Launching our new Full Exposure Palette in a crowded marketplace dominated by powerful competitors was no small challenge. We knew we had to transform the consumer connection with this product to break through, so we started by building the campaign on a unique message that was of service to her: Eye shape matters when it comes to applying shadow (just like body shape matters when it comes to choosing clothes).
We wanted to put our consumers in the spotlight in order for her to feel vested in the Full Exposure Palette, and what better way to get her in the conversation than with a hashtag? We encouraged her to tag selfies with #SHAPEMATTERS, and the hashtag blew up throughout social. The consumer also had a "home base" microsite to check out all content related to #SHAPEMATTERS, including a gallery of user-generated images that automatically pulled in photos tagged with the hashtag onto the home page, making her the star of the show.
The results were enviable: The Full Exposure Palette became the biggest launch in brand history. There were 176,000 #SHAPEMATTERS mentions. 800,000 microsite page views. 8,000 hours spent on the microsite. Nearly 1,000,000 views for the video series. #SHAPEMATTERS even trended on Twitter, totally organically, without any Twitter advertising.
But perhaps most impressive is the fact that #SHAPEMATTERS resonated so loudly that it inspired a brand-new product that's expected to take our business to the next level -- look for the #SHAPEMATTERS PALETTE, launching soon at a store near you!
How often does a digital/social campaign actually inspire product development? Not often! Usually it's the other way around, with a product inspiring a campaign. But in this instance, the effectiveness of our #SHAPEMATTERS campaign actually resulted in the development of our upcoming #SHAPEMATTERS PALETTE, which is anticipated to be a mega seller because of its unique shaping positioning.
Plus, we changed the conversation about eye makeup with this campaign, as the results highlighted in the above description show. Prior to this, no beauty brand was talking about eye shape as it relates to eye shadow application. We were able to distill this message into a concise, catchy hashtag -- and that hashtag (very loudly!) amplified the shape story throughout digital/social.
Not to mention our consumers just had fun with the hashtag and accompanying microsite. It let them join the conversation. It let them be the star of the campaign. It let them see fellow #SHAPEMATTERS users around the world (the microsite included a world map featuring tagged selfies from dozens of countries). It let them emotionally connect with the Full Exposure Palette in a custom, personalized way.
