The Campaign

With over half of Thai female online users following beauty influencers and bloggers, our research illustrates that they have a real appetite for new beauty fads and trends and often explore how-to and getting the looks, especially on social media. Our research also shows that Thai women can’t live without cosmetics and, on average, go through a morning make-up ritual consisting of 8 beauty regimes before they leave their front doors. Seeing this as an opportunity, we knew that The Face would be the perfect platform to present Maybelline. With the growing trend for reality TV and competition shows such as The Voice and Thailand’s Got Talent capitalizing on emotions and lifestyles, we knew that we needed to place Maybelline on this map and The Face would embody all the attributes and allow us to take advantage of engaging with Thai women.

Creative Execution

The Face sponsorship recapitulated Maybelline brand and rapidly resonated with our consumers by having the contestants as the key players in delivering the key brand message. In each episode, each contestant along with Maybelline’s presenter and their model mentors were assigned a featured product to enhance their own personal style conversing on the products, benefits, how to and make-up styles all unscripted. With intense competition and the spontaneously unscripted story, Maybelline gained popularity and social momentum, which converged to a demand for the products on the show and encouraged women to take inspiration in-store and engage with branded content online. With prime sponsorship as well as product placement in the show along with the amplification on social media, Maybelline quickly became the “must have” brand amongst those enthusiasts within just 13 weeks!

We “make it happen” for Maybelline integrated with The Face. We smashed all the records in Maybelline’s history in just over 13 weeks with one single ordinary TV sponsorship package alongside of the amplification on the earned media. Maybelline reached the highest score of “brand for me”, 58% (MTrack, 2015) in only half way of the show after having been stagnant over the past 2 years. Social engagement acquired the number 1 share of online buzz #makeithappen across several social media platforms generated by our consumers, particularly through the popular consumers’ parody movies. The Face rapidly resonated with Thai women, reflected in the highest reality TV programme rating of 9.9 and the highest first-3-day YouTube viewers, 4.7 million, and 83% (MTrack, 2015) wanted to purchase Maybelline products after watching The Face. The stagnant sales over the past decade were raised up to the highest sales ever!

It’s a groundbreaking showcase! Our ordinary TV sponsorship approach generated a powerful platform that granted Maybelline to thrive on air and online smashing all the records in Maybelline’s history in just 13 weeks! The campaign, a media first, combining reality TV show and clever product placement allowed Maybelline to emotively connect and inspire brand discovery amongst Thai women, which drove a phenomenal social presence. This empowered Maybelline to reach the highest score of “brand for me”, the no.1 share of online buzz, the highest TV rating points and the highest sales volume for the first time in Maybelline’s history!

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Having distilled our consumer insights and the show format, we unfolded Maybelline by showcasing products, tips and how-to that encourages product discovery throughout the show which becomes the main engine for the trend and growth, whilst letting the amplification of earned media transpire into the social buzz amongst its core audience, the fashion and make-up enthusiasts aged 15-34, which in turn created a ‘must have’ demand for featured products on the show. The Face allowed us to present Maybelline on a media first reality TV show where the unscripted story of make-up, contestants, mentors and competition were the key ingredients to encourage women to make everything happen in their own style. This opened up an opportunity for us to reinvent the brand and engage with those fashion and make-up enthusiasts.