CoverGirl Lash Blast

Launching CoverGirl Lash Blast to unseat the market leader

Challenge

• How do you achieve icon status for new mass market mascara – CoverGirl Lash Blast – when Maybelline Great Lash is category front runner?

Insight

• Orange is beautiful: visual differentiation inspires communication platform

Strategies

• Multi-faceted, multi-tiered program ensures influencer endorsement, excitement Prelaunch:
  • Created role for spokesperson, Drew Barrymore, as Co-Creative Director, for her first CoverGirl ad
  • Beauty editor buzz: “Drew Barrymore’s favorite things”
  • Make-up artist seeding yields Selma Blair, Amy Adams, Jennifer Connolly endorsements

Launch

• Design-focused long-lead beauty editor event with Thom Felicia played off highly visual, camera-loving product design
• Scientific desksides explained “how it works;” when editors put it to test, they agreed, then told other influencers
• Blogger Webinar and outreach “trickled up” to mainstream media attention

Success

• Most successful product launch in brand’s history
• Three months post-launch, CoverGirl Lash Blast surpassed Maybelline’s Great Lash sales (selling more than 7 million units to date)
  • Oprah segment increased sales by 40% in less than two weeks
• Netted over half a billion media impressions, more than doubling goal (525MM v. 225MM goal)
  • Coverage highlights:The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today Show, Everyday with Rachael Ray, O The Oprah Magazine, Lucky, Good Housekeeping, WWD (cover story)Beauty editor buzz: “Drew Barrymore’s favorite things”
  • Make-up artist seeding yields Selma Blair, Amy Adams, Jennifer Connolly endorsements