How a viral TikTok gave Covergirl a ‘whole new angle’ to pitch a classic product and way to work with influencers

Going viral on TikTok isn’t a brand strategy but after seeing what it can do for brands like Ocean Spray and Adult Swim, it’s something many marketers now hope will happen for their own brands. For Covergirl, going viral on TikTok nearly sold out the company’s Simply Ageless 3-in-1 Foundation in-store and online and and gave marketers behind the brand a new way to market the product.

Covergirl inadvertently capitalized on another brand’s viral moment.

When KVD Beauty’s Good Apple foundation was going viral in March, TikToker Jada Irene Collins posted that she had found a drugstore dupe: Simply Ageless 3-in-1 Foundation. After watching the TikTok gain traction and go viral, Covergirl contacted Collins to put paid media behind the post and begin a relationship.

“It was a creator we had not been in contact with before,” said Kevin Shapiro, svp of US marketing for consumer beauty at Coty, adding that the brand’s traditional marketing for the product is typically targeting an older demographic but that the TikTok showed Covergirl that younger consumers, particularly those focused on skincare, could also be a target demographic.

Shapiro continued: “Obviously, she’s not concerned at 19 of fine lines and wrinkles but she’s skin aware and taking that preventative approach. That was a whole new angle for us… We really saw the power of bringing in a new way of looking at a classic [product].”

After partnering with Collins to put paid media behind the TikTok, Covergirl worked with e-commerce platform MikMak to track how users responded with their wallets. “The average add-to-cart rate for TikTok is 15% but for this it was 53%,” said Rachel Tipograph, founder and CEO of MikMak, adding that this was a good example of a brand using “social listening to identify a conversion opportunity” and that “it outperformed Facebook and Instagram by five times.” She did not provide exact figures.