Gisou: A Marketing Case Study

From a family of beekeepers, Negin Mirsalehi launched Gisou with a hair oil infused with fresh honey from her father’s bee garden. Now, her growing range of beauty products is stocked everywhere from Sephora to Harrods. The perfect blend of heart, science, and strategy; let’s unpack Gisou’s success.

A honey-making, hair-loving heritage is what sets Gisou apart in the saturated beauty market.

Negin’s father is a sixth generation beekeeper, her mother a hairdresser. When Negin was young, her mother created a recipe for hair oil using fresh honey from their family bee garden. Used only within the family for years, this was the formula that Negin eventually started selling with Gisou years later.

From the start, the Mirsalehi Bee Garden has been the heart of Gisou. The brand was built on an appreciation for craftsmanship and innovative science. They emerged almost instantly as an industry leader — after all, no one else had bees on their team. With products backed by niche expertise, a unique ingredient, and plenty of passion; there was instant buzz.

This is also a story of sustainability. Using honey* as their natural hero ingredient meets the growing demand for clean beauty, while also being a huge point of difference. An eco-friendly brand isn’t groundbreaking, but bee power is.

*Harvested mindfully using bee-friendly methods.

Negin and her bees.

At the time of founding Gisou in 2015, Negin already had an engaged community of social media followers. She was one of the first big Instagram influencers, rapidly gaining popularity with content focused on fashion and beauty.

After noticing that followers were quick to compliment her hair, and that they were super interested in her beekeeping family whenever she posted about it; she decided it was time to introduce the world to her mother’s top-secret homemade honey hair oil.

Thanks to her established presence as a fashion and beauty expert, Gisou had immediate visibility, trust, and authenticity.

Instagram has continued to be a huge part of Gisou's success. Their profile (currently at 1.7m followers) focuses on soft sells and mood building.

Social media has evolved from a simple communication tool into a primary source of inspiration and entertainment. Instead of flipping through magazines, we scroll through our feeds. Rather than watching TV, we spend hours viewing Reels.

Negin was among the first to harness this pivot with her personal brand, and she's applied the same approach to marketing Gisou. Their grid cultivates a distinct vibe and aesthetic through unconventional lifestyle and product imagery.

You can tell their content creators and design team are constantly asking themselves: how can we be more creative, inspiring, and engaging than the standard E-Comm shot?

This applied to Tiktok, too; but with an even more casual and humorous tone to align with the user’s expectation of the platform. Memes and trends are embraced readily on Tiktok, so posts like these are received very well.

Gisou’s content strategy resonates in an era where traditional advertising falls flat: people hate ads that look like ads. They’ve attracted a devoted cult following who are tuning in because the vibe is immaculate. And when the people come to you, their money will follow. Getting them through your door is your biggest battle — one Gisou has been winning since day one.

Thanks to a unique story, innovative formulas, and social media smarts, Gisou is in the middle of an unbeelievable rise.