At the 2024 CommerceNexty Awards, e.l.f. Cosmetics was honored with the Marketing Innovator of the Year Award for their creative and engaging true crime parody documentary, Cosmetic Criminals. This campaign humorously depicted the phenomenon of “e.l.f. pinching”—the act of borrowing makeup without any intention of returning it—prevalent in households everywhere.
We sat down with Laurie Lam, Chief Brand Officer at e.l.f. Beauty, to learn more about the inspiration behind Cosmetic Criminals and the brand’s approach to marketing. Read on for the full interview.
Katja Teichmann: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Cosmetic Criminals?
Laurie Lam: Cosmetic Criminals was born from a trifecta of insights. First, e.l.f. has broad universal appeal across generations. We are popular among Boomers and Gen X, and we’re also growing with Gen Z, Millennials, and even Gen Alpha, who are drawn to our cruelty free, affordable and clean products.
The second insight is the widespread “borrowing” of e.l.f. products without any intention of returning them. People often snag items from their sister, their roommates or even their grandmother. We noticed a trend of intergenerational exchanges, where mothers are learning beauty trends from their daughters, not just the other way around. This validates the first insight, which is the broad appeal that e.l.f. has.
Third, half of Americans enjoy true crime content and nearly 3/4 of true crime podcast listeners are women, consuming up to 10 episodes a month. We saw an opportunity to blend this love for true crime with our brand narrative.
These insights inspired us to create a suspenseful, comedic documentary about a family who falls victim to cosmetic criminal behavior, and everyone in the household has a reason to be a suspect for “e.l.f.-pinching.”
We wanted to authentically tell this story in a way that brings a lesson brought to life through our protagonist with the quote “e.l.f. is so affordable…Why don’t you buy your own? Seriously, the mascara is like $5.” I love that line because it came out organically; it’s also something that we hear consistently from our community. e.l.f. delivers premium quality products at extraordinary value.
Cosmetic Criminals marked a lot of firsts for us: our first true-crime parody documentary, our first long-form content series reaching 15 minutes, our first spot with such a large, diverse star-studded cast starring award-winning actress Niecy Nash as our FBI agent. This was the first wavemaker campaign to hit theater screens, reaching up to 12M moviegoers nationwide.
Teichmann: I love that this campaign arose from those three insights. What role do customer insights and data play in shaping your marketing campaigns?
Lam: Simply put, everything we do starts with an insight from our community. There isn’t one thing—from our innovation to our campaigns—that doesn’t begin with our community-led and social-led insights. This mindset is deeply rooted in the DNA of our company. e.l.f. Beauty has always been disruptive, digital-first, and we’ve most certainly put our community at the core of everything we do.
This is not just a goal post; the relentless focus on our community is ingrained in every e.l.f. employee. Our brand and marketing teams dedicate time to comb through community and fan comments. This allows our campaigns to be relatable and resonate deeply with our community because we are able to reflect their needs, thoughts and desires. We take feedback seriously and act on the input from our community with e.l.f. speed.
Teichmann: Were there any challenges you faced while you were planning and executing the campaign? And how did you overcome that?
Lam: The biggest challenge is how do we put our head in our stars to see how much further we can go is filtering through all the great ideas that come from the team. Have we thought big enough? Have we used expansive thinking? Have we really explored the unlimited possibilities?
There is a push for us to always lean in. We believe in failing forward to make progress and evolve. Take big risks, take them often and learn from them because not every single thing we do will be successful. We always challenge ourselves to think bigger and keep pushing the ideas. Cosmetic Criminals was a success because it balanced cultural relevance with emotional resonance wrapped up in a 15-minute entertaining documentary.
Teichmann: What trends in ecommerce/marketing do you see as game-changers for the future?
Lam: The game of AI is going to change the way we market and create content to build efficiencies to reach our consumer. To balance that, it’s really important for us to fuel the human connections with our community. Deepening our connections and the ways in which we interact with our loyalty members in Beauty Squad will become increasingly important. AI will provide tools that allow us to do more, but I predict it will never replace the human-to-human connection with all of our consumers and retail partners.
Teichmann: Is there anything else that you want our community to know about Cosmetic Criminals or e.l.f.’s branding?
Lam: One of the things that e.l.f. does really well is that it stays at the center of the cultural zeitgeist. We move at the speed of culture and shape culture with our community. Our fans come to e.l.f. because we deliver values with incredible value. We’re cruelty free and clean, formulating without 2,900 restricted ingredients meeting EU Cosmetic Regulation & FDA requirements. Our marketing is fueled by being boldly disruptive and bringing our kind hearts to our products and campaigns. Our unique ethos allows us to continuously disrupt norms, shape culture and connect communities.
Cosmetic Criminals is available to watch on Freevee. We’re really excited about the way our community has responded to the documentary and how it unintentionally united generations of e.l.f.-pinchers in households everywhere.
If you haven’t already, you can watch Cosmetic Criminals here.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
