LAURA MERCIER COSMETICS
The beauty brand Laura Mercier used Instant Storytelling in Instagram feed to attract more millennial women, resulting in a 12-point lift in ad recall.
Born in Provence and trained in Paris and New York City, world-renowned makeup artist Laura Mercier founded her brand in 1996. Laura Mercier Cosmetics produces makeup, skincare and fragrances—all focused on enhancing natural beauty. The brand was acquired by Shiseido in 2016.
lift in ad recall
lift in ad awareness
increase in purchase intent
people reached
Laura Mercier Cosmetics wanted to reach the desirable but hard-to-sway demographic of young millennial women and increase brand awareness of an iconic beauty product.
Translucent Loose Setting Powder is one of the first products Laura Mercier created when she founded the brand in 1996. Over 20 years later, it remains a go-to powder for makeup artists, celebrities and beauty bloggers worldwide, but millennial women are less aware of the brand, so Laura Mercier Cosmetics set out to reach this demographic.
First, Laura Mercier’s in-house creative team attended a 5-day Luxury Hack session hosted by Facebook Creative Shop, where they learned how to reimagine their existing ad assets to ensure greater effectiveness in mobile-first environments. Facebook Creative Shop also had early access to Instant Storytelling, a new fast-loading ad experience in Instagram feed that offers a vibrant and visually exciting brand experience and product story.
The team then built a tutorial featuring 4 beauty hack how-tos—each focused on a new and different way to use a core product—which were shown sequentially. In the ad experience, viewers first saw a photo of the Translucent Loose Setting Powder which, when clicked, opened into the full-screen Instant Storytelling.
Viewers could then scroll through each beautifully shot hack to learn more about the brand’s setting powder and tools, and how to use them to get a flawless look. Hack 1 demonstrated applying the powder with a velour puff for a matte finish, Hack 2 showed how to apply the product with a finishing brush for a natural finish, Hack 3 showed how to set concealer and Hack 4 showed how to blend eye shadow.
“Learn More” call-to-action buttons appeared at the end of each hack, while a “Shop More” button appeared at the end of the ad, so that people could easily click through to the brand’s website to learn more or purchase.
Laura Mercier served the ads to US women aged 18–34, as well as to those with an interest in cosmetics, and to a lookalike audience based on the characteristics of its recent product page website visitors. The results of the March 14–20, 2018 campaign were determined using a Facebook brand lift study, which showed:
12-point lift in ad recall
9-point lift in ad awareness
4-point increase in purchase intent
19.2 million people reached
