Color e.l.f.nalysis was born from a clear cultural gap: while color analysis had become one of beauty’s most talked-about trends, access to it remained expensive, complicated, and largely offline. Beauty fans wanted simple, credible guidance to help them make confident makeup choices. At the same time, Pinterest users were already deeply engaged with seasonal color content—searches for “color season analysis” had surged more than 22% year over year—yet no accessible, brand-led solution existed to meet that demand.
The brief was straightforward but ambitious: remove gatekeeping and make pro-level color analysis available to everyone, at scale.
The primary goal was to create a breakout moment on Pinterest by launching an intuitive, AI-powered microsite that identified a user’s color “season” from a single photo, then seamlessly connected them to curated Pinterest boards featuring shoppable e.l.f. looks and products tailored to their tones. Success meant driving meaningful engagement on Pinterest while helping users move effortlessly from personal insight to platform-native discovery, saving, and shopping.
A secondary goal was to position e.l.f. as the brand actively democratizing a culturally relevant beauty trend—transforming an exclusive service into an accessible, inclusive tool. This required ensuring the experience felt native to the platforms audiences already used and that the innovation was clearly communicated through earned media.
Finally, the campaign needed to extend beyond a single channel. The launch was designed with 360 support across Pinterest, social, influencer, paid, experiential, and PR, ensuring the tool landed as a cultural moment rooted in accessibility, personalization, and play.
Planning for Color e.l.f.nalysis focused on building a culturally relevant, partner-aligned foundation before launch. We began by pressure-testing the trend: social listening confirmed that color season analysis was rapidly gaining traction across beauty communities. Pinterest data reinforced the opportunity, with hundreds of millions of users already using color to search, save, and shop, and searches for “color season analysis” up more than 22x year over year. That intersection informed the decision to anchor the experience in an owned e.l.f. microsite, then route users into Pinterest, where color-based discovery already felt natural.
Next, Movement Strategy aligned with e.l.f.’s social and PR teams and Pinterest brand partners around a shared brief defining objectives, audience journey, and success metrics. Movement led pre-launch strategy, shaping the insight-to-Pinterest flow, defining the narrative around democratizing access, and mapping a 360 launch plan designed to scale across channels without losing clarity. Pinterest collaborated early on board taxonomy and seasonal content structure to ensure recommendations felt intuitive and platform-native. Box supported early product planning by stress-testing AI feasibility and refining the microsite UX to keep the experience simple: one photo, one result, one next step.
Key challenges were anticipated early, including credibility across diverse skin tones, minimizing tech friction, and building trust around privacy. These were addressed through iterative prototyping, diverse validation, and a clear decision to keep processing client-side with no stored user data.
Color e.l.f.nalysis was built to democratize personalized beauty insight that had been trending for years but remained inaccessible to most consumers. Traditional color analysis often requires expensive consultants or complex DIY methods, yet fans were hungry for clear, simple guidance they could actually use. In partnership with e.l.f.’s social and PR teams, Pinterest brand partners, and Box, Movement Strategy brought that insight to life through an intuitive, free experience.
We launched a standalone, AI-powered e.l.f. microsite that identified a user’s color “season” from a single photo, then seamlessly connected them to curated Pinterest boards featuring shoppable e.l.f. products matched to their tones. A Pinterest extension supported the flow, making it easy to move from personal results to platform-native discovery, saving, and shopping.
The tool debuted June 16 with 360 support across Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, X, paid, digital, influencer, experiential, and a Cannes integration. Social content leaned into formats audiences already loved—creator demos, season reveals, and commentary videos—so the experience felt native and built for sharing. An email banner at launch drove early traffic and curiosity to the microsite.
The execution delivered measurable impact, generating 553M earned PR impressions, a 204% lift in organic Pinterest impressions, and 217K engagements, outperforming Pinterest’s beauty benchmark by 91%. Across every touchpoint, execution stayed anchored to a single promise: giving beauty fans instant access to guidance that had never been truly accessible before.
Color e.l.f.nalysis exceeded objectives across every channel, proving that platform-native personalization drives real scale and action. On Pinterest, the experience delivered 37.5M total impressions, including 4.58M organic impressions and a +204% organic lift vs. BAU. Users didn’t just browse—they participated: 217K total engagements, beating benchmarks by +91%, and seasonal boards added another 319K impressions. The launch also shifted broader behavior, driving a 15% spike in “color analysis” searches post-launch. From a visibility standpoint, e.l.f. earned #2 Share of Voice in June within makeup, owning 26% of all paid + earned Pinterest impressions—a clear sign the experience was rewarded by both users and the algorithm.
Digital support amplified depth. A launch email banner drove 2,165 clicks (7.21% CTR), funneling users to the microsite, which has attracted 27.2K visitors and 117K page views since launch. This omnichannel bridge ensured audiences moved smoothly from curiosity to product consideration, extending time spent with both the tool and e.l.f. 's recommendations.
PR delivered standout awareness and message pull-through. The campaign generated 553M+ earned media impressions. 96% of coverage linked directly to the tool, 89% highlighted the “democratizing access” narrative, and 89% were dedicated e.l.f. feature stories—evidence that both innovation and messaging landed. Conversation quality stayed high with 99% positive sentiment, with users praising accuracy and editors organically sharing via IG Stories (PopSugar, Real Simple, The Cut, Glamour).
Together, these results show we didn’t just ride a trend—we helped lead it, innovating on Pinterest and reshaping how Gen Z discovers beauty.
