Prada's hand-drawn campaign (https://www.thedigitaldollhouse.co.uk/post/prada-hand-drawn-campaign-human-led-advertising).
Frequently asked questions
What makes a celebrity beauty campaign effective?
A clear link between the person, the product, the audience and a credible purchase journey. Recognition alone does not demonstrate brand lift or profitable sales.
Is Ulta Beauty's Selena Gomez and Tate McRae campaign running in the UK?
The reporting describes a US Ulta Beauty campaign. It should be treated as a creative case study for UK brands, not evidence of a corresponding UK rollout or local product exclusivity (Rutnik, 2026; Ulta Beauty, 2026b).
Can a small beauty brand use this strategy without a celebrity?
Yes. A founder, respected professional or carefully selected specialist creator can offer a more relevant and affordable connection. Define the commercial objective, rights and product claims before production.
References
CAP (2025) Celebrities. AdviceOnline, 22 August. Available at: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/celebrities.html (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
CAP and CMA (2026) Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads. Advertising Guidance, 23 October. Available at: https://www.asa.org.uk/resource/influencers-guide.html (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
James, D. (2026) 'Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty to launch at Ulta', Retail Dive, 6 January. Available at: https://www.retaildive.com/news/selena-gomez-rare-beauty-ulta-launch/808847/ (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
Park, Z. (2026) 'Ulta Beauty's Mrs. Claus season 2 stars Selena Gomez and Tate McRae', ContentGrip, 3 November. Available at: https://www.contentgrip.com/ulta-selena-tate-holiday-campaign/ (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
Rare Beauty (2026) 'Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez to Launch Nationwide in Ulta Beauty', PR Newswire, 5 January. Available at: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rare-beauty-by-selena-gomez-to-launch-nationwide-in-ulta-beauty-302649327.html (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
Rutnik, A. (2026) 'Selena Gomez and Tate McRae Bring the Magic to Ulta Beauty's Holiday Campaign', Adweek, published around 1 November, reporting a 31 October rollout. Available at: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/selena-gomez-and-tate-mcrae-bring-the-magic-to-ulta-beautys-holiday-campaign/ (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
Ulta Beauty (2026a) Best Holiday Beauty Gifts 2026. Available at: https://www.ulta.com/discover/lifestyle/best-holiday-gifts (Accessed: 4 November 2026).
Ulta Beauty (2026b) TATE BY TATE MCRAE. Available at: https://www.ulta.com/brand/tate-by-tate-mcrae (Accessed: 4 November 2026).