Case study · Marketing 465 · Influencer and UGC Strategy
e.l.f. did not ask TikTok users to watch an ad. It gave them an original song and a simple challenge, and millions of people made the content for the brand.
Brand
e.l.f. Cosmetics
Year(s)
2019 to 2020
Channel(s)
TikTok (branded hashtag challenge), influencers, Spotify and radio
Goal
Reach Gen Z and restart growth after sales stalled
Topic
Influencer and UGC Strategy
~5M
User-generated #EyesLipsFace videos (Campaign, 2020)
1B
Views within about the first week (Campaign, 2020; FIT Hue, 2021)
6.7B
Total #EyesLipsFace views as of February 2021 (FIT Hue, 2021)
No. 4
Song’s peak on Spotify’s Global Viral chart (FIT Hue, 2021)
The situation
e.l.f. is a low-priced cosmetics brand whose name stands for “eyes, lips, face.” By 2018 its sales had plateaued, according to the brand’s Shorty Awards entry. It needed to reach younger shoppers who were spending their time on a new app: TikTok.
In 2019, TikTok was still new to most marketers. CMO Kory Marchisotto later said that “TikTok was still new to everybody.” Fans were already posting about e.l.f. on their own. Videos tagged #elfcosmetics had about 3.5 million views before the brand had even joined the platform (FIT Hue, 2021).
The challenge
Gen Z skips ads and rewards creators who feel authentic. A polished beauty commercial on TikTok would look out of place. e.l.f. needed a way into the platform that felt native and gave people a reason to join in, not just watch.
What they did
Working with the agency Movers+Shakers, e.l.f. commissioned an original song, “Eyes. Lips. Face.,” performed by iLL Wayno and Holla FyeSixWun. The lyrics were built around the brand name itself. e.l.f. has said it was the first brand to create an original song for a TikTok challenge.
The challenge launched on October 4, 2019, with videos from seven influencers (FIT Hue, 2021). The format was simple: use the song, show your eyes, lips and face.
- Low barrier: anyone with a phone and some makeup could take part.
- Built-in branding: the hook was the brand’s own name, so every video repeated it.
- Seeded, not scripted: influencers showed the format, then users took it in their own directions.
- Extended beyond TikTok: the song was released on Spotify and promoted on radio, and e.l.f. worked with Republic Records on an official music video (WARC, 2020).
What happened
The challenge spread fast. Marchisotto said, “We were at a billion before the close of the first week.”
- About 5 million user-generated videos (Campaign, 2020; FIT Hue, 2021).
- 1 billion views in about six days, which Campaign reported as the fastest TikTok campaign to reach that mark (Campaign, 2020).
- 6 billion or more views as of late 2020 (Campaign, November 2020); FIT Hue reported 6.7 billion in February 2021.
- The song reached No. 4 on Spotify’s Global Viral chart (FIT Hue, 2021).
- Campaign reported it was the first branded content to reach No. 1 in TikTok’s organic trends, and that celebrities including Reese Witherspoon and Lizzo joined in unprompted.
- The campaign won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions in 2020 for social content marketing.
Why it worked
e.l.f. gave people something to make, not something to watch. A catchy sound is the raw material of TikTok. Once a sound catches on, users reuse it, and every reuse is a free ad.
The idea fit the brand. “Eyes, lips, face” is literally what e.l.f. stands for, so the song taught the name without feeling like a jingle. And the format matched the platform: short, musical, easy to copy and easy to remix.
e.l.f. also started from real behavior. Fans were already posting about the brand before it showed up. The campaign gave that energy a focus.
Where it gets complicated
Most of the headline numbers are views and video counts, and many come from award entries the brand and agency wrote themselves. Views are not sales. e.l.f.’s Shorty Awards entry links the campaign to a rise in Piper Sandler’s teen survey and to quarters of sales growth, but many other things were also happening at the company, so the campaign’s exact share is hard to isolate. The sources also differ on details: Campaign said e.l.f. rose from sixth to second in the teen survey, while the Shorty entry says eighth to second.
UGC also means giving up control. A brand can start a trend but cannot decide what millions of people do with it. And a viral song is hard to repeat. The lasting value came from what e.l.f. did next: according to its Shorty Awards entry, it followed up in 2020 with a TikTok reality series called “Eyes. Lips. Famous.” and a holiday album, instead of treating one hit as a strategy.
The marketing principle
User-generated content works when you make participation easy and fun, and when the thing people create carries your brand inside it. e.l.f. supplied the song, the hook and the first few examples. The audience supplied the scale. Judge the results by more than views, and plan for what happens after the trend fades.
Sources
- “Eyes, Lips, Face”: How E.l.f. cosmetics built its brand on TikTok, Campaign (2020)
- Reaching a New Generation of Consumers Through TikTok, Hue, Fashion Institute of Technology (2021)
- e.l.f. Cosmetics: #eyeslipsface TikTok Challenge, WARC (2020)
- e.l.f. Cosmetics: Innovation on TikTok, Shorty Awards (2021)
- #EyesLipsFace (Bronze, Social Content Marketing), Cannes Lions / LIONS (2020)
Group activity for this case
Give Them Something to Make
Your group will have a simple UGC challenge for your brand with a hook that carries the brand inside it. A 20-minute group activity. Dr. Morris gives the password in class.
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