The cosmetics brand drove numerous core brand metrics through a campaign that used a playful tone to engage with consumers, and featured almost 200 different assets.

Kory Marchisotto, chief marketing officer at e.l.f. – an acronym that captures the brand’s focus on a consumer’s eyes, lips, and face – discussed this subject during a session at Advertising Week New York 2019.

“What we decided to do is give consumers back the power of what they love about our brand, and bring it to life in a fresh, modern, relevant, distinctive, and ownable way,” she said. (For more, read WARC's in-depth report: How beauty brand e.l.f. tripled its growth rate through a refreshed marketing strategy.)

The brand’s fresh approach, she reported, drew on a series of “e.l.f.-isms” – messages that used its name in humorous, playful ways, and provided a “guiding voice and a friendly tone” that could attract both existing and prospective customers

One example was a “manifesto” video based around the “e.l.f.ing amazing” knowledge it offers low prices, high quality, and strong ethical credentials. An “e.l.f. discovery” ad, by contrast, showed that its products can help men and women become who they want to be.

Influencers had a central role in spreading the word, including Ryan Potter, a beauty vlogger with 73,000 fans on YouTube and 370,000 followers on Instagram.

Potter was a long-term e.l.f. fan who represented a fresh, modern face for the enterprise. And, according to its CMO, a video featuring Potter was among the campaign’s “top-performing assets.”

“But a kick-ass suite of creative is only as good as its execution,” cautioned Marchisotto. “We sought the trifecta of right content, right place, right time.”

As a reflection of this idea, e.l.f. crafted nearly 200 variations of its marketing assets, enabling it to achieve true personalisation at meaningful scale.

With those elements locked in place, “we laid the foundation first with the must-have platforms,” as well as tapping digital platforms like social site Reddit, video app TikTok, and female-focused media site Bustle.

The campaign ultimately boosted several important brand metrics, leading Marchisotto to provide the following guidelines to her fellow marketers.

“Unleash that kick-ass creative; tailor it to unique audiences; deliver it through a media plan that is structured around personalising to those audiences with daily optimisations to drive performance,” she said. “The results will speak for themselves.”

Sourced from WARC