While Super Bowl LIX was a winner for women-focused ads by Nike, the NFL and Dove, the large game was missing the “creative freshness and epic fun” that audiences and the ad industry have come to expect. In one other sea of celebrity-powered spots, there was nothing resembling CeraVe’s splendidly weird Super Bowl debut from 2024 — an award winner that informed the latest campaign from the L’Oréal skincare brand.
“We learned plenty of lessons coming out of ‘Michael CeraVe,’ and clearly it’s an especially hard campaign to follow up on. We didn’t want to do what was expected,” said Kelly Buchanan Spillers, global head of digital and social for CeraVe.
Instead of returning to the Super Bowl with a national broadcast industrial, CeraVe’s campaign for its recent Anti-Dandruff Shampoo and Conditioner, “Head of CeraVe,” began around the large game, utilizing an identical social- and influencer-led strategy to the one which helped “Michael CeraVe” garner an earned-media bonanza before the ultimate ad even aired.
“There was a lot to learn from ‘Michael CeraVe’ – it rewrote the marketing playbook. One of the largest lessons is the facility of speculation or a head-scratching moment (no pun intended), the enjoyment of a ride-along… of getting an immersive, unfolding brand story,” said Samira Ansari, chief creative officer at Ogilvy New York, over email.
“Head of CeraVe” was created, produced and executed by WPP Onefluence, led by Ogilvy PR. The campaign will culminate with an ad on Feb. 14 in the course of the “Saturday Night Live” fiftieth anniversary concert on Peacock, helping the brand tie into one other cultural moment in a landscape starved for four-quadrant media plays.
“The different levels of demographics that we’re actually able to capture with partnering with ‘SNL’ and their talent, in addition to all of our sports folks which might be involved in our campaign, allow us to almost hit all of our demographics from a 360-degree perspective, each online and on linear TV,” Buchanan Spillers said.
Stars constructing buzz
Video content intended to generate organic buzz across the campaign featuring TikTok personality Charli D’Amelio and NBA player Anthony Davis began rolling out last week. Finding top influencers who actually could use CeraVe’s recent product was easier than expected.
“You can imagine what the casting agents said to us once we said, ‘We want to only feature those who have authentic scalp issues or dandruff in our campaign. Please help us find someone that’s willing to discuss their dandruff,’” Buchanan Spillers said.
Davis — the perennial All-Star who was recently (and shockingly) traded to the Dallas Mavericks earlier this month — was a natural fit for the brand, in each his playful attitude and in his ability to put the brand in front of a brand new audience. D’Amelio has been featured in several CeraVe campaigns and is currently appearing in Broadway musical “& Juliet,” a gig with a wig that creates the “perfect environment” for an itchy scalp.
@charlidamelio my pre-show routine ☕️????????♀️????#CeraVePartner @CeraVe ♬ original sound – charli d’amelio
The effort also includes University of Connecticut basketball player — and certain #1 pick within the upcoming WNBA draft — Paige Bueckers. Bueckers was featured in a CeraVe campaign around pimples products last summer and provides a way to speak in regards to the brand’s therapeutic line that replenishes its namesake ceramides within the scalp for consumers without dandruff.
“We search for those who are already using our products and talking about us before we even reach out. It was very easy for us to scout these folks, find them and even suggest them to our talent team, because we found them posting about us first,” Buchanan Spillers said. “It makes it very easy to construct a relationship from there.”
Campaign content was tailored to each influencer, with D’Amelio’s videos showing a CeraVe shrine within the kind of videos on TikTok, the platform where she has the second-most followed account. Davis appears in content modeled after post-game interviews and contract-signing press conferences, while Bueckers’ video follows the conventions of sports documentaries — including a hair-stimulating helmet that nods to the LED therapy mask trend (sadly for Bueckers, the mask is only a prop).
A headbanger’s ball
“Head of CeraVe” was crafted with an all-encompassing channel mix in mind, with unique content and partnerships across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and linear TV. Select retailers may also tie-up with the campaign after launch. The humorous video content allows CeraVe to proceed producing “medutainment” that seeks to address medical taboos in entertaining ways.
“I believe considered one of the thrill of creativity today is you could get after a brand moment in so many alternative ways. And they don’t all have to fit in a single perfect conceptual box,” Ansari said. “As long as you’re true to the brand and its services or products, that you simply work from a spot of credibility, there are such a lot of ways you possibly can lean into storytelling and engagement.”
The pièce de résistance for “Head of CeraVe” is a 60-second ad that can air throughout the “SNL” fiftieth anniversary celebration featuring stars Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman as members of heavy metal power trio Naumôre Dandruf, alongside real-life dermatologist Dr. Dustin Portela.
The musical, rhyme-heavy spot demystifies CeraVe’s recent product and its ability to handle “druff stuff” that shakes loose in the course of the band’s headbanging (thankfully, the “dandruff” was actually broken potato chips). The spot was created alongside Yang, Sherman, “SNL” regulars Please Don’t Destroy and director Mike Diva and lands somewhere between “This is Spinal Tap” and “Wayne’s World.”
“We want to break the taboos of talking about dandruff, but how can we do that in a way that’s each ‘SNL’ and CeraVe?” Buchanan Spillers said. “We briefed them on all the things that we wanted to get across and the tone we wanted to hit, and what’s higher than an audio mnemonic: a heavy metal song.”
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