There are many beauty brands all trying to gain the most attention online, but only a handful of campaigns bloom into successful ones. I’ve picked out a selection of different types of digital campaigns from brands in the beauty industry that are creative and successful, through high engagement and compelling experiences.
Burberry Kisses
Back in 2013, Burberry were looking for a way to immerse themselves with millennials, a new consumer group for the company. With millennials being consumed by technology, making an engaging digital experience was a must.
They came up with the campaign, ‘Burberry Kisses’. The concept behind the campaign was to build emotion through technology. This was done by getting people to send a personal kiss from their mobile to anyone in the world. Burberry created an app where if you kissed within a certain space on screen, it would capture the shape of your lips to make each message extra personal. You could then change the colour of the lip mark to match with the lipsticks they were launching at the time and type a message to the recipient. So, not only were they getting people to enjoy a digital experience, but they were also featuring a discreet but effective product placement.
During the campaign, there were over 253,000 search results for ‘Burberry Kisses’ and in the first 10 days over 13,000 cities were involved in the campaign. An incredible 109 million miles were travelled by the kisses that were sent across the world.
Essence BeautyBox #GenGorgeous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o6HVD4Y2Vk
This time last year, Essence Beauty Box launched their #GenGorgeous campaign in the run-up to Mother’s Day. Many people’s beauty habits have been passed down from their mothers, and so they wanted the campaign to be all about the words of wisdom our mothers pass down to us.
The hashtag allowed people to get involved by tweeting or Instagramming about their mother’s words of wisdom. Alongside the hashtag, they also created a video advert with successful women sharing their mum’s advice on personal appearance and confidence.
During the campaign, Essence had an offer running that if you gifted your mum one of their beauty boxes, you would also receive one. This helps to build brand advocacy and aims to make you and your mum long-term subscribers to their boxes.
Always #LikeAGirl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
Always isn’t your classic cosmetic beauty brand. They’re a personal hygiene brand and created a powerful digital campaign.
In their research, they found that 7 out of 10 girls felt like they didn’t belong in sports, just to conform with social expectations. However, those who got involved in regular sports clubs were twice as likely to feel confident in themselves.
There’s a common social expectation that certain sports aren’t suitable for women, just because they are seen as ‘manly’ sports. So, what Always did was create a powerful video called #LikeAGirl and it talked about sports situations where girls are told that they’re doing things ‘like a girl’.
This campaign didn’t focus on the actual products that they supply, but focused on empowering women and building an emotional connection with potential customers.
Their hashtag was featured in the corners of their adverts and have created a huge conversation across different social media platforms.
Dove #SpeakBeautiful
Dove is well-known for creating impactful campaigns that improve body confidence in women. In 2015, they launched their #SpeakBeautiful campaign after finding out that 4 out of 5 negative beauty related tweets were about the person themselves. They wanted women to complement and empower each other, by speaking beautifully to one another.
The campaign began with a high profile advert during the Oscars. After this, the campaign went full blown with people using the hashtag. During the campaign, it was used more than 168,000 times and produced over 800million impressions across all social media channels involved.
Estee Lauder – The Beauty Of The Night
Estee Lauder already had a strong community of people who use their Night Repair range, so they wanted to build this campaign for existing fans, as well as introducing new customers to the range.
The ‘Beauty Of The Night’ campaign was all about getting people sharing their evening rituals with other woman across the world. If they made a connection with someone else, then they would either receive a special offer on the product range, or if they were new to the range, they would receive a sample of some of the key products.
This campaign created a poll to find out what most women did in their evening rituals, and these ended up being featured in top beauty, fashion and lifestyle magazines.