CeraVe scored one of the best campaigns at this year’s Super Bowl with a delightfully weird spot centered on Michael Cera. The brand's first big game ad succeeded at building buzz with a strategy that leaned on social and earned media in the weeks leading up to the main event.  

The L’Oréal skincare brand is back with a new campaign that uses a similar approach and looks to get in front of consumers as Hollywood blockbuster season begins. Instead of floating a fake founder, CeraVe this time around has positioned itself as one half of a romantic comedy couple, including through a movie teaser-like ad.

The tropes in the trailer for “The One Under the Sun” will be familiar to most consumers, whether they’re rom-com novices or went to the theater and helped turn “Anyone But You” into a surprise smash. In the video, an adorkable young woman, aided by two sassy friends, looks for love in someone “rich but not greasy,” who isn't “another summer fling” and “protects [her] always.”

Then, there’s a meet-cute, as the protagonist falls in front of matchmaker — and real-life dermatologist — Dr. Wallace Nozile. But in this “unexpected love story,” the match isn’t a beau but a bottle. As the woman slathers CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion over her face at dinner, a friend quips, “At least she’s using protection.”

For CeraVe and agency 72andSunny, producing a trailer for a fake rom-com made perfect sense as the brand — like countless others — wants to engage younger consumers for whom the “skip ad” button has become a favorite, explained Adam Kornblum, senior vice president and global head of digital marketing at CeraVe.

“Let’s be real: Consumers are tired of traditional advertising,” the executive said. “The question was, how do we hack this kind of traditional advertising? How can we disguise our message in something entertaining?”

CeraVe looked to how Hollywood does it, leaning on the simple insight that movie trailers have a better watch-through rate than traditional ads on YouTube. A rom-com format allowed the brand to blur the lines between advertising, entertainment and education, while also leveraging the popularity of reality dating shows.

“Rom-coms are generally relatable, they’re playful, but yet they touch on serious topics, and that’s also the CeraVe brand as well, so the [brand’s] personality really aligns to the theme,” Kornblum said.

Amplifying media

CeraVe’s Super Bowl campaign cut through the slog of pre-game teasers and trailers by amplifying paid media with earned media. The multichannel rollout included headline-grabbing Instagram videos, paparazzi photos, influencer unboxings and podcast appearances.

For “The One Under the Sun,” the brand is tapping into influencers, reality show stars and “dermfluencers” across social channels. Elements include a launch on Nozile’s TikTok, movie poster designers whose work will be used in out-of-home activations and movie reviewers who will post their takes on the trailer. The campaign will appear in select movie theaters across the country and run through June, with additional promotion on social, digital and streaming platforms.

While the brand’s last campaign relied on meme accounts and conspiracy theorists to instigate earned media around the Michael Cera-CeraVe connection, the rom-com effort will play up double entendres that mix product benefits with genre sentiments: A “partner that doesn’t smell bad” for a fragrance-free formula and “not just a summer fling” for a year-round product with SPF 30 are some examples.

“[There are] cute ways to tell the story and speak to the product,” Kornblum said. “It’s just extending what we do from an influencer perspective.”