Looking Fly With A Winged Eye
Award Category
Clothing/Cosmetics & Retail
Agency
Carat
Client
L'Oreal Paris
Objectives
For L’Oréal Paris (LOP) to take complete ownership of the ‘winged eye’ look in the Australian market. If it could own the look, it could also own the associated sales opportunity, with the launch of two new products, False Lash Butterfly Wings mascara and Superliner Blackbuster eyeliner. The challenge was to break the buying habit of style-savvy women aged 18-39 from buying only on promotion.
Campaign
Research identified that the target audience was intimidated by the prospect of experimenting with the winged eye, and took make-up cues more from entertainment, lifestyle and fashion rather than beauty. Carat chose to establish influence in these areas. At the core of the campaign, was a ‘how-to’ video featuring Megan Gale. ‘Click to buy’ annotations were run during the tutorial that clicked through to Priceline. This was seeded through beauty blogs, social and YouTube, with focus on mobile and its use in the bathroom when getting ready. Shazam was used on product TVCs, Viewa on magazine ad content and banners on Catch Up TV. Magazine publishers were engaged as launch partners in the lead up to Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival. The winged eye was launched as the official look of the festival and a make-up tutorial was filmed backstage using Google Glass. Women were invited to hashtag a photo of themselves with the look to win product packs.
Results
In the first week of media activity, LOP Butterfly Wings was the #1 mascara (Priceline), smashing the one-month benchmark. The mascara and liner were the #1 make-up product in Priceline during the period, doubling Carat’s ambitious sales targets, making Blackbuster Eyeliner the #1 liner launch on record. The video was viewed 602,807 times and was among the Top 10 Most Watched videos on YouTube in 2014 (w/c 28 April). By engaging media early, Carat was able to garner editorial support to the value of over $300,000.
Judges Comments
In a tough market, the agency demonstrated a brave approach to own a category trend. The results were beyond client and industry expectations; importantly this approach has also set them up for long terms success.
