Sephora #HeavyHinters
… Or How To Improve Your Holiday Haul
THE CHALLENGE
Every year, Sephora Canada wants to be the go-to holiday gifting destination. And every year, the beauty retail competition floods the feed with glitzy campaigns and unmissable offers in an effort to win attention (and sales). With all the noise, Sephora was struggling to stay top-of-mind with Gen Z and Millennial shoppers — while also battling the growing perception that the brand had become unapproachable.
We needed to increase awareness and drive intent to purchase — during the busiest, fiercest retail period of the season. Ho-ho-h-oh boy.
32% of Canadians receive at least one unwanted gift a year.
THE SPARK
THE IDEA
While most brands focus on the joy of giving, we tapped into the unspoken frustration of getting gifts you don’t like. The holidays are no time for subtle hints and round-about requests; if people were going to get what they wanted this year, they’d have to take a different approach.
Here’s what we did. First, we got the TikTok community lol’ing by working with creators to normalize the art of Heavy Hinting. We partnered with a mix of 16 English and French-speaking Canadian influencers who took to TikTok to show us how to leave not-at-all-subtle hints so their loved ones knew which Sephora products they wanted. From whispering into phones to leaving stickies all over the house, their holiday hints were heavy — and hilarious.
They’d have to become #HeavyHinters.
Here’s what we did. First, we got the TikTok community lol’ing by working with creators to normalize the art of Heavy Hinting. We partnered with a mix of 16 English and French-speaking Canadian influencers who took to TikTok to show us how to leave not-at-all-subtle hints so their loved ones knew which Sephora products they wanted. From whispering into phones to leaving stickies all over the house, their holiday hints were heavy — and hilarious.
We also created highly shareable content inspired by trending social formats that seamlessly incorporated Sephora products into them, letting you (not very) subtly share a meme (ok, hint) to a friend.
Heck, even our ads were hints.
As the clock ticked down and the holidays approached, we made sure our #HeavyHints worked even harder by promoting last-minute gifting, fast and free shipping, and same-day delivery.
To close out the campaign, our influencers came back one more time to share the good news: they got exactly what they wanted! *gasp*
Was it a holiday miracle? Was it the #HeavyHinting?
We’ll never know.
… jk, it was the hinting.
THE RESULTS
#HeavyHinters’ set a new benchmark for Sephora, achieving their most successful paid social performance in history.
The campaign drove 86M impressions and 1M clicks across TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook.
Our TikTok content got exceptional engagement: people clicked through more than 650,000 times from our TikTok ads and video completion rates were 21x higher than the TikTok platform benchmark. The campaign was also a big success on Snapchat, with engagement 26x higher than the platform benchmark.
Our influencer partners delivered 2.9M impressions, 5.4x higher than the benchmark. Their enthusiasm led to a 30% over-delivery on posts, further amplifying reach.
And we saw a 2.27% brand lift during the holidays.
Not to mention, the campaign’s strong digital metrics also translated into significant business results: all products included in the campaign sold out before the 25th even arrived, solidifying Sephora's position as a leader in the space.
