Fans Stories Become the Campaign
Ariana Grande Fragrances | 2022-2023
Ariana Grande, besides being an artist, is also an accomplished perfumer with a loyal following
Having launched several fragrances with cult followings, Ariana’s perfume line continues to expand with her oeuvre of music. And when her team tapped my team with to launch a new one, she had just released her album Sweetness during a difficult time for the world: COVID.
so our challenge in driving consumer interest for herself and her partners was complicated…
Of all celebrity perfume lines, Ariana’s is unarguably one of the most successful. Perfume consumers rave about her scents, from YouTube to Reddit. And as a rising star, anything with her name on it was sure to see success.
because… Ariana doesn’t need help selling perfume.
For her loyal fans, her products bring them closer to her. Whether it’s cosmetics or fragrances, each line are inspired by the place she’s in as an artist. To connect the product to her fan base on social, I had to understand the nature of Ariana’s connection to her fans.
Ariana's fans don't just follow her—they evolve with her,
Social listening proved this out. Each era brings new music, new looks, new growth and new fan generated stories about her, whether it be about the meaning behind her lyrics or the guys she’s dating.
and at the same time, social media was evolving too.
When TikTok first rose in popularity in the U.S., marketers began marking a shift from passive consumption on legacy platforms to active content creation. TikTok was an innovator in the space, giving users new tools and tech to create their own content with each update.
To break through, our campaign approach had to evolve alongside Ariana herself.
I consulted a creative technologist to assess what’s possible. At the time, TikTok was testing a new ad placement: branded effects.
Powered by AR, they were tools brands could give users to create with. The trick was, they had to be creative enough to spur use… and they were costly.
We turned our business challenge into a challenge for Ariana’s fans,
The hashtag challenge wasn’t a new concept but the format we chose was. With a team of designers, AR designers, and creatives, we ideated on AR lenses with the goal of enabling fan stories that lived in the world of Ariana’s artist eras.
to tell their own stories of evolution, inspired by Ariana’s.
How hashtag challenges translated Ariana’s source inspiration behind her fragrances into storytelling prompts for TikTokers. Be it about life transitions or embracing the dual nature within us all, we combined tech with storytelling to create conversation around a product that was worth so much more than the product itself.
To launch our challenges, tapped in storytellers with good stories to tell.
My team casted TikTok creators representing different facets of Ariana's diverse fanbase and I coached them on interpreting our brief into their own, singular contributions to the campaign.
What resulted from this approach were two TikTok campaigns, and two magical moments in TikTok history, where fans became the campaigns themselves, and had fun while doing so.
My first challenge for Ariana Grande was #REMDreamCheck.
2020 had been a year unlike any other. Regardless of who were, 2020 didn’t go quite as planned. From cancelled weddings and concerts to jobs being lost, we’d all experienced a change in what we thought the year would bring.
But in 2021, Ariana came to help show us the light at the end of the tunnel with her humor and positivity.
From dropping new hits to helping us get through the end of 2020 with her music and R.E.M. fragrance, it was time to say goodbye to 2020’s woes and hello to 2021’s plans, with a fresh new scent.
#REMDreamCheck
Just like magic, just like, put my finger to my thumb and then I snap it. Ariana’s Just Like Magic, her chosen song for the challenge, is about blurring the line between dreams and reality. And that’s exactly what #REMDreamCheck is about: believing, and showing, that dreams can come true, whatever that looks like for you.
Stories about achieving success
Stories about post-COVID joy
Stories about getting rich
Stories about the dream of love
Stories about living authentically
Did you have to hit snooze on your dreams this year? This is a dream check to get you back on track with the help of Ariana Grande’s R.E.M. — the fragrance that empowers you to fulfill your boldest dreams — available exclusively at ULTA BEAUTY. A spritz of R.E.M. is just like magic and what you need to bring those dreams back, so show us your biggest, baddest dreams and keep chasing them!
Stories about glowing up
The results were staggering.
