Beauty Brand essence Celebrates Diversity and Self-Love with Roblox Gaming Experience

Beauty brand essence is launching its first Roblox game 'Color dare by essence’ – a dream-like world where kindness is an essential tool to save the world. The cosnova-owned brand is releasing the game in June as part of the brand’s Pride campaign. With 'Color dare by essence’, the brand is taking its first step onto the Roblox platform and is pursuing long-term plans in order to draw attention to important, social issues in a playful way. The approach of combining the game and the real world by supporting a charity with a donation to stand up for the LGBTQIA+ community is unique. 

A colourful game in the spirit of pride and diversity 

'Color dare by essence', developed in collaboration with global digital agency DEPT®, focuses on the themes of identity and diversity and reflects the brand's mission to 'Make Beauty Fun'. Together with the main character 'Lash Princess' – inspired by the essence bestseller 'Lash Princess' Mascara – players create a colourful, diverse world using individualised avatars. But on the horizon waits a dark grey storm that embodies all that is bad in the world, such as bullying and violence. The Lash Princess stands by the users and explains the game's mission: 'Let's make the world colourful and peaceful again.' 

The game captures the spirit of the times: In a world full of crises, users can make a difference in the real world through the game. essence is planning numerous charity actions and wants to support exactly where help is needed. Together with the LGBTQIA+ agency 'Mixx', two charities are selected that really make a difference to the community. 

The charity mechanics of the game are that the players together make a world that keeps turning grey and colourful again. There will be four community days, on which the users will be given a time limit to defeat the grey in the world. If this goal is reached together, the players will win a donation for the selected charities. 

“The potential to connect with gen z and Alpha through gaming is massive. When developing the game with DEPT®, we first and foremost asked ourselves: What moves those generations?", says Constance Stein, senior manager digital marketing growth and trends, cosnova. After extensive research and knowledge sharing, DEPT® conducted user research with qualitative interviews of Roblox players. "As conclusion, diversity, kindness, and the freedom to be yourself whenever and in whatever setting were our main drivers. The game mechanics and tasks are designed to celebrate those values that are also elemental to the cosnova company. 'Color dare by essence' wants to promote the attitude that kindness is the strongest weapon – in the game as well as in real life." 

How it works: With kindness and colour against a grey world of discrimination 

At the beginning of the game, the players have numerous possibilities to individually design their personal avatars: from rainbow hair to pride-capes and unique essence clothes and make-up styles. Diversity and self-love are already brought into focus during avatar creation – because everyone is unique in this world. 

Users can paint houses and the environment with different colouring tools and make gray NPCs (non-player characters) happy with words or gestures. Also, they can help other users to fulfil tasks. Without anticipating too much: When all gray is defeated, there is a mega event happening for all players in the game. The lovingly designed highlights and activities make the game into a unique experience. Overall, the intensive storytelling with its clear focus on diversity is the main USP of the game. 

“What makes ‘Color dare by essence’ unique is that we not only created a highly-personalised world environment, but we also applied learnings from both research and game psychology. And to make the gaming experience even more immersive, we designed custom-tailored 3D assets, which are not based on the common Roblox design toolbox, that really make essence stand out as a make-up brand and level up the user experience.”, says Jennifer Henke, product design lead UX at DEPT®. 

Different from other games on the platform 'Color dare by essence' is characterized by its charity mechanics and the intention to increase awareness for diversity and self-love. Also, it is not aiming to monetise the platform, that’s why users can’t spend Robux, the currency of the platform. Instead, they can earn essence coins, which help them on their mission to colour the world. Built to illustrate a world led by kindness and safe for gamers of all ages. 

This is not the end of the story: “After this great start, further Roblox activations are planned. essence sees many opportunities in this area to also raise awareness of other social issues and to educate and sensitise players.”, emphasises Thorsten Mühl, chief digital marketing and experience office (CXO), cosnova.