The Revolution Will Be Advertised: How One Beauty Brand Made a Big Impression with OOH

May 23, 2024

When London-based skincare/makeup/hair brand Revolution Beauty found itself on the shelves of American Ulta locations for the first time, the brand wanted to make the most of the opportunity. So they turned to OUTFRONT. 

Like many beauty brands, influencers are at the core of Revolution’s marketing strategy. That means harnessing the power of social out of home (#sOOH). And when it comes to brands building buzz by going viral, there’s nothing like advertising in Times Square.

So, to Times Square they went! At the center of the buy was The Cube, the iconic DOOH asset you see in every picture of the bowtie’s north end. With six screens facing in three directions, The Cube is six times larger than a standard billboard and visible from five blocks away, which is how it generates a staggering 10.8MM impressions weekly (SOURCE: Geopath).


The other part of Revolution’s Times Square advertising presence was on The Bird. One of the most unique pieces of advertising media in the entire OUTFRONT portfolio, it combines a 3:4 aspect screen that bends around the intersection with a second, thinner screen on top, stretching nearly another hundred feet into the air. (Can you guess why we call it The Bird? 😉)


There’s truly nothing like the reaction when someone first sees themselves or their brand on a billboard. That’s why Sr. Global Brand Marketing Manager Rebecca Howard and several of her Revolution comrades flew from London to NYC to witness the campaign for themselves. “We’ve just seen it for the first time and it’s absolutely amazing,” she beamed. “We’re so excited, we’ve made it in New York!”

“Seeing Rebecca and the team’s reaction of their brand in Times Square for the first time was irreplaceable,” recalled Genesis Rosales, our account executive who worked with Revolution. “Their campaign helped create a social buzz on different platforms and direct people to go to a nearby store to find their product.”

In addition to the two Times Square digitals, Revolution also placed a static billboard further downtown, just around the corner from one of the Ulta locations carrying the products. There was also a transit component of the campaign – 75 Digital Urban Panels on the stairwell side of subway entrances – strategically selected for their ability to raise brand awareness by reaching not only transit riders but pedestrians and vehicular traffic.


Identifying the highest-impact locations was only one way that we helped the campaign achieve its full potential. Revolution – having never executed an out of home campaign in the U.S. before – relied on STUDIOS, our in-house creative agency, for guidance and insight on how to connect with American audiences. Things like, how many words on an ad will consumers read? How many variations of the creative does it take to keep a campaign fresh?

“It’s just really exciting to work with an agency that makes it really easy and just feels passionate about the project that we’re working on too,” explained Howard. “It’s been amazing working with OUTFRONT.”


The 49 million campaign impressions our static billboard, DOOH, and transit media generated (SOURCE: Geopath) were just the beginning, because the creative found its way onto TikTok and Instagram. Paid influencer partnerships with six-figure-following beauty influencers like Deanna Giulietti and Amber Cruz generated an additional 6MM+ in potential social reach for the campaign (SOURCE: Sprout). The brand also further amplified the #sOOH impact with a giveaway activation, dangling a makeup haul grand prize in front of fans who posted the ads in hopes of claiming it.


For Revolution Beauty, the buy was primarily a brand awareness play, but by nudging consumers to the point of purchase with the “Exclusively at Ulta Beauty” tag, it drove down-funnel impact too. Generating strong sales numbers doesn’t just directly impact the bottom line in a campaign like this; it also helps strengthen the relationship between brand and retailer for the long term.

“This is a massive deal for us to be stepping into out of home,” said Rebecca. “I think particularly for all of our retailers, it’s really showing that we’re showing up now, we’re going bigger and better than ever before, hopefully lots more to come.” 
 
Revolutions don’t start inside the house. That’s why when your brand is ready to start one of its own, you should contact us.

Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT
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