3.3 Billion Video Views, a 158% increase from her previous fragrance launch.
Our six hero videos generated a total of 4.3M video views.
235M Impressions, outperforming TikTok benchmarks.
599K fans used our branded effect.
Yes, 559K.
This campaign goes to show that, when you co-create with your audience, brand marketing will see success, just like magic.
When Ariana’s team came back for help launching another new fragrance, I was honored.
Once again looking for the “next big thing,” my team was tasked with crafting campaign that would introduce a new product and engage Ariana’s fans in a new , tapping into the ethos of Ariana Grande’s newest fragrance: MOD.
But this time was different. Perhaps #REMDreamCheck was TOO successful?
While Ariana Grande has a large & loyal fan base, she had already released 7 fragrances by the time we were promoting MOD, Ariana’s newest fragrance. We had to do something radically different to break though, again.
And the TikTok platform seemed to have deprioritized its biggest ad placements.
Though we previously saw success with TikTok Hashtag Challenge fragrance launches, but TikTok had since deprioritized them. So once again, we had to find a new media approach to make a splash.
But our dedication to fan-focused marketing stayed the same.
Once again looking for the “next big thing,” I consulted creative technologists and media professionals on new ways to give fans tools to create with. So we thought bigger.
We challenged ourselves to go bigger and bring fans even more into our campaign.
A TikTok Branded Effect was still a great tool but we looked for other channels to pair it with. We thought, maybe the ads we already planning on running could become surfaces to amplify and reward the fandom.
What if we, literally, put the fans into our camapign?
The idea: pair a TikTok Branded Effect with Digital Out of Home placements to break through the noise & broaden our reach.
Our creative would encourage Ariana’s followers to participate in a challenge using an effect to put their own spin on the fragrance’s iconic branding with the opportunity for select fans to be featured on Out of Home placements later on in the campaign.
Once again, we took inspiration from the MOD fragrance itself.
Inspired by the 1960s, the fragrance was about individual expression and embracing duality. Knowing that the younger TikTok fanbase share in that same spirit, adding their own spin to everything, we knew that, if we give them the tools of creation, they would once again deliver.
We kept it the challenge simple and used a play on words galvanize the fanbase
We hacked the MOD fragrance key marketing assets and turned them into a Branded Effect that puts users directly into the ad.
and the #ModThisAd campaign was born.
A #ModThisAd branded effect will take a series of 4 pictures of users to recreate their own version of Ari’s MOD ad — branding and all.
Two pictures will be grayscale with a white background, and two pictures will be full color with a pink background.
Once again, we took inspiration from the MOD fragrance itself.
Leveraging three TikTok influencers known for their self-expression on the platform & unique connections to Ariana’s brand and fanbase to spread awareness and galvanize participation in engaged audiences.
Converting UGC submissions from the challenge into bottom funnel ads to drive sales at Ulta Beauty.
We kept it the challenge simple and used a play on words galvanize the fanbase
We hacked the MOD fragrance key marketing assets and turned them into a Branded Effect that puts users directly into the ad.
and the #ModThisAd campaign was born.
A #ModThisAd branded effect will take a series of 4 pictures of users to recreate their own version of Ari’s MOD ad — branding and all.
Two pictures will be grayscale with a white background, and two pictures will be full color with a pink background.
#ModThisAd
“Here's your chance to express yourself and be on an Ariana Grande Fragrance digital billboard! Mod Ariana’s iconic ad using the ModThisAd branded effect. Include #ModThisAd and #ArianaGrande in your post and set your profile to public. If chosen, someone from the campaign will reach out!
Bonus points if you show the Mod fragrances in your video!”
I Selected influencers representing different facets of Ariana's diverse fanbase. Created AR experiences as storytelling devices. Amplified fan content back into paid media. Gave creative control to the community, keeping only quality control for ourselves.
What It Meant
Hearts touched: Brought Ariana closer to fans by making them co-creators
Reach achieved: 6.5B video views, 235M impressions, 21.89% engagement rate
Connection deepend: 600+ unique fan videos created, each a personal story