A beauty ad’s interpretation of interactivity

Nowadays, interactivity almost always involves some digital device. It doesn’t have to be this way, as Brazilian ad agency DM9DDB, Neutrogena and the Brazilian weekly Caras demonstrated. They designed a cover that allows readers to see, feel and test Neutrogena’s make-up removal wipes. How? By trying them out on the magazine’s cover model. When the wipes were used on her face, the make-up came off, and the model’s face emerged seemingly without make-up in its natural beauty.

“We were looking for the best way to represent the product benefits and we found a good and direct way”, says Andrea Nascimento, DM9DDB’s director of communications. “People could remove the model’s face make up in the magazine as well as make-up on their own faces.”  The weekly magazine Caras featured actress Giovanna Ewbank on its cover and also gave away free product samples of the Deep Clean wipes. The only thing the reader has to do is use the wet tissue and wipe off the makeup on the actress’ face. The stunt drew a lot of attention to Neutrogena’s wipes.

While DM9DDB remained silent on the exact chemistry involved, they let us know they used Couchê Matte 210g paper with a Digital Print HP 7600. Experts inferred that the lipstick and eye make-up was applied to the model’s face after the printing process but there was no clear agreement on how it was done. DM9DDB said that a combination of offset, laminate and digital print was used to achieve the effect.

It is clear that DM9 wanted to surprise and engage the consumer: “This interactive piece of press gives consumers the power to star in the campaign. They handle the product, test, prove and evaluate the outcome”, says DM9 Vice President Drian Ferguson. Studies have shown that people who have the chance to interact with a product by handling and touching it are more likely to make a purchase. If there is an element of playfulness and surprise, customer engagement increases even further. 26,000 magazines with the interactive cover were published and distributed around São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

EDM9DDB had already created the first magazine ad with a working “Like” button that connects directly to Facebook.