Any foundation ad can say “matches every skin tone.” Believing it from across the street is another matter. You only find out if it’s true when someone holds the right shade up to your face.
So that’s what the #InMySkin truck did. Bobbi Brown put its campaign in a fully wrapped glass box truck, and makeup experts on board color matched guests to their proper palette before giving them a glow-up. More than 1,000 guests came through. Over 2,000 makeup products and kits were distributed.
Promobile Marketing customized and wrapped the truck, then set up what was on it: the color-matching stations, two mirror installations and the #InMySkin Café. We build mobile brand activations like this one, where people try the product rather than scroll past an ad for it. Launching a collection soon? Send us the details and we can sketch out what a truck could do for it.
What Bobbi Brown Needed The job had two halves. Bobbi Brown wanted more people to know about its collection of products that match every skin tone. It also wanted to promote #InMySkin.
Those halves fit together better than most. Color matching shows off a shade range directly, with no copy required. And the #InMySkin message could ride along with everything else guests did once they were at the truck.
Five Things on One Truck There was more on board than makeup stations. Here’s the full lineup:
The Wrap We customized a glass box truck for Bobbi Brown and gave it a full wrap. The glass walls are why brands pick this vehicle type: it’s a showroom that moves. A mobile makeup salon is one of the ways to use a glass box truck we’ve covered before, and #InMySkin put it to work.
Shade Matching With Makeup Experts Makeup experts worked stations on the truck. Each guest was color matched to their proper palette and then got a glow-up.
Nothing else on the truck spoke to the brief as directly. Once you’ve been matched, you know which shades suit your skin. That is the case for a range made for every skin tone, argued one face at a time.
A Mirror Guests Could Write On One side of the truck had a mirror finish. Guests wrote affirming messages about their skin on it, so the campaign’s theme ended up in their own handwriting, facing outward.
A Mirror That Wrote Back The second mirror flipped that around. It had a digital text overlay, and when a guest approached, it generated a unique, positive message for them. No pen needed.
Iced Coffee at the #InMySkin Café The café served freshly made iced coffee drinks in branded cups. Plenty of people won’t walk up to a truck for a makeover. An iced coffee is an easier yes, and the cup keeps the brand in hand for a while afterward. AG1’s Good Morning Café is another activation that leaned on a café, if you’d like a second example.
Building a Beauty Truck of Your Own: Five Steps Want to borrow the format? This is roughly the order we’d plan it in.
Pick a truck with glass walls: A glass box truck turns the vehicle itself into a showroom.Hire makeup experts to run the stations: A shade match carries weight when someone who knows color does it.Plan a moment where guests answer the campaign back: On #InMySkin, that was the affirmations on the mirror finish and the messages from the overlay mirror.Lower the bar to entry: Iced coffee in a branded cup reaches people who weren’t looking for makeup.Count products, guests and impressions: Those were the three figures reported for #InMySkin.By the Numbers The case study lists three results for the truck. They cover what went out, who showed up and how many people saw it.
What was counted Total
Makeup products and kits distributed 2,000+ Guests 1,000+ Impressions 7,500+
Three Lessons for Beauty Marketers Test the claim in public: “Every skin tone” stops being a slogan when a makeup expert finds a guest’s palette right there. If your pitch rests on a product claim, set things up so people can check it on the spot.A hashtag works harder as an activity: #InMySkin showed up in what guests did: an affirmation written on one mirror, a message read off another, a coffee from a branded cup. Doing beats reading.Easy stops feed the bigger one s: A glow-up takes a few minutes. An iced coffee takes almost none, and someone holding one is a few steps from a makeup expert. For more formats beauty brands use to pull shoppers in, read how beauty brands boost retail traffic .Have a Collection to Launch? Shade-matching stations, two mirrors and a café, all on one truck. Fitting those pieces together is our side of the job, from customizing the vehicle to setting up each station. Get a quote for a truck of your own, or look through past Promobile activations first.
#InMySkin Truck: Questions and Answers Researching this campaign, or sizing up one like it? Start here.
Which campaign was the truck promoting? Bobbi Brown’s #InMySkin campaign. The truck was also there to build awareness for the brand’s collection of products that match every skin tone.
What happened at the color-matching stations? Makeup experts color matched each guest with their proper palette, then gave them a glow-up. All of it took place at stations on the truck.
Was there anything to do besides makeup? Yes, three things. Guests could write affirming messages about their skin on the mirror finish on the side of the truck. A second mirror, with a digital text overlay, generated a unique, positive message for each guest who approached it. And the #InMySkin Café served freshly made iced coffee drinks in branded cups.
What results did Bobbi Brown get from the truck? Over 2,000 makeup products and kits were distributed. The truck also saw more than 1,000 guests and logged 7,500+ impressions.
Is a glass box truck a good fit for a makeup activation? It can be. The glass-walled display area lets the truck work as a mobile showroom or makeup salon. On #InMySkin, it held the color-matching stations, and its side carried the mirror finish guests wrote on.
