Imagine being on your daily commute through Manhattan when you turn the corner and spot a 10-foot ball of hair rolling down the street. No, you’re not hallucinating. It’s TumbleHair, one of the many examples of just how quirky beauty marketing has become. The larger-than-life stunt was dreamed up by haircare brand K18 to represent the equivalent of the hair New Yorkers could retain with K18’s new FutureIQ Hair Longevity Serum.
While a giant ball of hair rolling through New York City might sound bizarre, it’s emblematic of a larger shift in beauty. Brands are increasingly trading traditional promotional tactics for unexpected, sometimes downright absurd experiences designed to stop people in their tracks—and get them talking. From oversized product installations to unconventional pop-ups, outlandish marketing has become a way for beauty brands to cut through the noise in an increasingly crowded market.
According to Haley Menkis, in-house consultant for product innovation and marketing at Tower 28, this shift partly reflects how predictable beauty marketing has become. Just a few years ago, brands relied heavily on influencer seeding, hoping a flood of unboxing and get-ready-with-me videos would generate buzz. “That content still works, but everyone runs a version of it, so it’s difficult to stand out,” she shares. “Brands had to find a different way to engage.”
Now, the goal isn’t simply to get a product in front of consumers—it’s to create a moment so unexpected that people feel compelled to document and share it. But beyond the viral videos and social media chatter, is embracing the bizarre actually good for business? Ahead, we unpack why beauty marketing is getting more unusual than ever and what brands stand to gain.
Why Beauty Marketing Is Getting So Over-the-Top
Beauty is an ultra-saturated market, and what used to be considered “good” marketing no longer cuts it. “There are more brands, more launches, and an endless amount of content all competing for the same consumer. Attention has become the real currency,” says Laura Minch, a brand builder and global marketing executive. “The brands getting attention and finding a way into culture are the ones winning, so naturally the stunts and activations are getting weirder, bigger, and more unexpected.”
That competition for attention has pushed brands to think beyond conventional campaigns, leaning into everything from life-size product replicas to elaborate . The more unexpected the experience, the more likely consumers are to stop, document it, and share it with their followers. “Anything that is Instagrammable and able to garner attention first in the physical world and then online creates virality,” adds Ana Andjelic, a brand advisor and organizer of Tasteful Summit.
But the shift toward increasingly elaborate activations isn’t just about capturing attention in the moment. It’s also a response to how quickly consumers become accustomed to—and eventually tune out—once-popular marketing tactics. As Andjelic explains, brands are constantly competing for visibility within the same media ecosystem. “Brands hire and partner with creators, have pop-ups and events, and resort to marketing gimmicks. Brands buy attention, and whichever brand has the biggest budget gets the most attention. Innovation in formats goes with the law of diminishing returns: if brands see that consumers grow tired of a specific content format, like unboxings, for example, they will optimize their return on investment elsewhere.”
For beauty brands, that means finding new ways to turn passive audiences into active participants. While traditional product launches still have a role, K18’s chief marketing officer, Kleo Mack, explains that brands must think beyond simply putting a product in someone’s hands to spark conversation. Instead, the focus is shifting toward creating experiences that invite curiosity, participation, and organic social sharing, no matter how unconventional they may seem. “The best activations give consumers something to discover, question, film, or talk about.”
The IRL-to-FYP Pipeline
While this marketing shift is a natural evolution, Andjelic adds that the quest for differentiation can’t be ignored. “Glossier pioneered experiential marketing within the beauty industry, which created immersive retail spaces and pop-ups in unusual places,” she says. “Experiential marketing isn’t new, and most formats are borrowed from food and beverage brands. Still, beauty brands more readily resort to it because it generates high amounts of impressions and user-generated content.”
That’s the appeal of these increasingly unconventional experiences: They aren’t designed solely for the people who encounter them in person. They’re also created with social media in mind. “The goal isn’t always immediate sales but attention and a story that outlasts the activation itself,” Menkis says.
To do that, brands are leaning into larger-than-life installations and unexpected experiences that practically beg to be filmed. Take K18’s TumbleHair campaign, brought to life by creative agency Uncommon. The spectacle eventually made its way to Sephora’s Meatpacking District store, where consumers could get a complimentary scalp analysis and learn about and try the new serum. The result was exactly the kind of double-take-worthy moment brands hope will travel from the streets to social media. “There were a lot of WTFs, pointing, laughing, and of course pulling out phones and recording,” says Cara Johnson, creative director at Uncommon.
