Maybelline

The Objective

Launched in 2007, Maybelline New York's mascara has given numerous female consumers the tools to put on the perfect lash from natural looks to full-on scene stealers.

Maybelline's core target audience used to be strong, sophisticated and mature women. This time, however, they wanted to expand their target audience to win the hearts of the younger generation. Their flagship Volume' Express Hyper Curl Mascara was chosen as the featured product to enhance brand favorability amongst the digital-native female consumers.

The Solution

Maybelline wanted to build a girl-friendly image for Hyper Curl. Staying true to their objective, they invited a popular influencer, Reiko, to film a video themed 'Mascara Boyfriend', conveying the concept of 'being loved' and 'being cute' to girls who have high demands for curled eyelashes.

Instead of highlighting product features, the video leveraged a smart insight that resonated with young girls by employing a metaphor comparing eyelashes to boyfriends. The metaphor complained that no matter how hard you try, just like boyfriends, eyelashes are always not what you want them to be.

The customized song conveyed the feelings of young girls as the lyrics echoed their thoughts. At the end of the video, the Hyper Curl mascara made an entrance and promised to solve their eyelashes' problem with its curl-lock formula that keeps a fully volumized curl from the root to the tip.

The video was promoted on TikTok as an In-Feed Ad. With TikTok's content recommendation mechanism, the video quickly went viral and attracted massive awareness and engagement.

The Results

Through this campaign, Maybelline successfully expanded the target audience of a classic product. The video received high engagements of 48,700 likes, 2,907 comments and 709 shares in 1 day. According to the Brand Lift Study, brand awareness increased by 80% and brand favorability lifted by 47.9%.