Overview
Glam Up is a story driven digital video campaign created to reimagine how beauty is introduced to teen audiences. Instead of relying on exaggerated claims or product heavy messaging, the campaign focuses on emotional relatability and everyday moments, allowing teens to discover beauty products naturally through narrative, mood, and self expression.
By shifting from persuasion to empathy, Glam Up was designed to stop the scroll, reduce ad fatigue, and encourage genuine brand curiosity across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and X.
Background & Context
Gen Z beauty consumers don't respond to traditional product-heavy ads. They engage with stories, moods, and self-expression, especially in environments that feel native to their daily lives.
For this campaign, the target audience was teen users, many of whom experience beauty as part of their school routine, social identity, and online self-expression. Rather than showcasing products directly, the goal was to embed beauty discovery into a relatable narrative moment.
Problem Statement
Beauty ads often feel transactional and disruptive in social feeds. Teen users prioritize emotional resonance over technical product details. Existing brand videos lacked a clear narrative hook to stop scrolling. One off videos failed to connect storytelling with downstream discovery and click-through.
Campaign Goal
The goal was to capture attention within the first 1 to 2 seconds with a scroll stopping hook, translate beauty products into emotional modes (Chic / Colorful / Clean), create a story driven video that feels native to social platforms, and design a full funnel experience from video to curiosity to platform discovery.
Core Concept: The Locker Moment
The campaign concept was built around a school locker, a familiar and emotionally charged space for teen users. Opening a locker becomes a metaphor for choosing a mood, and by extension, choosing a makeup style that matches how you want to feel today.
This allowed beauty discovery to feel personal rather than promotional, playful rather than instructional, and visually intuitive rather than text-heavy.
Storyboard & Narrative Design
I independently designed the entire storyboard, mapping each scene with clear intent. The opening hook (0 to 2 seconds) used a tactile paper-tear transition to interrupt scrolling. The discovery moment featured a POV locker reveal, with products arranged like personal treasures. Mood chapters (Chic / Colorful / Clean) each had their own visual language. Product highlights were brief and stylized, never lingering too long. The brand close was memorable but non-intrusive.
Each beat was intentionally short, rhythm-driven, and optimized for vertical and horizontal placements, reflecting how ads actually perform in-feed.
Each beat was intentionally short, rhythm-driven, and optimized for vertical and horizontal placements, reflecting how ads actually perform in-feed.
My Role
I led the project from concept to final delivery. This included campaign concept and narrative strategy, full storyboard and shot planning, visual direction and on set creative decisions, model casting and coordination, video editing and motion enhanced typography, social cut-down strategy for TikTok and X, and platform aware storytelling from hook to click-through.
This was not just video production. It was designing an ad experience.
Platform Strategy
The campaign was intentionally designed to scale across formats. YouTube featured the long form hero video with high completion and view count. TikTok received vertical cuts optimized for short attention spans. X got feed native clips focused on visual punch and replayability.
Each version preserved the narrative core while adapting pacing and framing, reflecting an understanding of contextual ad delivery, not just creative output.
Visual & Motion Language
Handcrafted transitions (paper tear, locker reveal) added tactile realism. Floating typography and subtle motion reinforced mood without overpowering content. Color-coded environments differentiated beauty modes instantly. Minimal text allowed motion and expression to communicate meaning.
The result was a campaign that felt designed for feeds, not repurposed for them.
Results & Impact
The campaign achieved 126K+ organic views on YouTube, strong engagement across TikTok and X, increased traffic to the Ivy Beauty website via video description and social links, and demonstrated clear correlation between storytelling-led video and platform discovery.
Beyond numbers, the campaign proved that narrative-driven video ads can outperform product-forward creatives when targeting Gen Z audiences.
Why This Matters
This project reflects video first thinking, not static design. Storytelling designed for real ad environments. Awareness of attention economics and feed behavior. Ability to bridge creative direction, UX, and performance mindset.
I didn't just make a video. I designed a digital advertising experience that respects how users actually watch, scroll, and engage.
Reflection
Glam Up reinforced my belief that the most effective ads don't feel like ads. They feel like moments users choose to stay with. This project sharpened my ability to think as both a designer and a digital advertiser, aligning storytelling, motion, and platform behavior into a cohesive campaign.
