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Why beauty brand Clé de Peau Beauté made its TikTok debut with Martha Stewart

By Awards Analyst, writer

December 7, 2022 | 5 min read

Clé de Peau Beauté won in the Best Influencer Campaign and Best Use of TikTok category at The Drum’s Social Media Awards in 2022. Here we find out what went into the project…

Clé de Peau Beaute ad featured Martha Stewart / Clé de Peau Beaute

The premium beauty brand set out to expand its following and introduce its products to a new generation, meeting them where they go for beauty tips and inspiration: TikTok and Instagram.

The brief

Clé de Peau Beauté is set on a mission to introduce its products to a new generation, but how do you get millennials to stop scrolling and buy a $75 Concealer? The brand needed an icon who wasn’t afraid to turn heads.

The idea

Enlisting the help of Martha Stewart to reveal Clé de Peau Beauté as her secret to the perfect selfie, including her infamous ’thirst trap’ photo, was key. The brand wanted to surprise viewers by juxtaposing luxury beauty with a playful tone, and Stewart was the perfect fit.

The TikTok videos had to look native to the platform but still perform like ads. Clé de Peau Beauté leaned into Stewart's genuine passion for the products and her engaging personality and tongue-in-cheek humor. It knew that TikTok can be a tricky platform to navigate. Users are quick to mock inauthentic, unrelatable content.

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A Gen-Z focus group ensured the script wouldn’t make Stewart come off as trying to be a ‘cool mom’, but rather her beloved self as a badass aunty. She had already set the tone with her ‘thirst trap’ selfie the previous summer, and the brand needed to incorporate the social trends of how-to beauty tutorials, lifestyle-guides, plus the choreography and body language that’s native to the platform.

The results

The brand created five different videos, with the first garnering over 5m views in the first five days. In total, across all content, Clé de Peau Beauté exceeded 78m views on TikTok and Instagram.

Beyond the platforms, it sparked 43 press articles and over 3b impressions.

This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Social Media 2022. Find out how you can enter now.