Objective and Goals

L’Oréal created a brand new and unique haircare conditioner, L’Oréal Paris Elvive - Wonder Water. The product’s liquid formula looks like water, and provides an 8-second hair transformation.

The product had already been launched in the US and L’Oréal was looking to launch it in the UK in February 2021. As the product was a new category in the market (liquid conditioner) and unknown in the UK, the brand wanted to educate the audience on exactly what it is and how it works. 

The focus was to create a seismic impact within younger women, ultimately driving to brand advocacy. 

The campaign’s key objectives were to tease the launch of L’Oreal Elvive - Wonder Water, create awareness, excitement and curiosity about the product, and ultimately achieve sales uplift via e-commerce.

The ATL creative idea was already clearly positioned as the product that “works wonders in just 8 seconds”. But L’Oréal wanted to amplify it with influencer content. 

With a bespoke soundtrack and dance routine, we created the #WonderWaterWhip challenge, and engaged 12 UK influencers to create 30 pieces of content across TikTok and Instagram.

To measure the success of the campaign, we aimed at achieving 1 million impressions, 50K engagements, an engagement rate of at least 5%, and at least 2% brand or product mentions in the comments section. 

Little did we know that not only the UK but the whole world would whip their hair on social media with L'Oréal’s Wonder Water.

Planning

What better way to convey a product that works wonders in just 8 seconds than through content digestible in a few seconds, too? 

Our data and market research pointed to the boosted popularity of TikTok challenges, so that was the direction we decided to take. However, TikTok trends change fast and tapping into old trends it’s no use in TikTok. So, inspired by the ATL creative idea and recent trends, we put our creativity to work by thinking like true TikTokers, and created the #WonderWaterWhip challenge to showcase how fast Wonder Water transforms people’s hair. 

But why limit the campaign to TikTok only? With content posted across TikTok and Instagram, we could have an extra layer of awareness by reaching non-overlapping audiences, and could make use of Instagram’s swipe up links—an organic conversion feature that, at the time of the campaign, TikTok didn’t offer.

We managed and briefed x12 influencers, selected by the brand, to create authentic and fun content that resonated with their community. With reaches varying from 24K to 11M followers, we worked with small and big names within the UK beauty scene, and had to coordinate their busy schedules to go live in a short period of time.

The campaign was such a huge success that ensuring it ended smoothly became the main challenge. The #WonderWaterWhip challenge went viral on TikTok, and the buzz created around the product kept selling it out. So, the delays due to lack of stock had to be accommodated around influencers’ busy agendas; we had to constantly change e-tailers because the product was out of stock; and the campaign had to be paused until stocks were replaced.

However, the client’s, the influencers’ and our teams’ flexibility, professionalism and eagerness to keep pushing the campaign towards success assured a triumphant ending.

Execution

We’ve all seen that quintessential L’Oréal moment. Shiny glossy locks that glides past the camera, enticing the viewer.

Even if we won’t admit it, the majority of us have tried to recreate our own wonderful L’Oréal moment at home—after all, it’s every hair lover’s dream to show off their locks like the models in the commercials. But no matter what, we couldn’t seem to capture that exact same feel. 

Well, this campaign was about to change that. We wanted to give audiences the opportunity to show off their manes with a flawless flow-motion. 

We’ve studied L’Oréal social channels, and applied the best practices to the challenge (factors like when to introduce the product in the content and how to position it). 

So, we’ve created L’Oréal’s first ever TikTok Challenge, the #WonderWaterWhip.

The influencers started with showing their dull and lifeless hair to then turn their head around for a slow motion hair flip. The flip started with dull hair and ended with beautiful hair—all while holding a bottle of Wonder Water in their hand. With hair so silky and smooth they were whippin’ their locks with wonder, and everyone wanted to do the same.

When it comes to TikTok, failure might be random, but success always has some kind of logic. With this in mind, we built the challenge for sound as a key component to make it stand out. We created a banging 15-second track featuring distinct female singers who had enough creative freedom to freestyle their way into the final track. Additionally, by keeping the moves in the challenge simple but highly imitable, we could increase the chances of UGC.

In a one-week turnaround, we have also created x10 fit-for-format social video assets for L’Oréal’s Instagram and Facebook pages, amplifying the buzz even more.

Results

Create awareness, excitement and curiosity about the product - achieved

The campaign overperformed massively against our KPIs. The exposure of the campaign was incredible as it succeeded to garner 4.6M Impressions (+457% of KPIs), partly thanks to 38 extra pieces of content, representing 230% in earned media and 1.1M earned impressions, and partly because the content resonated really well with audiences. 

Additionally, with 261.3K likes, comments and shares, the influencers overperformed the engagement KPI by 423%, reaching an engagement rate of 8.2% (+3.2% of target). Out of the total comments, 8.6% were brand-related, more than quadrupling our 2% target, and the campaign sentiment was 99.2% positive.

The dynamic movement within the Challenge created a huge impact on TikTok, where there are over 1,140 UGC videos under the hashtag #WonderWaterWhip (including a lot of memes about it), resulting in 4.5B TikTok views for L’Oréal (and counting).

L’Oreal was dipping their toes on TikTok and taking their first steps towards building their profile. Their #WonderWaterWhip Challenge reposts were among the first videos on the brand’s TikTok account to reach millions of views, exposing their account to thousands of new followers. In fact, Business Insider took notice of L’Oréal’s rapid growth on TikTok, featuring #WonderWaterWhip as the brand’s biggest TikTok success.

Achieve sales uplift via e-commerce - achieved

The campaign had to be put on hold for a while until the product was back in stock, since the product kept selling out in the UK as a direct result of the campaign, reflecting the uplift in sales via e-commerce channels.