How does CeraVe, a clinical skincare brand developed by dermatologists, become a global cultural phenomenon? By creating an internet conspiracy that the brand was actually created by actor Michael Cera. To make things harder: Michael isn't on social media. So we orchestrated a robust media plan, putting the audience at the center of the evolving story. For four-weeks, we were front and center in culture. 400+ influencers organically weighed in about the skincare conspiracy. While most Super Bowl commercials are the hero, ours was the culmination of a worldwide conversation with 15.4B impressions BEFORE the spot even aired.

Skincare Context: CeraVe is a clinical skincare brand developed by dermatologists. But more and more celebrities are entering the skincare space, exceeding $1B in beauty sales in 2023 (Nielsen). And competitors are copying CeraVe’s claims about being developed with derms and having three ceramides)

Celebrity Context: Michael Cera is a cult favorite actor known for Juno, Arrested Development, and “Allan” in Barbie. He plays unassuming, awkward and lovable characters. Cera doesn’t fit the typical beauty spokesperson (Rihana, Selena Gomez...) or have any social media. But his famously youthful face, shared name with CeraVe, and mild manner made him the perfect unexpected antagonist to get everyone talking.

Super Bowl Context: CeraVe has a niche audience on TikTok. The Super Bowl provided a unique opportunity to bring it to the masses.

CeraVe is the #1 dermatologist-recommended skincare brand in the US. But competitors were stealing CeraVe's core claim that they are developed by Dermatologists.

So CeraVe was headed to its first ever Super Bowl to (1) mint CeraVe as THE brand developed with Dermatologists and (2) elevate CeraVe from a cult, niche social following into a cultural phenomenon all around the world.

But people watching the Super Bowl want celebrities and comedy. Not dermatologists and ceramides. And CeraVe wanted to become a cultural icon without compromising their core values.

To achieve this, CeraVe set the following KPIs: 1B impressions, 50 articles, 74k website traffic, +3% audience growth, and Top 10 share of voice during the game.

(All of which the campaign achieved and then some).

The media insight was rather than telling people the story, to invite them into the journey and make them a key to the fully-immersive campaign.

A traditional campaign about dermatologists and ceramides would be ignored. We needed a way to use a celebrity while hero'ing dermatologists. So we created a conspiracy that CeraVe was developed by Michael Cera (same name.. baby-soft skin... you get it...)

This breakthrough idea was risky– especially for a quiet skincare brand. We couldn’t even promote that CeraVe was in the Super Bowl. To make it even more difficult: Michael Cera has no social presence and requested no media access.

So we re-wrote the traditional media playbook. We created a four-week first-of-its-kind conspiracy. We paired each piece of social and influencer content with the perfect publication to maximize earned media and sell the story. Tabloids for leaks and paparazzi photos. Fashion, beauty for skincare speculation. National publications for mass appeal. We treated it like a conspiracy not a campaign, and sparked a full-blown global conspiracy that resulted in 20.8B organic global impressions.

CeraVe has a niche, cult following on TikTok. But the core consumer base was 78% women, average age 40+. To become a cultural icon, CeraVe wanted to grow the audience to have mass appeal including Gen Z and men– while still appealing to their base consumer.

Our approach was to lean into CeraVe’s core, rather than selling out. We wanted to show that Dermatologists are the celebrities of CeraVe, NOT a celebrity A-List spokesperson. Even if they share a name and babysoft skin. One issue for media: in the age of “fake news” we needed to plant the rumor without ever lying.

So our media approach was to leak content that strongly tied Cera to CeraVe, creating chaos and confusion, and gave people the pieces to put things together (giving them a key role). Then, we made the Super Bowl Commercial into the punchline that brought everything together.

Our conspiracy started 4-weeks prior to the Super Bowl. It rolled out over three acts: (1) fake news campaign (2) fight between Cera and CeraVe (3) a Big Game resolution.

We started with influencer @HayleeBaylee "spotted" Cera signing CeraVe bottles. Then we "leaked" paparazzi photos (covering in Daily Mail / Page 6). Michael sent out "bootlegged" PR boxes. He walked off an interview with Bobbi Althoff. Then, the brand jumped in and used its social channels to fight back. At every step, the audience journey was at the center of it all connecting and sharing all the pieces.

Beauty publications and participants wondered if Cera was a "cream genius". For a month, media kept the skincare conspiracy at the top of pop culture. The Super Bowl commercial was the culmination of the "Ultra prolonged ultra meta campaign" (NYTimes), settling things in front of a record-setting audience, resulting in 32B impressions.

Overall objective: Elevate CeraVe to the status of cultural icon.

Result: #1 SB Campaign (GQ, Forbes, Adweek, Adage)

Result: Most moisturizer sales in CeraVe history (*for one-week)

Goal: 1B earned impressions

Result: 32B earned impressions (15.4B BEFORE the Super Bowl)

Goal: 50 articles

Result: 2K+ articles

Goal: Top 10 share of voice (based on earned engagement during game)

Result: #1 share of voice

Result: 2.4X amount of engagements of all other health and beauty brands in the Super Bowl… COMBINED!

Goal: Most talked about brand on social

Result: #1 most effective brand on tiktok (David), trended on X / Tiktok, Reddit front page, highest ever performing brand meme on FJerry

Result: 400+ organic influencers

Goal: +3% audience growth

Result: +5% audience growth (“Dammit it worked…I’ll go pick up a bottle” – @huhzonked)

The month-long “ultra-meta, multipronged campaign” (NYTimes) was hailed as a “masterclass” (Adweek).

The SuperBowl is a big opportunity for brand, but it’s also the most competitive space. It’s hard for anyone to stand out, especially a pharma skincare brand created by dermatologists.

The only way we could win was to think of a completely new and disruptive way to look at the SuperBowl. Which is exactly what we did.

Rather than the typical playbook of releasing a teaser and pre-releasing the commercial, we decided to make our commercial the punchline to a month-long media-driven campaign. Which meant not only did we not follow the typical Super Bowl rules… we didn’t even announce we were in it.

Instead we used a robust media strategy with a game changing strategy that put audiences at the center of the story. That strategy enabled CeraVe to become a "cultural icon" with 32B earned impressions, surpassing CeraVe's goal of 1B earned impressions... three weeks before the SuperBowl.