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Blogger Aimee Song Lands a Reported $500,000 Laura Mercier Deal

Photo: Laura Mercier/Getty Images

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Song of Style blogger Aimee Song is reportedly getting paid $500,000 to be Laura Mercier's first digital influencer, according to WWD. If accurate, it's an unprecedented paycheck for a blogger face of a beauty brand. In fact, it looks like this deal's overshadowing today's announcement that Cara Delevingne is Rimmel London's newest brand ambassador—and Cara's a supermodel who stars in blockbuster action movies.

YouTube megastar Michelle Phan was the first non-celeb to land a high-profile beauty gig, all the way back in 2010 when Lancome named her their official video makeup artist. Song, however, is a fashion blogger, without videos or impressive beauty skills. Another thing she doesn't have? An obligation to use only Laura Mercier products.

Instead, Song's yearlong partnership with Laura Mercier involves creating content on her blog and for the brand's website, then promoting it to her 3.4 million Instagram followers. Song can promote or feature other beauty brands on her blog too, except for a few Laura Mercier competitors.

"She’s not exclusive [to us]. We want her to be able to work with other brands," Nancy Bernardini, general manager and chief executive officer of Laura Mercier parent company Gurwitch Products, told WWD. "We want it to be organic as well — and one of the reasons we chose her was because we knew she organically uses the brand already and is a brand loyalist."

Bernardini also said that Song was a "great example" of the Laura Mercier consumer. Maybe that's the younger customer Laura Mercier is looking to attract by partnering with Song of Style, like Estée Lauder's use of Kendall Jenner and Irene Kim for the Estée Edit, or Clinique hiring it-girls Tavi Gevinson and Hannah Bronfman.

Beauty brands have been going after big-time fashion bloggers lately, and they've been paying out major money for those partnerships. WWD has it that Kristina Bazan of Kayture's L’Oréal sponsorship is reportedly worth at least $1 million, The Blonde Salad's Chiara Ferragni has a Pantene global ambassador deal that is supposedly in the "mid-six figures," and Something Navy blogger Arielle Nachmani is said to make between $200,000 and $300,000 partnering with Tresemmé.