How to Increase Pre-Launch Excitement for Your Holiday Product Drop

February 14, 2019

Kim Kardashian in a nude bodysuit leaning on a Baby Girl KKW Heart perfume bottle, and a mobile phone showing a young woman in a black baseball cap using the Kimoji Snapchat lens

This Valentine’s Day, young consumers are all hoping to receive those post-worthy gifts they’ve seen unboxed by their fave celebs on Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram. But what if they could help spread the word for you—before they’ve got their hands on your product?

Snapchat lenses can help your brand increase that pre-launch buzz before your product drops online or in-store. Let’s take a look at a creative case study we’ve designed for KKW Beauty’s line of fragrances to find out how you can leverage the power of peer-to-peer sharing on Snapchat!

The Valentine’s Day Effect

CPG brand marketers are well aware of the power of linking a new product launch to a major holiday (China’s Singles’ Day, anyone?) This upcoming Valentine’s Day Americans are set to spend a record $20.6 billion—and those buying for the people they love will spend an average of $161.96.

A turquoise bowl on a wooden table full of multi-color love hearts candy
Photo credit: Laura Briedis

KKW Chocolate Hearts

In 2018, KKW Beauty launched the Heart fragrances (BAE, BFF, & Ride or Die). Like Kim Kardashian West herself, KKW relies heavily on social media marketing and the power of UGC to promote the brand’s beauty products.


To ensure the Kimoji fragrances went viral, her marketing team created giant chocolate hearts filled with candy and the bottle itself as a celebrity send-out. These influencers created unboxing videos of themselves using a mallet they found in the box to smash the chocolate and reveal the product inside.

The Kimoji Snapchat Lens for KKW Fragrances

On January 31, 2019, the KKW Hearts line came out with three new releases: Baby Girl, Baddie, & Wifey. The product launch was timed perfectly to ensure fans could both help spread the word and have enough time to buy their fave heart for a loved one.

KKW’s marketing is social it’s core—making a Snapchat lens the perfect tool to amplify her Valentine’s Day messaging. We created a Kimoji lens to show how KKW could empower her fans to experience and share her brand on Snapchat, the social platform designed for peer-to-peer sharing.

We created 3D models of KKW’s new heart-shaped perfume bottles, and built a unique, custom-branded Face lens that combines just the right amount of beauty blur with a crown of KKW perfume hearts. Users can tap to switch between Baddie, Baby Girl and Wifey—and take a snap ‘wearing’ their favorite KKW Heart!

Snapchat AR Lenses for Social Media Marketing

With the Kimoji lens experience, it's about people over advertising – friend recommendations offer the most credibility. Snapchat lenses empower people to share the brands they love, building brand reputation in a fun and highly engaging way. Lenses can be shared as private snaps or stories on Snapchat, or do as the Kardashians do and shoot your content on Snapchat, save it to your camera roll, and share it in an Instagram story or as a static image that lives permanently in your feed!


KKW fans can show off their purchase (or cheekily indicate what they want for Valentine’s Day) to friends and loved ones even before the product is available to buy.

Be Visual, Go Viral

Young consumers like what their friends like. Share the Snapcode through Snapchat, via email (for example in a digital receipt), or on any type of print collateral. The ease of accessing the Snapcode ensures everyone can create and maximizes views.

Two women in brightly patterned tops standing shoulder to shoulder while looking at their mobile phone screens
Image via rawpixel

Shoppable AR Experience

Snapchat lenses helps customers stay engaged within the community before and after the buy. Combining your lens experience with the Shoppable AR Lens feature (we talk about it here) allows you to add a “Buy Now”, “Watch”, or “Install” button to the lens. These calls to action make your ROI easily measurable as users could be redirected to to your e-commerce website or app download.

Tapping into Millenials and Gen Z: The Snapchat Advantage

KKW Beauty is perfectly positioned alongside Kim Kardashian’s personal brand and aesthetic. Looking at Snapchats user statistics, 70% of users are female and 45% of total users are between the ages of 18-24. This is very similar to Kim’s followers on Instagram: 72% of Kim are female, 54% are between the ages of 18-24. This means Snapchat lenses are the perfect tool to advertise and share content with KKW’s target audience.


Interested in taking your Snap game to the next level? Reach out to learn how we can build your own custom branded Snapchat lens.

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