CHALLENGE

Lux believes fragrances are an invisible, but essential, part of a woman’s beauty. But how do we convince women, especially when they are unfamiliar with fragrances, and the world around them who are obsessed with appearances?

The beauty world is cluttered with celebrities, and we needed a creative way to get 20+ year old Indian women to consider Lux's fine fragrances as an essential component of beauty.

We needed them to believe, and share, that the power of fragrance transcends the physical.

SOLUTION

To prove this, we subverted a tried-and-tested PR recipe.

We cast celebrated Bollywood superstar, Katrina Kaif, as the catalyst for the fragrance experiment. We then collaborated with someone who wouldn't be distracted by the very thing Katrina is known for - her beauty. Bhavesh, a visually impaired photographer, was tasked to capture the essence of Katrina's beauty, with Lux’s new fragranced bodywash as the sole inspiration.

OUTCOME

The photoshoot was filmed and Perfume Portraits was born. Working with beauty bloggers and online influencers to seed the film pre-launch, our film proved successful: 15+ million YouTube views; achieving the highest brand recall and shareability scores in India; snagging Best In Class in Google's Brand Lift survey; and contributing delivering 30% sales uplift.

Most inspiring were Bhavesh and Perfume Portraits being featured on TedX, showing how it inspired a new fragrance photography programme - proving once and for all that beauty goes beyond what you can see.

The campaign ran from 12 January – 14 February 2015. It was vital to have paid and earned media working together in the first week to drive the viral peak to its highest.

3 phases:

1. Tease: Outreach to journalists and beauty influencers with an embargoed copy of the film and selected stills

2. Trend: Launch-day saw mass outreach to bloggers and media outlets, while launching the film across brand-owned channels: YouTube, Facebook and HouseofLux.com. Katrina’s fans, and Bhavesh’s newfound supporters spread the film widely and quickly

3. Optimise: Driving organic reach first enabled us to track the film views using Sysomos and Unruly’s tracking tools across all platforms, and invest paid spend in best-performing channels. On social, we adapted content, based on audience responses, to sustain the conversation. We also ran a social contest where fans submitted their best “Power of Fragrances” selfie to win photos autographed by Katrina

The ‘Perfume Portraits’ campaign became one of Lux India most successful new product launch thanks to the power of the idea at its core: demonstrating how Lux Magical Spell fragrance can bring alive a woman’s beauty through senses other than just sight.

Awareness of launch objective:

• 15 million views of film across platforms (94% women)

• Highest brand recall scores in India (UnRuly ShareRank)

• PR generated 78 pieces of coverage in 5 days reaching over 11M consumers

• Quadrupled Lux’s online share of voice in 1 day, and doubled it over the campaign duration

Reframing fragrance benefit objective:

• Best in Class Google’s Brand Lift Survey: +33% amongst 25 - 24 year females

• 89% Favorable Social Sentiment as measured by Sysomos

• Top purchase intent scores in India from UnRuly

Action/Business Impact:

• Resulted in 30% sales increase