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Aug 08, 2023

Maybelline Underground marketing campaign sends London into meltdown

A video of a Maybelline marketing stunt had gone viral – but there’s a twist.

The clip, which has earned 60,000 likes on TikTok at the time of writing, first shows a tube train fitted with huge rubber ‘lashes’ over the front window.

There’s also a large Maybelline Lash Sensational Sky High ad behind it, with a big 3D mascara wand sticking out of it.

As the carriage pulls into the station, the wand’s brush hits the rubber lashes, and they bounce back and forth.

Then the clip cuts to a similar scene that shows a double-decker bus with a similar set of big rubber lashes above the front top window.

Even more impressively, these lashes are brushed by a bigger Sky High wand that bends out from a building.

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But the twist is that both of these neat little stunts aren’t actually real.

The Maybelline marketing team is behind the video, but what you’re seeing only exists in digital form – so no, you can’t go and visit the giant mascara wand building.

Delphine Consigny, Marketing Director at Maybelline UK, tells Metro.co.uk that they ‘wanted to create a disruptive marketing campaign to hero our mascara.’

People have been raving about the stunt in the comments, with one person writing: ‘Okay but this actually makes me want to buy it.’

‘Marketing team need a raise,’ said another.

And don’t worry if you didn’t clock that it was fake, because that was the whole point.

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‘We worked with Ian Padgham to create the content, a video artist from California,’ the Maybelline rep explains.

‘The brief was to create something that surprised the consumer and made them question if it was real or fake. We wanted him to create a digital asset that was fun and entertaining while spotlighting Britain’s No.1 Mascara.

‘Ian certainly delivered, and we can’t believe the pick-up and momentum the digital asset has garnered with people amazed it isn’t real and calling it “genius marketing” and entertaining comments such as “maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s the Jubilee”.’

Sky High mascara has enjoyed more than its fair share of viral moments since it was launched.

The product, which costs £11.99, has been hailed by the TikTok girlies as one of the very best budget mascaras out there right now.

I myself can attest – it’s very major.

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