BEAUTY
Case Study
Clé de Peau
@marthastewart
How to make your TikTok debut iconic
01
THE CHALLENGE
Clé de Peau Beauté pushes the boundaries of skin cell science to craft the most innovative, effective, and luxurious skincare and makeup products in the world and has a committed, loyal following.
The mission was to expand our devout following and introduce our radiance-maximizing products to an entirely new generation, meeting them where they go for beauty tips and inspiration: TikTok and Instagram.
But the hard question is, how do you get a millennial to stop scrolling and buy a $75 Concealer merely from a social post?
02
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
We needed people’s trust, we needed gravitas. We needed TikTok vids that looked native but performed like ads. That required a true icon, unafraid to turn heads. In other words, Martha Stewart.
Luckily, her impeccable taste extends to being a long-time fan of Clé de Peau. And her notorious high standards, engaging personality, edgy, tongue-in-cheek-don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously humor, made her the perfect partner for the brand’s TikTok debut.
As Gen-Z focus groups would later confirm our script and choice of Martha didn’t come off as trying to be a ‘cool mom’, but rather allowed her to remain her beloved, badass aunty, self
03
CREATIVE APPROACH
Martha had already set the tone the previous Summer with her ‘thirst trap’ selfie, so we incorporated the social trends of how-to beauty tutorials, lifestyle guides, and the choreography & body language native to the platform. With Martha executing them, they were first humorous, then iconic, and lastly, influential.
We created five engaging videos. Not so trendy as to be forgotten in less than a week, but resonating with major moods of the moment in the beauty space.
Our stealthy approach camouflaged all the advertising best practices by using in-app features like the Jessie VO feature, adding Clé de Peau as the secret phrase to get the perfect thirst trap photo, using the brand name in the Cover Thumbnail, and creating a custom animated logo in the VFX background.
04
CREATOR EXECUTION
Our first video wowed the world with Martha’s claiming ownership of the “Thirst Trap” title and explained how she achieved it with her secret weapon: Clé de Peau.
Following videos featured different products and played on Martha’s newfound status as a classy, desirable TikTok influencer, able to hold her own and outshine any other beauty tutorialist.
The result was the surprise and delight of viewers with an appearance from the lifestyle queen herself, juxtaposing luxury beauty and a playful tone, while revealing her secrets.
Not only was our idea original first-of-its-kind content, but it also made the brand’s TikTok debut, an opportunity to introduce Clé de Peau Beauté to an entirely new audience.
05
SOLUTION (RESULTS)
The campaign was our best performing social and marketing campaign ever for the US market, proving successful on social media with the first video garnering over 5 million views in just 5 days.
In total, across all content, we exceeded 78 million views on TikTok and Instagram, beating brand lift beauty category benchmarks by 222% (Kantar).
Beyond social platforms we sparked 43 press articles, 3+ billion impressions and, in February 2022, Clé de Peau Beauté’s Concealer was their #1 selling product. We outpaced the total prestige makeup market in sales growth by +10ppts. And Martha’s personal handle also gained 200K new followers during the campaign’s run time. That’s a serious makeover.
78 M
Views
"Our best performing social and marketing campaign for the US market." — Top viewed landing page of all time on cledepeaubeaute.com
43
Press Articles
+10 ppts: Outpaced the total prestige makeup market in sales growth by +10ppts.
3+ B
Impressions
#1 Product across the entire business (Concealer)
