ATN Rolls Out #FinishStrong for Avon's 'Mark'

 

The #FinishStrong campaign marks AllTogetherNow’s first beauty launch for Avon, after the agency picked up the global corporate digital business for the beauty giant earlier this year.

The creative, led by Creative Director Sam Willard, explores new territories for the Avon brand with scenes of fun and mischievousness – aiming to grab the attention of mark’s 18-30 year-old target audience. From an early morning food fight in a London café, to late night trolley-racing in a rooftop car park – the two ads aim to challenge the norms of beauty advertising.

The driving message of the campaign is that the product is designed to last “wherever the night takes you” – making it perfect for day-to-night-time use.

 

It will roll out across VOD, DOOH, display and social – supported by influencer activity. Influencers have been briefed to create Instagram Stories of a night out – the twist being that the nights play out in reverse – a selfie at the end of the night showing their lips looking fabulous – proving the product’s long-lasting qualities.

Stephen Rendu, Director of Beauty and Advertising at Avon, said: “At Avon we believe makeup should be high performing and fun and AllTogetherNow have really captured this sentiment in this fantastic campaign for Lip Tattoo. We’re excited by the new direction this campaign takes the brand in, and we’re confident this will grab our audience’s attention.”

Sam Willard, Creative Director at AllTogetherNow, said: “We’re excited to have created this bold campaign for Avon. It really starts to set them apart from other beauty brands and we’ve had a lot of fun working on this.” 

Mike Phillips
Strategic Lead ATN
 

Sam Willard
Creative Director AllTogetherNow
 

Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.

As Creative Director, I worked with our creatives on the scripts, helped sell them into Avon, attended the shoots and post – pushing all the time, to make the best work we could.

I worked on the strategy side of things, shaping the creative brief to point the creative teams in the right direction, as well as aligning with the media team to understand the best formats and journey to take consumers on. 

Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?

The #FinishStrong campaign is for Avon’s new 2-in-1 lip tattoo. Lasting much longer than lipstick, Avon’s lip stain means that whatever you get up to, come the end of the night – your lips will still look stunning. Our 2 hero ads showed women whose nights had taken an unusual turn – a food fight in a East London café and trolley racing on top of a car park.

Tell us about the creative brief, what did it ask?

The product is a lip-stain, a lipstick with staying power. We needed the creatives to come up with ways to dramatise how long it could last, but avoiding all the obvious clichés that are everywhere in makeup advertising. One of the most annoying things about wearing lipstick is it wearing off and having to reapply, so we wanted to show what it looks like when you can just get on with your evening, not having to worry about what your lips look like, because this new lipstick lasts as long as you do. 

Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?

When it comes to advertising lipstick, especially with long lasting claims, we’ve seen it all. The cliché biting into food, kissing a napkin and close ups of women licking their lips. So we wanted to show something different – we wanted to create make up adverts that didn’t look like makeup adverts, and that showed no matter what you end up doing, your lipstick can last the whole evening.

Can you share with us any alternative ideas (if any) for this campaign? Why was this idea chosen?  

We had various other scripts on the table, involving alpacas, pedalos and Halloween parties, but these 2 final scripts felt the most unexpected and visually striking.

How did the client initially react to this idea?

Trolley was the first script we had signed off – it came from our original pitch deck. Food fight came later and we were unsure how it would land with our clients. Women squirting ketchup and mustard at one another – across the table of a greasy spoon, was a big change in direction for Avon and doesn’t instantly scream “beauty ad” at you. Thankfully though, our clients saw the fun and disruptive nature of the script and bought it.

What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development.

Creatively this campaign was a bit of a departure from where Avon normally plays, so we had to try hard to keep the fun and lighthearted setting on the one hand, whilst also staying true to the Avon brand on the other. We’re really proud of where we ended up, a modern and vibrant series of films that still lands all the product proof-points required for a lip stain launch.

What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?

Having an actual food fight in a greasy spoon was certainly different. Always bring a spare shirt, even if you’re not in scene – you never know where ketchup will end up.

Where do you see this campaign going in the future?

With our series of films we’ve really explored how Avon can help your night finish strong - over the course of the year it will be fun to see other ways the brand can help tell that story, potentially even through digital tools or experiences to get more from your night.