• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, July 15, 2024

Still basking in the warm glow of its recent Cannes Grand Prix, CeraVe is unleashing the next step in “edutainment:” a soap opera starring the Cleansington family. Working with 72andSunny, the L’Oréal-owned brand has packed plenty of soap opera and telenovela cliches into the two-minute film, which stars Xochitl (“Dancing with the Stars”) Gomez. It’s the latest in CeraVe’s “Cleanse Like a Derm” effort. The campaign will enlist 40 influencers to create social content that showcases bad cleansing habits and an elaborate mobile tour to teach consumers how to find a drama-free routine.

Kelly Buchanan Spillers, global vice president and head of digital and social, tells Marketing Daily about the new effort.

Marketing Daily: You are new in this role, stepping in as Adam Kornblum moves over to global chief creative at L’Oréal and right on the heels of the “Michael CeraVe” campaign cleaning up in Cannes. That’s a tough act to follow!

Kelly Buchanan Spillers: It’s an honor. Adam and I have known each other for a long time, so stepping into this kind of legacy is a pleasure.

Marketing Daily: Tell us why you’re using a soap opera spoof to take the drama out of skin care.

Spillers: We're continuing this immersive storytelling world that CeraVe has built, and when it comes to animating our facial cleanser category, we always have tentpole moments in the summertime. We want to educate people to break bad cleansing habits. We learned that 42% of people wash their face with hand or bar soap, which is shocking -- there are such harsh ingredients in them.

We decided this was an opportunity to educate people on how facial skin differs from skin on the rest of your body. And we figured, if people use soap to wash their face, why not change their minds with a soap opera? And soap operas are also a fun idea because there’s a world of tropes -- think of “Dallas,” “General Hospital” and “All My Children.” There’s some real nostalgia for all that now on social media -- even from people who weren’t alive when those shows aired. That gave us a template to paint our brand colors on. It’s a great format for all our branding cues.

Marketing Daily: I love how Gomez faints when she sees all the hideous bar soaps. I am curious about why you’ve decided to villainize bar soap, though. It seems odd to promote more plastic waste, especially given the interest in clean beauty, particularly when CeraVe makes plenty of bar soaps for facial cleansing. Why don’t you want people to buy CeraVe bar soaps?

Spillers: This campaign talks about our liquid products. And you’re right -- our consumer tends to be way more conscientious of their consumption habits, including how much water they use. But the bar soaps we sell are not necessarily in the same formulations as what you see in this bottle of cleanser we’re promoting in this ad. We are working on a couple of initiatives for more sustainable formats, and you’ll see them in the coming year.

Marketing Daily: So for now, plastic is good and soap is the villain. But we can expect it to have a heroic turn soon?

Spillers: Exactly.

Marketing Daily: Who is your target market for this? Everyone from the abuela down to Gomez is a CeraVe user. What’s your sweet spot?

Spillers: We're targeting Gen Z and even Gen Alpha in earnest with this campaign, and that's for a couple of reasons. We know they're influential people in their household -- walking down the aisles and putting items in the basket. But we feature multiple generations in the cast because we have a cleanser for every skin type. We’re also reaching out to these younger consumers because they have a plethora of options, and we’re trying to position ourselves as the most accessible, efficacious, medically forward brand. We’ll reach them as we roll out on YouTube and through our influencer effort.

Marketing Daily: Will you do any TV?

Spillers: Yes. Shorter formats -- 30-second and 15-second -- will run on streaming TV.

Marketing Daily: One reason “Michael CeraVe” made such a big splash was the campaign’s success at the Super Bowl. Will the soap opera be linked to the Olympics, another big cultural moment?

Spillers: No.

Marketing Daily: The casting is great, and I love their names -- Sara V and S. Ken Barrier as Karen and Vernon Cleansington.  What made you choose Gomez for the part?

Spillers: We identified her early on because she is an organic CeraVe user, mentioning us in one of her videos a long time ago. Our team kept her in mind and invited her to respond to our brief. She did it so well because it turns out that she watched telenovelas with her abuela back in the day. She just took right to the part! She will also help us kick off the mobile tour here in New York next month, along with Dustin Portela, M.D., the dermatologist who stars in the ad.