Hair-care brand Living Proof is going back to the ‘00s for its newest brand campaign featuring an icon of the era, Paris Hilton. In the ads, a 2002 Hilton is visited by her present-day self. “Hang on to your bootcut jeans, buy yourself a turntable and, when it comes along, embrace ‘The Simple Life.’ … Oh, wait. The most important thing, the key to everything: It’s Living Proof Dry Shampoo,” elder Paris says, tossing a bottle of the product through the time-space continuum.
“I’m passionate about the beauty industry and, over the years, have developed a great knowledge for products,” Hilton told Glossy. “I like to be particular about what I use and I work closely with my team to curate products that we believe in. The Y2K era was integral to my own brand and incorporating these elements into our narrative felt incredibly fitting.”
The playful ad marks a shift for Living Proof, which has typically relied on science-heavy marketing and is not often associated with playfulness. In 2005, it launched with Jennifer Aniston as its spokesperson. Last year, Living Proof ran a campaign with Lily Collins, star of “Emily in Paris.” “The main goal was to reach a wider audience and be unexpected,” said CMO Alexis Tedesco.
Living Proof’s commercial featuring Paris Hilton is part of a full-funnel campaign dubbed “Your Future Hair Will Thank You” that kicked off on February 7. It encompasses TV, Meta, YouTube and TikTok. The campaign will be live in media for six months, after which it will be replaced by a campaign that also includes TV commercials. In 2024, Living Proof will spend 200% more on advertising than it did in 2023, according to Tedesco.
“We’re at this point where we want to reach a new demographic of consumer in an unexpected way. Telling the same story, the way we’ve always told it, is not disruptive enough. And we were looking for a personality that would help us tell that story,” Tedesco said, speaking about enlisting Hilton. In addition to being “brilliant in her own right,” Hilton “reaches so many different audiences,” she said. Hilton has 26.3 million followers on Instagram and 9.7 million on TikTok. Tedesco noted that, while millennials grew up with Hilton as a style icon, younger generations seem to see her as “the queen of [nostalgia],” and they’re “emulating” what she’s done.
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“The [Living Proof] team crafted a campaign concept that was representative of who I am and, collaboratively, we incorporated creative elements that aligned with my vision,” Hilton said. “I really believe that the campaign captures the essence of the Y2K era, and we hope the audience finds it just as iconic with the nostalgic references.”
The campaign, which is meant to drive brand awareness, focuses on Living Proof’s Perfect Hair Day Advanced Clean Dry Shampoo — according to the brand, it sells a bottle of the $30 product every six seconds. Glossy can also exclusively report that Living Proof was among TikTok Shop’s top-10-selling global beauty brands in January. That was thanks, in part, to a Dry Shampoo Bundle the brand sold on the platform. “Dry shampoo is probably the SKU we’re most recognized for,” Tedesco said, noting that most of the brand’s products aim to solve a specific problem.
On Wednesday, in tandem with the ad going live, Hilton posted the commercial. Toward the end of February, several influencers within Hilton’s “ecosystem” will create content around the ad, “either stitching it or reposting it or recreating it themselves,” Tedesco said. In addition, a corresponding mailer will be sent to press, influencers and celebs in Paris’s network. It will feature copy reading “Sliving Proof,” playfully pairing Hilton’s latest catchphrase and the brand’s name. In March, Hilton and Living Proof will co-host an influencer and press event in Los Angeles.
