A young woman is browsing for acne-care products in a store when a stranger comes up to her and shoves an illuminated device in her face. As she backs away in surprise, the stranger tells her, “Oh, you have a zit right there.” The woman allows the stranger to hold the beeping gadget up to the zit for 90 seconds. After the timer ends, a miracle has happened: the zit is completely gone. She is amazed.
That’s the plot of an Instagram Reels ad for skin-care brand Luminance Red, which sells a $499 tool used to treat blemishes with blue and red light. The woman in the ad is acting, and the company does not actually promise that zits will be gone after 90 seconds.
The improvement of the zit’s appearance is “not going to be instant — within a few minutes, or anything like that — but usually, it’s going to be about a day or so,” said Luminance CMO Zain Din of the product. “We obviously exaggerate how quickly it works, but we make it known that it’s not actually going to work instantly.”
On TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, the ad is one of many for acne care being run by brands making bold claims and emphasizing clear skin to grab eyeballs quickly in a rapid-scrolling environment. While “acne positivity” has been a marketing theme touted by some brands in recent years, a new crop of ads takes an old-school “clear skin” approach to their messaging. With phrases like “say goodbye to” or “eliminate” acne, brands in multiple product categories are tapping into messaging for an audience that is acne-negative and looking for quick answers.
“It is human nature to want to have skin that’s as vibrant as possible,” said Andrew Silberstein, founder and CEO of Solawave, which has been running TikTok and Instagram ads for its light devices for acne. Meta is currently its single biggest ad investment, he said. An Instagram ad for the brand’s “Bye Acne” acne spot-treatment device calls it “the new best way to eliminate pesky pimples.” Offering a three-minute treatment of red and blue light at $99, the device description says it is “scientifically-proven to quickly and visibly treat acne and breakouts, while speeding up healing,” referring to a body of evidence that exists on how light treatments can kill acne-causing bacteria.
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Ads for a range of products touting acne elimination have proliferated on Instagram and TikTok. Other brands using clear-skin messaging for light devices in Instagram ads include Omnilux and Primal Derm Cosmetics, which feature video testimonials from young women stating their skin cleared up after using the devices. Supplements are another category featuring acne-clearing ads, which also frequently offer testimonials from Gen Zers. Brands including Clear Stem, The Nue Co. and Flo feature ads for vitamins showing testimonial videos by young women stating that their hormonal acne disappeared after taking the products. And shower head filter brand Jolie has also run Instagram ads with clear-skin testimonials.
“Since taking Flo, all of my hormonal acne and breakouts have completely gone away. I’m talking about like all of the, you know, acne along your cheeks and along your jawline, that painful cystic acne. I can’t even remember the last time that I had a hormonal breakout. So if that tells you anything, this is worth trying,” said Caitlin Zenisek, a social media and influencer consultant for Flo, in a sponsored video on Instagram Reels.
“A lot of people struggle with acne, and they have their own specific emotional experience when it comes to acne,” said Tiffany Wen, creative director at Flo’s parent company, O Positiv. The company uses a combination of paid actors, influencers and regular customers to read testimonials, saying that actors are reading testimonials submitted to the brand.
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The ads are especially effective with a younger audience. For Gen Z, testimonial content “does really well for us” on TikTok and Instagram Reels ads because “it feels relatable and real,” said Wen.
“For acne, specifically, it tends to be folks that are a combination of in their teens and then Gen Z” that respond the best to the ads, said Din. While he said that Luminace Red invests mainly in Google ads for its devices targeting other concerns such as cold sores, TikTok has become its “biggest platform” for acne device advertising.
The ads for Flo, meanwhile, worked on Gen-Z actress Haley Lu Richardson of “The White Lotus,” who stated in a Vogue video last year, “I totally succumbed to an Instagram ad and ordered these,” holding up the Flo vitamins. She said after taking them for two months, she stopped getting cystic chin acne. According to Wen, the video was organic.
Brand marketers say they are keeping regulations in mind when they share bold claims on their ads.
The Luminance Red ads featuring the 90-second zit-zapping skit lead to a website that states, “The Luminance Red Acne Device delivers similar light wavelengths that have been shown in scientific research to” either completely heal or significantly improve 77% of pimples within 24 hours or two treatment sessions. “We avoid anything that actually says ‘instantly removed, instantly gone, gone in 30 seconds’ or anything like that. Because it’s just not true,” said Din.
According to FTC regulations on online advertising, “Disclaimers and disclosures must be clear and conspicuous. That is, consumers must be able to notice, read or hear, and understand the information. Still, a disclaimer or disclosure alone usually is not enough to remedy a false or deceptive claim.”
“We can’t promise that it’s going to treat anything or is a solution for anything,” said Wen of Flo’s testimonial ads. “If I’m going to be on TikTok and I’m watching someone say, truly, their actual experiences, that’s going to go a long way because it feels like a friend is talking to me.”
FTC regulations say that “claims must be substantiated, especially when they concern health, safety or performance.” In addition, “Testimonials and endorsements must reflect the typical experiences of consumers, unless the ad clearly and conspicuously states otherwise. A statement that not all consumers will get the same results is not enough to qualify a claim.”
When it comes to devices, the American Academy of Dermatology states that blue and red light devices “can treat pimples,” but not cysts, nodules, blackheads or whiteheads. It states that some at-home devices are cleared by the FDA, but “are less powerful than the ones a dermatologist uses.” As a result, “There is no way to know who will see results.” It recommends using devices twice a day for 4 to 5 weeks.
With iOS changes making ad targeting more difficult, marketers are under bigger pressure to create more attention-grabbing ads for several reasons. The most obvious of these is the short attention span of social media users.
“Given everyone’s attention spans and how much everyone’s overwhelmed with ads for all sorts of products, we really try to get in there and trim the content down as much as possible so that they’re getting the information as efficiently as possible,” said Silberstein.
But beyond that, ads also need to spark conversation, as the cost per impression goes down with the more comments and engagement they get on Meta and TikTok ads, said Din.
Din said Luminance Red saw strong reactions on TikTok to its 90-second disappearing zit ads, which it runs with several different actors in the same format.
“With these TikTok ads, they get such high engagement that our costs have gone down pretty significantly, so it allows us to stretch our budget much further,” said Din. “That format on TikTok just seems to resonate really well with people.”
The iOS 14 changes have also significantly increased pressure to generate immediate purchases.
“The challenge with iOS is really you can’t target people as granularly as you could in the past,” said Din. Without the ability to track activity for weeks after the initial ad view, ads that activate buy-now instincts are also prioritized by brands. “We actually find that about 90% of our conversions occur on the same day,” he said.
According to Silberstein, Meta “seems to have loosened its restrictions on before-and-afters” in ads. He said restrictions used to be stronger because “some ill-intended, fly-by-night brands doctored up before-and-afters and presented these very extreme transformations.” But Meta is now allowing the format for ads “if it’s a reasonable before-and-after, and nothing too extreme,” he said.
“For us, it’s critical to find authentic users that have truly seen results and to make sure also that those results are results that we feel confident the average user of our products will achieve. So, we don’t go for the most extreme before-and-afters,” he said. Solawave searches for reviews posted online and to social media to create its testimonial ads. “We really see the best overall success with partnering through content creators, less so influencers with large followings.”
Solawave’s before-and-afters often show reduced acne rather than a perfectly clear face, he said, showcasing the reality of struggling with acne. Silberstein described the acne positivity movement as “exciting and conflicting.”
“We never want anyone to feel bad about any visible skin issue that they have,” said Silberstein. “At the same time, most consumers still want to improve the appearance of their skin.”
