Estée Lauder wins award for revitalizing brand with viral short drama strategy during 520 sales surge

The Challenge

China’s beauty market declined by -1.1% YoY in 2024, with luxury as a whole contracting by 18–20%. International brands have been losing ground to domestic competitors like Proya and Winona, who were winning over Gen Z and Millennial consumers with digitally native, trend-driven strategies.

Estée Lauder’s challenge was twofold:

• Cut through a saturated lipstick category
• Revitalize brand relevance among younger consumers

Simply promoting new color shades wouldn’t work. Instead, we needed to embed Estée Lauder into cultural conversations, creating an experience young consumers would actively seek out and share.

The Big Idea: Turning Content into Commerce

Instead of traditional advertising, we embedded Estée Lauder into a viral short drama experience.

We revived the beloved CP (Couple Pairing) from the hit 2023 Chinese short drama Penmanship, tapping into an existing fanbase hungry for their on-screen reunion. The short drama format allowed us to organically introduce the Slim Lipstick into a compelling time-travel romance—where the lipstick became a pivotal storytelling element.

• The hero shade, “Tea Is This Brown” (茶有此棕), was woven into the script through a clever linguistic tie-in with “Find a Trace” (查有此踪), recalling the leads searching for each other through time.
• The lipstick was used as a symbol of love, appearing in key romantic moments, turning an everyday product into an emotional, aspirational object.
• The drama was distributed episodically on Douyin, fueling ongoing fan speculation, discussion, and engagement.

Bringing the Story to Life

The campaign was structured into three key phases to drive maximum engagement and conversion:

1. Pre-Launch: Teasing the CP Reunion
   • Short-form teaser content hinted at the couple’s on-screen return, sparking excitement and speculation.
2. Series Release & Social Amplification
   • The short drama was released in episodic form, mirroring real entertainment launches.
   • Fans actively shared, commented, and discussed the series—driving organic reach and engagement.
3. Livestream & Real-Time Engagement
   • Seeing huge fan response, we spontaneously invited the CP actors onto a special Douyin livestream.
   • The live event turned nostalgia into conversion, selling out limited-edition lipstick gift sets.

Results & Impact

This campaign proved that entertainment-driven marketing could deliver measurable business impact.

• Digital Acceleration & Douyin Growth
  • Tens of thousands of new followers to Estée Lauder’s Douyin accounts
  • Huge spike in average engagement rates
• Brand Awareness & Search Visibility
  • +800% increase in search traffic for “Estée Lauder Makeup” on Douyin.
  • The #LoveHasInfiniteForms hashtag reached nearly 7 million views.
  • Fan enthusiasm spilled over onto Rednote, driving additional organic reach and discussions.
• Gen Z & Millennial Engagement
  • Marked increase in Gen Z & Millennial followers and interaction rates post-launch.
• ROI
  • 5x return on campaign investment.
  • The livestream event featuring the CP actors sold out of the limited-edition giftbox

The overwhelming success led to a sequel during Qixi Festival, confirming short drama as a scalable, repeatable marketing strategy.