To spread the word about Beauty Brand’s biggest sale of the year, DEG created a cross-channel campaign that entertainingly and effectively promoted the sale using a fictional number-one fan: Liter Sale Laney.

Pick a big event—like the Super Bowl, Christmas, or the release of the latest Taylor Swift album—and you’ve got fanbases eagerly counting down the days until it arrives. So, when your brand’s biggest event of the year is quickly approaching, how do you create a campaign that matches the excitement of your fans? By creating the biggest super fan of them all.

The challenge

Salon and spa superstore Beauty Brands’ eight-week Liter Sale is its biggest event of the year. To spread the word, Beauty Brands turned to DEG to create a cross-channel campaign that entertainingly and effectively promoted the sale.

New Liter Sale shoppers often heard about the sale through word of mouth and recommendations from other Beauty Brands customers, especially in social and search channels. This insight led DEG to create a single, integrated campaign idea that would resonate with the target audience and stand out in a crowded space.

The strategy

DEG researched the buying habits of thousands of shoppers and talked to hundreds of women to determine the cross-channel strategy for effectively communicating about the Liter Sale. Looking at the Beauty Brands channels, the agency found they had become siloed with slightly different stories being told in each of them.

To create a consistent, cohesive story, DEG proposed creating a brand mascot who would embody the hype of all Beauty Brands customers. Thus, Liter Sale Laney was born.

Beauty Brands’ Liter Sale Laney campaign earned an incredible 1,119% return on ad spend, 60% increase in ecommerce sales from the prior year, and generated more than 15 million social impressions and more than 1.5 million social engagements.

The solution

In the span of one week—from initial assignment to concept to approval—DEG concepted, storyboarded, and pitched Liter Sale Laney to Beauty Brands. Her persona: relentless. Every year, she gets ready, counting down the days until the Liter Sale begins. She tells anyone and everyone about how great the Beauty Brands products are, how much savings the sale delivers, and just how awesome the sale is. She’s fun and excitable and is the number-one fan of Beauty Brands’ Liter Sale.

“Our DEG partners are fully committed to their work. With a blend of their knowledge, dedication, ingenuity, and open collaboration, Liter Sale Laney was born,” said Nicole Lowry, Senior Director of Marketing at Beauty Brands. “Liter Laney embodies the spirit of our Liter Sale campaign from every angle. From the anticipation of the sale to the thrill of savings post-purchase, she radiates the excitement that our customers experience every year when they stock up on their favorites.”

Understanding a 30-second TV spot was one aspect of a larger plan for success, DEG used two days of video shoots to collect more than 30 pieces of video content engineered to live digitally and enhance the campaign, including vertical videos, GIFs, and cinemagraphs. This digital content library provided Beauty Brands with numerous visuals focused on sending customers both into the stores and to the brand’s ecommerce site to get their liters.

Laney stormed across Beauty Brands’ owned channels, appearing in video, imagery, and audio across TV, radio, social and paid media, and email. Social media was the main driving force for the promotion, using social listening to target conversations around shampoo and conditioner, searching for opportunities to insert Beauty Brands into the relevant conversation. The brand engaged with the conversation using campaign GIFs and by providing product recommendations.

Due to the eight-week length of the Liter Sale, DEG closely monitored promotion performance. The moment the sale started to wane, the agency’s channel strategists adjusted buys in real-time to ensure the campaign finished strong.

The outcome

Beauty Brands’ Liter Sale Laney campaign was a huge success, earning an incredible 1,119% return on ad spend, delivering a 60% increase in ecommerce sales from the prior year, and generating more than 15 million impressions and more than 1.5 million engagements with the brand’s social channels.

Lead by a digital-first mentality and ability to create against consumer insights, DEG and Beauty Brands not only created a brand mascot in Liter Sale Laney but a character filled with a contagious excitement that translated to more customer purchases for the biggest event of the year.