Maybelline

Branding, Animation, Web Design & Production

Objective

Collaborating with New York City's Interactive8 (and subsequently Luminant Worldwide), PERSONE was heavily involved and contributed greatly to the design and development of Maybelline's first website and online brand presence. The goal was to freshen and modernize the brand and appeal to a younger generation of tech-savvy young women.

Approach

The team's initial focus was the design and production of Maybelline's first product-focused marketing web site (then www.maybelline.com). We used much of the offline branding as a starting point for the online site, but also added elements of interactivity and animation as well as user feedback and customer outreach and community building to really take advantage of the budding online landscape. The team created an aspirational online competition, and supporting micro-site, called the "Maybelline5" which would appeal to this new demographic of web-savvy girls. We had a sweepstakes and chose 5 girls from around the USA, followed their trip to New York City, and then provided a virtual web log for them to share pictures, journal entries, and more to their followers for the next year.

In addition to designing much of the product site, we also produced much of the interactive content for the Maybelline5 contest and many of the interactive Flash elements on the site. We also designed and produced most of the seasonal and featured-product driven "color stories," almost all of which included animation and product interactivity. These were playful online translations of offline branding which introduced Maybelline's web users to their ever-changing product line in a fun, engaging manner.

Along with launching a product site with extensive product offerings, Maybelline also wanted to reach out to current product users as well as extend their messaging to a wider audience. We developed a newsletter mini-site called "The Maybelline Scene" that offered an animated home page which would offer short, quick-to-read articles about new products, fashion trends, cultural and lifestyle subjects and also offered a poll as a chance for readers to engage with the brand, voice their opinion about certain issues, and for Maybelline to collect some user data.

Summary

Being involved in the brand's online development process from the ground up gave us a real depth of understanding of how we could approach brand goals via a web site and online community. We translated offline campaigns into interactive experiences with the brand and their products, and extended the marketing focus to a wider demographic.