Beauty Brand’s DOOH-Extended Reality Billboard In Kyiv Generates Huge Online Buzz

October 17, 2023 by Dave Haynes

This is interesting in a couple of ways – a slice of normal in Ukraine’s main city and evidence of the impact of marketing stunts using big outdoor digital displays.

The beauty brand Maybelline worked with an extended reality company called Ffface.me to promote a new mascara product called Falsies Surreal, using a street-level kiosk to push the experience on that small screen to a vast one on the side of a shopping mall in Kyiv.

The “activation” was only done for one day last week, and would have been seen in person by perhaps a few thousand pedestrians and motorists. But the online/social media action was huge.

“First activation results were incredible: 3 million organic views and mentions, and this is only the tip of the iceberg as we are collecting data to see the full picture,” Alina Odolska, group brand manager at Maybelline NY, told AdWeek. “We are sure that this project will definitely become a best practice for our international colleagues, and in the nearest future, AR mirrors will be all over the world.”

Maybelline is familiar with the notion of using visual trickery to generate buzz. A recent social media campaign featured realistic videos that suggested commuter trains and buses in London had eyelashes touched up by giant brushes on the sides of buildings and in subway tunnels.

The media company Ocean Outdoor describes these sorts of things – including forced perspective creative on big LED displays – as social media amplification. The in-person viewership is the foundational audience, but the far greater audience comes from people seeing and sharing videos via platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Photos were hard to find for this, so if these need credits to use, let me know and I can add. There was nothing obvious saying so.