Maybelline’s Viral Giant Fake Eyelashes: 3+ Dynamic Marketing Strategies That Will Make You Say Wow!

Category: Cosmetics

Medium: Social Media

Brand: Maybelline Cosmetics

Marketing Type: Content Marketing 

Target Audience: 16-24 years old Women

A Marketing Maverick By Maybelline

Maybelline Cosmetics is a Globally recognised cosmetics brand. It has a variety of products and uses a bunch of different marketing strategies. Maybelline is a beauty trend-setter. They have empowered beauty enthusiasts all over the world.

This includes a marketing campaign run for the product: Maybelline Sensational Sky High Mascara. This campaign did an out-of-the-box stunt which went viral. 

This virality of a marketing campaign is why you’re here reading this case study and I’m here writing this case study. I hope you find it insightful. 

Getting To Know Maybelline

Maybelline Cosmetics is primarily a B2C Marketing Beauty Brand. They are famous, huge and loved widely for their products. They offer an inspirational and huge range of products and have empowered beauty enthusiasts all over the world. Maybelline uses a variety of distribution modes for its marketing campaign. 

Maybelline belongs to the Beauty Industry which has more famous Fashion Giants. This increases competition between brands and pushes brands to think out-of-the-box marketing ideas for their products. This is why Maybelline used CGI to fuel already-high opinions of the new product.

The target audience for this campaign was Young Women. Between the age of 16-24 years old, active on social media.

Marketing Campaign Overview

The marketing campaign for Maybelline’s Lash Sensational Mascara is called “Maybeline Dolls”. This campaign was launched in March 2023. 

The campaign was titled “Maybeline Dolls” due to the long, thick, and voluminous nature of the product (Lash Sensational Mascara). Additionally, this product offered women the opportunity to achieve a doll-like appearance. Another contributing factor was the appeal to Gen Z and Millennials. Because they are typically drawn to fresh & innovative concepts and names

In the Grand scheme, the choice of this name for the campaign was a success. As it was both memorable and resonated with its target audience
Lauren Chapman, Maybelline UK’s Marketing senior product brand manager explains how one day she saw a CGI video made by Ian Padgham. This CGI video of Ian, inspired her so much so, that she used it for their campaign.

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Strategy Insights

Maybelline used a few types of marketing techniques to promote its Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara. The types are as follows

1. Content Marketing
2. Guerilla Marketing
3. Influencer Marketing
4. Social Media Marketing
5. Public Relations Marketing

1. Content Marketing:

Maybelline used this type of approach to create content. Content to educate, engage, and raise awareness about their product. That would generate traffic and make their audience aware of the product.

Example: creating blog posts about their product. Reviews, how-to, and step-by-step posts. Creating awareness, and generating traffic for their official website.

2. Guerilla Marketing

Maybelline created fake but hyper-real CGI videos. These Computer Generated Imagery videos were about their product Maybelline Sensational Mascara.

Example: This technique included creating a CGI video. Featuring 15 London buses and 10 tube trains wearing Giant Fake eyelashes. As well as installing fake & huge mascaras at a few locations.

3. Influencer Marketing

This approach aimed to collaborate with brand influencers and social media celebs in the beauty industry. Maybelline used these influencers and celebs to raise awareness for their product. Along with educating people on their “Maybeline Dolls” Campaign.

Example: many influencers posted tutorial content around Maybelline’s new Mascara product. Showing their audience how to use it and sharing their honest feedback. 

4. Social Media Marketing

This was one of the major mediums Maybelline used to promote their product in this campaign. Maybelline hired Ian Padgham to create a CGI Video for their Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara. 

Example: A CGI video was created that surfaced on social media networks. Where London buses and trains were transformed with giant fake eyelashes. This created a whimsical sight.

CGI Fake Eyelash video Iam Padgham made for Maybelline Lash Sensational. (Unused Version)

5. Public Relations Marketing

Maybelline’s strategy included public relations efforts to gain media coverage and recognition

Example: They achieved this with the help of outlets The Guardian, The New York Times, and Vogue. All these media outlets reported on the success of their “Maybline Dolls” campaign. This increased brand visibility and credibility.

Product Showcase: Maybelline Sensational Sky High Mascara

Key Features

Key features of the Maybelline Sensational Sky High Mascara are:

Increasing volume, lengthening, flex tower brush, waterproof, long-lasting, ophthalmologist-approved, easy-to-use and most importantly affordable.

