Blue Wheel - Beauty Marketing Campaign of the Year

Company: Blue Wheel, Birmingham, MI
Company Description: Blue Wheel is a new breed of agency. Our advanced digital marketing, content production and Amazon Advertising solutions help to build your brand and scale your ecommerce business.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Beauty

Nomination Title: A Moment of Bliss (For Your Skin)

Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched: This campaign was launched on August 4, 2020.

Bliss is known for its body and skincare products that are cruelty free, clean, and affordable. They started out as a spa brand and expanded into retail stores like CVS, Ulta, and Target, bringing the spa into your home! Bliss is a leader in affordable, accessible, and effective skincare for all. From face masks to moisturizers, Bliss makes products that are good for your skin and the planet.

Historically, Bliss sold to an audience of older millennials and up, but their Clear Genius product line was specifically designed for Gen Z-ers and younger Millennials who struggle with problematic skin. From a toner/serum combo product to a peel and cleanser, this collection contains a complete skincare routine designed to treat problem skin without harsh chemicals.

The goal of the launch campaign was to generate awareness for this collection, specifically towards an audience of Gen Z and young Millennials. Additionally, Bliss wanted one of the products from the collection to be one of their top 5 selling SKUs —a challenge for the spa-based brand, whose top products are usually body products, not skincare.

A long-term goal of this campaign was to make the Clear Genius collection a hero collection that customers would come back to buy again and again, whether on Bliss's owned-and-operated site or at one of their retail partners — Target, CVS, Wal-Mart, and Ulta. This launch marked the brand's largest retail launch to date by entering into Wal-Mart for the first time.

The Clear Genius collection was Bliss's largest launch of 2020 —a challenging year to launch nonessential products due to the pandemic. The campaign was primarily geared towards Gen Z and young Millennials who struggle with acne or problematic skin.

The collection includes a toner and serum, which delivers concentrated ingredients without over-drying skin; an overnight liquid peel that gently exfoliates dead skin cells; and a gel cleanser to provide a deep clean while keeping skin balanced. Combined, these three products help hydrate and clean skin —without harsh or irritating ingredients.

The skincare market, especially the acne care market, is incredibly oversaturated. You can get a cleanser from almost anywhere, whether you shop at higher-end stores like Sephora or drugstores like Wal-Mart. To break into this oversaturated market and reach a younger demographic of skincare lovers, Bliss and Blue Wheel delved into channels with younger audiences, such as YouTube, SnapChat, and TikTok.

The team at Blue Wheel assisted in the collection's launch on Bliss's site, as well as supported the launch of Bliss's products in Wal-Mart for the first time. Blue Wheel ran digital ads for this campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Division-D (programmatic display channel), YouTube, Google, and Bing — a true 360 approach. In addition, the team at Bliss started a hashtag challenge on TikTok, which amassed 6.78 billion views.

In the first two months after the collection launched, three of the top-four selling products on Bliss's website were from the Clear Genius collection. There are only three products in the Clear Genius collection, so every product in the launch instantly became a best-seller, selling 4,748 units in the first 60 days on Bliss's website.

Over the course of the first 60 days of the ad campaign, Blue Wheel helped Bliss reach 7,956,711 people on Facebook, drove in 547,993 clicks, and had over a 0.75% CTR for retail campaigns. Bliss's campaign drove 6,794 clicks to the site, resulted in 1,007 purchases, and had a campaign ROAS of 2.87.

Since launching in August, all three Clear Genius products are still in the top-six selling SKUs on their website as of January 2021, rivaling hero products that have been staples for Bliss for years. This collection launch drove 15% of all website sales from August to December of 2020 —meaning that this collection still made headlines even after a shift to focus on holiday sales.

One of the campaign's goals was to break into a younger audience, and we succeeded —our 18–24 year-old audience on Facebook had the highest ROAS from new customer acquisition with a 2.4 ROAS.

The attached landing page for the collection showcases all of the products and their features. The images reflect the creative from the campaign —creative that was geared to appeal to a younger audience.