express your e.l.f.

e.l.f. Cosmetics invites you to live your bold truth by proudly expressing your e.l.f. in its first-ever community-led brand campaign in the UK, created by Southpaw. To bring the e.l.f. acronym (eyes.lips.face.) to life in an irreverent, fun and cheeky way, e.l.f. turned to its community asking them “what does e.l.f. mean to you?” Their responses inspired the campaign. From “euphoric.luminous.fierce.” to “every.life.free.”, the campaign celebrates the individuality of every eye, lip and face. .

Creating a poem/rap that started with the acronym e.l.f. was part of the challenge, but truly and authentically represented the nuanced and diverse subcultures of the U.K. Celebrating how they use makeup to show self-expression.

A full 360 ATL brand awareness campaign, launching the first UK brand campaign for e.l.f. Hitting social, a huge billboard campaign nationwide, Oxford Street tube takeover and TV.

“The creative lead at Southpaw Catherine almost single-handedly created our EXPRESS YOUR E.L.F. campaign for e.l.f. Cosmetics, coming up with the core idea, influencing client conversations, and creatively conducting the whole production. She was the beating heart of a campaign that truly influenced culture” Glenn Smith Southpaw

THE UNLOCK - SOCIAL FIRST CAMPAIGN

We used our culture tools to identify a new movement in UK culture called ‘unapologetically me’, where established conventions around beauty and style are being questioned and young people are embracing their own individual style in defiance of perfection and sameness.

THE IDEA

We flipped the script on beauty advertising and empowered our audience to create e.l.f.’s first UK brand campaign. Born out of social, we asked our audience to define their personal style using three words starting with ‘E’, ‘L’ and ‘F’, turning the results into a bespoke e.l.f. manifesto. In a final twist, we used street casting to find totally real and unique individuals to become the faces of this new movement in beauty culture.

THE RESULTS

“Southpaw continue to push our creative boundaries at every stage of the process. They are inspiring partners who collaborate with all stakeholders, constantly have our community and superpowers in mind and are always finding ways to make deeper connections into culture."

Lauren Thornton
AVP of International Marketing, e.l.f. Cosmetics

6 MILLION Express Your e.l.f. campaign video views DOUBLED unprompted awareness in the first 12 months