Maybelline RO x Electric Castle

The Objective

Making Maybelline part of Gen Z festival culture

In a fast-moving beauty market, Maybelline’s constant challenge is staying relevant for Gen Z. This audience is driven by culture, music, and self-expression, and music festivals play a major role in how they discover and share trends on TikTok.

For Electric Castle, Maybelline wanted to move beyond classic sponsorship visibility and become a natural part of the festival experience. The goals were to:

• Connect offline activation with online amplification

• Bring the brand from backstage to center stage

• Spark authentic TikTok conversations around beauty, music, and self-expression

The Solution

From on-site experience to TikTok-first storytelling

Maybelline activated a full 360° approach combining a strong presence at Electric Castle with a TikTok-first content strategy.On the ground, the brand created a dedicated makeup booth that invited festival-goers to experience the brand in real life. Online, this energy was amplified through TikTok-native content such as teasers, Get Ready With Me videos, live festival moments, and post-event highlights.

To maximize impact, TopView placements ran during and immediately after the festival, ensuring high visibility at moments of peak attention. The campaign culminated with a high-impact TikTok video featuring Inna, one of the festival’s headline artists, blending music, makeup, and performance into a single, highly shareable moment.The creative approach focused on turning real festival moments into authentic TikTok stories, using spontaneous captures, GRWM formats, and behind-the-scenes access to make Maybelline feel like a natural part of the festival look.

The Results

High-impact visibility and strong brand lift

The campaign delivered strong results across both upper and mid funnel metrics:

• Brand Lift Study showed +4.1pp Ad Recall and +5.2pp Brand Familiarity, proving strong memorability in a crowded festival context

• Video performance exceeded benchmarks, with VTR 2s at 24.6% and VTR 6s at 7.0%, both well above category norms

• TopView placements stood out as the main performance driver, reaching 12.7% and 14.6% VTR 6s across emissions

Compared to previous campaigns, Maybelline achieved faster and stronger brand lift among festival audiences and TikTok users. The case shows that combining live events with TikTok-first creative formats can significantly amplify relevance, engagement, and cultural impact.

This campaign was shortlisted in the Greatest Creative category at the TikTok Ad Awards CE 2025, recognizing its strong TikTok-first execution and cultural relevance.