3 Secret Ways Lifestyle Marketing Shapes Your Life

Have you noticed that luxury is no longer defined by the bag on your arm or the car you drive?

The concept of luxury has shifted to accommodate the new culture of wellness that has emerged since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our screens are now filled with titles of ‘Spend my morning with me’, ‘What I eat in a day’, and advice videos on how to ‘really’ lose that weight. 

This is being driven by the push of lifestyle marketing. Whether that be through trying the new flavour of matcha from Blank Street, attending that reformer pilates class, or buying Rhode’s glazing milk for the ‘clean girl’ look.

The Rise of the Wellness Culture

Since we all emerged from the COVID-19 quarantine, there has been a push towards the concept of mental health and self-care as the new luxury.

People want to buy products that will help them feel balanced and healthy, while also being on trend. New ‘healthier’ caffeine options like matcha have emerged, not only introducing a new drink to the market but an entire aesthetic alongside it.

People have turned away from intense cardio and are focusing on pilates and reaching 10k steps a day, further pushing this mindful wellness  trend.

Lifestyle marketing has helped to create an entire world in which many people want to live- the girl who wakes up at 6am to attend her reformer class, in her Alo gym wear, followed by a matcha and an acai bowl. A life has been sold to us, and now we all want it…

New Trends as Fashion Lifestyle marketing symbols

• Matcha 

This explosion of a new ‘way of life’ has brought entire businesses, products and lifestyle marketing techniques with it. In the UK, Blank Street is dominating the streets, using its seasonal, unique iced matcha and coffee flavours to draw in the influencers and foodies.

Backed by significant venture capital funding, Blank Street Coffee rapidly expanded across London and New York City, using TikTok virality rather than traditional advertising to drive demand. 

You know that feeling when you’re watching a TikTok of someone trying a new food or drink, and you know you want it? Blank Street thrives off this, using its aesthetically pleasing colours to make it an ideal spot for social media gurus and, therefore, making the whole world crave their new flavours.  

• Pilates

Similarly, reformer pilates studios have been popping up all over the globe. Selling itself as a luxurious addition to life, where you can achieve the newly desired, lean, yet toned female physique. However, this doesn’t come cheap.

Premium studios such as Solidcore and Frame charge upwards of £25 per class, positioning wellness not just as health, but as a form of social status and exclusivity. Women are paying hundreds of pounds to attend classes with the promise that their lives will start to look a little like the influencers', and their bodies too.

• Skincare

Another area that has boomed since this new way of lifestyle marketing emerged is skincare. Women have been sold the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, which slots in perfectly alongside the pilates and matcha obsessers.

Rhode emerged at the perfect time with its crystal clear branding, ownable aesthetic and community-building approach. Their glazing milk hit the shelves and was gone in minutes, TikTok exploded with raving reviews, and new products continued to thrive.

With Hailey Bieber as the founder but also the face of the brand, she created a community of women who wanted to not just look like her but be her.

The People Behind the Curtain

So what is the fuel powering this wellness aesthetic? Influencers. From social media posts, brand deals, to brand trips, the influencers are the ones convincing us to join their communities. What better way to show how a product fits into the lifestyle that you want than to take influencers on a brand trip?

Revolve is the real leader in this, creating #revolvearoundtheworld and making influencers responsible for over 70% of their sales!

Rhode also recently sold us their Caffeine Reset face mask through a ski trip to Montana, an aesthetically pleasing experience of high fashion, moisturised lips and the luxury of a ski resort.

The takeover of your Instagram feed is almost like breaking news; everyone is made aware that this trip is going on, and you want to keep up with it. The interest in your favourite influencer, paired alongside your desired life and look, makes influencers and brand trips the perfect recipe for phenomenal lifestyle marketing.​

Marketing an Aesthetic

This concept of everything being aesthetically pleasing is everywhere now in everyday life, making it so important to have a colour or a vibe that people directly associate with your brand. This is what Blank Street did with their sage green signature, and Rhode with their sleek and modern packaging.

​The need to document our lives on social media creates a need for cool, unique spots that will create aesthetically pleasing photos for your Instagram. Brands no longer need to solely focus on how good their product is, but on the way it looks.

This aesthetic, though, isn’t just about ‘liking’ a certain colour, but using colour psychology to create a strong brand.

Did you know that 90% of someone's initial impression of a product or brand comes from colour alone? People associate greens with calm, black with luxury and white with modernity. Showing us how brands are even tapping into our psyche to push for another sale.

Lifestyle or Trend?

So now we are left with a community of glazed-skinned, matcha-drinking, pilates-going, early-morning people. But can we really keep this lifestyle up?

Lifestyle marketing has redefined luxury, shifting it from material goods to curated routines and aesthetic identities. Through brands like Blank Street Coffee, Rhode and Revolve, everyday habits such as drinking matcha, doing Pilates and following skincare routines have become symbols of an aspirational lifestyle.

However, this ideal is often expensive and unattainable, creating pressure to conform to unrealistic standards. As consumers, we must question whether we are buying into genuine wellbeing or simply a carefully marketed image, and begin to define wellness in a way that is realistic, accessible and personal.

🪽 Written by Claudia Bird