Of course, not every activation needs to be quite so outrageous to get people talking. Sometimes, giving consumers an unexpected way to interact with a familiar product is enough. Tower 28, for example, installed a first-of-its-kind hypochlorous acid-spraying billboard in downtown New York City. The billboard invited passersby to press a button and receive a spritz of the brand’s beloved SOS Daily Rescue Spray. “We wanted an activation that dispensed the product when someone pressed the button because who doesn’t need a quick calming and antibacterial moment in the summer in NYC?” Menkis says. The interactive element gave consumers more than something to photograph; it gave them an experience worth sharing.
Across all cosmetic categories, brands are finding creative ways to turn ordinary public spaces into unexpected beauty moments. ChapStick erected a 30-foot inflatable squeeze tube in New York City to celebrate its 145th birthday and new Hydrabalm squeeze-tube format. NYX took a cheekier approach, installing larger-than-life inflatable butts outfitted in colorful thongs in New York and Los Angeles to promote its body care line and Fat Cheeks Butt Sheet Mask. Meanwhile, The Ordinary debuted The Markup Marché, a series of satirical, supermarket-inspired experiences that marketed everyday food and household products with the same embellished claims, elevated prices, and luxe packaging often associated with beauty.
Even celebrity brands are experimenting with the unexpected. Selena Gomez’s created a giant rollerball billboard that let passersby experience its first fragrance, Rare Eau de Parfum, on the streets of New York City. “They’re novel, and it’s a slightly weird experience to go around smelling the walls of New York, but you’re also experiencing the product in the process,” Minch says. “The idea of a scented billboard is innovative.”
Is It Worth It?
Getting people to stop, stare, and pull out their phones is one thing. But does all that attention actually pay off for beauty brands? The answer depends on what they’re trying to achieve. Some activations aim to generate awareness or social media buzz around a new launch, while others encourage product discovery, drive consumers to retail, and ultimately boost sales. A viral moment might achieve the first goal, but translating that attention into purchases is another challenge entirely.
A key part of making this type of beauty marketing work is what Minch calls “edu-taining” consumers after capturing their attention. “They need to learn about the product in a way that’s fun, entertaining, and part of an experience,” Minch says. “Social currency can translate directly to what’s happening at retail, but not every viral stunt will move product. When it’s combined with attention to product discovery, education, or trial, the consumer has a reason to want it.”
Of course, sales aren’t the only way brands measure success. Social impressions, earned media coverage, consumer engagement, and brand awareness can all help determine whether an activation delivered on its goals. And what qualifies as a win can vary significantly depending on the brand’s size and investment.
Menkis explains that what “success” looks like scales with the brand. “A large-scale activation might target impressions in the hundreds of millions and multi-million-dollar earned media value. For Tower28, the brand measured the SOS billboard’s success by direct engagement (188,000+ New Yorkers were physically misted over two weeks), trade and consumer press, social conversations, and the halo effect on brand awareness. We had strong content views, so people outside of New York could feel the love.”
K18 similarly looked beyond how many people encountered TumbleHair in person, focusing on how far the campaign traveled once it hit social media. “We wanted genuine intrigue first that allowed the 822 people who attended to discover the brand connection afterward. The true success was whether that curiosity turned into conversation and greater awareness of both FutureIQ and the hair longevity category,” Mack says.
Those numbers show how an unusual IRL experience can generate attention well beyond those who physically encounter it. However, impressions and earned media value don’t necessarily tell us whether consumers are purchasing the product. Ultimately, that’s the distinction brands have to consider when investing in increasingly elaborate activations. As Andjelic points out, exciting the creative community and earning press coverage are valuable, but sales remain the ultimate measure of commercial success.
Where Do We Go from Here?
If the recent wave of unexpected beauty activations is any indication, outlandish marketing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the desire for unconventional experiences may only be growing. “We don’t see this appetite for the tangible going anywhere and, in fact, think it will only accelerate,” Johnson says. “We’re seeing a massive, cross-category demand from brands in beauty and beyond hungry to create real, physical experiences.”
Part of that appeal comes from the increasingly digital world we’re living in. “We’re quickly reaching a point where the digital backdrop feels almost synthetic. Against that landscape, the real, the weird, and the physically tangible become instantly more valuable,” Johnson says.
But as more brands embrace the bizarre, there’s also the risk of consumers developing stunt fatigue. After all, if every beauty brand rolls out oversized installations and outlandish pop-ups, how long before those experiences start to feel as predictable as the marketing tactics they replaced? “I don’t think every beauty brand needs to put something strange on the street,” Mack says. “If everyone starts chasing spectacle, it starts to become predictable.”
Ultimately, the future of beauty marketing may not be about creating the biggest, strangest, or most outrageous activation. Instead, the brands that stand out will find fresh ways to spark curiosity, invite participation, and build a genuine connection to their products.
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