Campaign Core Objectives

• Create a Buzz with an innovative marketing campaign
• Increase Brand Awareness in the Beauty Capital
• Promote Lash Sensational Sky High Mascara
• Steer Traffic to Maybelline’s other socials
• Drive Increased Traffic to their website
• To Boost Sales for the brand

The campaign successfully met all its goals and increased the hype for the product. Also got featured by all the major outlets and went viral on social media.

Distribution Channels

This campaign opted out for a variety of distribution channels. A few of them belonged in the digital work and a few in the non-digital (traditional) channels.

1. Hosted live events
2. Used Media outlets
3. Shared videos across different platforms
4. Decorated the buses and trains in London
5. Published Blogs and Articles on their official site

a. Posted on social media posts & did influencer collabs

Partnering up with social media influencers in the beauty industry. These influencers created content around the product: lash sensation sky-high mascara. This way Maybelline promoted their product to the influencer’s audience. Using collaborative content, Maybelline steered this audience towards their other social media sites.  

b. Created Content around the Product

Maybelline also published blogs and articles about its product to drive traffic toward its official site. Which helped skyrocket their ROI.

c. Guerrilla marketing

Using guerrilla marketing (innovative technique), creating a CGI video of the product. Giant Fake eyelashes on the bus and train on London and New York streets swept people off their feet. With this ingenious technique, they soon went viral and set a trend for more such brands.

d. Used Print Media

Maybelline used print media, such as big news outlets to market its brand. Maybelline used print media by printing huge banners and posters around their brand.

The Psychology Behind the Campaign

This campaign used a variety of techniques to get their target audience to choose their product. Psychological principles such as these were used throughout the campaign:

• Surprise
• Zeigarnik effect
• Scarcity heuristic
• Bandwagon effect
• Fear of missing out

☆ Surprise: Something Unexpected

Seeing Surreal Products on the street

This psychological trick played a major role in this strategy. People were genuinely surprised to see something so huge and unreal on the streets.

☆ Zeigarnik effect: A Cliffhanger

Using giant fake eyelashes and mascara tubes on a bus

This principle is all about how people tend to remember things that take them by shock and in a way tell them only half the story. Here the huge mascara on buses and trains made people wonder about the product and left them all curious. This created excitement and a sense of anticipation among the population.

☆ Scarcity heuristic: Less is More

A limited number of trains & busses

This phenomenon was used when the video only showcased several such CGI mascara buses. It made people stop dead in their tracks, thinking they might never see something like this anywhere ever again.

☆ Bandwagon effect: Jumping on the Hype Train

Something worth sharing

Seeing the fake CGI video people thought that such buses and trains were roaming all around New York and London. They wanted to post about it before they vanished off the streets. They couldn’t resist the urge to share it and be a part of all the hype.

☆ Fear of missing out: Don’t miss the Party

Short-duration campaign

This trick was used to give people a clear message: share these videos or risk being left out of sharing the buzz on a trending topic. Basically Carpe Diem it. 

Campaign Achievements

• The campaign increased web traffic by 50%.
• The campaign boosted sales by 20% in the first month
• The campaign generated 1 billion social M impressions

The Drum:

The Drum posted that Maybelline’s CGI campaign drove 50% more people to Maybelline’s website. More than would have visited otherwise. This suggests that the campaign was effective and was generating people’s interest in the product.

Marketing Week:

Marketing Week, another online media brand Reported that the campaign boosted Maybelline Sensational Sky High Mascara by a whopping 20% in the first month. This suggests that the campaign was highly effective in driving up sales for the brand. 

Adweek:

Adweek is a leading news site. They published an article that suggested Maybelline’s campaign generated 1 billion social media impressions. Which is no joke. This proves that Maybelline created a campaign that created a huge enough buzz for their product

Wrap-Up

The Evening Standard reported something a Twitter user said: “I’d buy so fast LMFAO this is Good Marketing”. Another highly supportive comment for this Unconventional Approach was that “They graduated from the Barbie Marketing University with HONORS”. These comments about the marketing campaign prove to us that this campaign was a huge success. It had blazing ROI stats and set a trend for more marketing campaigns to come.

FAQ Section

Q. Is the Maybelline Mascara Bus Real?

Answer: No, Maybelline Mascara Bus was never real. It is part of a CGI Marketing Campaign, where Maybelline created a Fake, CGI-generated video for their campaign.

Q. What are the Eyelashes on the London Tube?

Answer: The Eyelashes on the London Tube were CGI. It was a CGI, fake video. Those eyelashes on the London Tube were merely a shot from the original video. 

Q. Is the Mascara Train Real?

Answer: No, The mascara train was never real. It was a Gureilla Marketing technique that Maybelline opted for one of its products. It was a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) video that went viral. It confused people all around the Globe.