When Maybelline wanted to promote its SuperStay Powder Foundation, a medium- to full-coverage liquid and powder formats hybrid, it was a no-brainer for the mass brand to turn to Reddit.
Maybelline has operated on Reddit since 2021, but it considered the foundation campaign its first major campaign on the platform. The SuperStay Powder Foundation campaign ran on Reddit from February 27 to March 26. To promote the foundation product, in addition to Reddit, Maybelline tapped programmatic ads, streaming ads and paid social media. The Reddit opportunity offered a way to find and target specific beauty consumers. Maybelline leveraged contextual keyword targeting, a beauty category takeover and an engagement prompt for Redditors. The campaign’s main goal was to drive awareness, product trials and purchases.
Ultimately, through the campaign, Maybelline saw an 8.6-point increase in aided awareness, which is 2x the Kantar benchmark for campaigns. In addition, it experienced a 16.8-point increase in purchase intent, an 8.4x over the Kantar benchmark.
“Being able to join the conversation and participate in the Reddit communities was quite interesting. We know that Reddit is quite a trusted platform for product recommendations and navigating beauty in general,” said Andrea Muguerza, vp of face at Maybelline. “Partnering with Reddit allowed us to uniquely promote education and conversation, amplify engagement, and still convey our key product messages.”
The keywords and phrases Maybelline targeted included “natural finish” and “dry skin,” to find consumers looking for products to help with the desired end result and concern, respectively. The brand ran in-feed, promoted ads using before, during and after photos of beauty influencer Becca Lee Brewer (@BeccaLeeBeauty; 173,000 Instagram followers) demonstrating how the foundation to cover up noticeable birthmarks. The prompt asked people how they would use the powder foundation, leading to tips and tricks on using it from both Redditors and Maybelline.
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Although the Reddit beauty community has existed for over a decade, the beauty advertiser interest in the platform only became what it is today over the past three years, said Paulita David, senior managing director for large customer sales at Reddit. Part of that advertising drive for brands is the opportunity to access the sheer volume of dedicated beauty consumers. According to Comscore data from February, Reddit’s audience includes 29.9 million digital beauty enthusiasts, accounting for 33% of the total 68.8 million beauty enthusiasts across all digital platforms.
The top Subreddit community for Reddit beauty conversation is r/skincareaddiction, with 14.3 million monthly screen views. This is followed by pimple-focused r/popping, at 13.1 million monthly views, and then r/makeupaddiction, at 8 million views.
“Reddit is the world’s deepest and most organized repository of authentic human conversation,” said David. “The sheer amount of insights you can get from the platform is something that beauty brands crave.”
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As reported in a September Glossy story about how Laneige used Reddit, the social platform is actively courting advertisers through a newer Client Council program for large beauty players including Target and Walgreens. Client Council is an invite-only, in-person executive networking and advertising event Reddit hosts. The first was held in Manhattan during the summer. This is similar to pre-existing advertiser events from TikTok, Amazon and Pinterest. Reddit plans to host these events quarterly.
Muguerza said that, due to the positive results from Maybelline’s campaign, the team is “very open” to using Reddit again, particularly if there are specific products it wants to market. She added that a standout insight for Maybelline was to see the types of assets that performed best, including videos and before-and-after images.
