Dive Brief:
- Estée Lauder and Expedia are teaming up on a contest in which customers can win a trip to one of the tropical destinations that inspired the beauty brand's spring gift-with-purchase products, a joint press release announced.
- People can enter to win a trip to one of eight destinations, including Morocco, Bali and Santorini, through May 13 by sharing a selfie of their dream vacation makeup looks on Instagram with the hashtags #esteexexpediacontest and selected destination hashtag, such as #flymetobali or #flymetocapri, and by tagging @Esteelauder and @Expedia.
- Customers can receive a free printed cosmetic bag filled with products with any qualifying $37.50 purchase from participating department stores, including Macy's, Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdale's.
Dive Insight:
With its Expedia partnership, Estée Lauder intends to give customers the chance to experience firsthand the exotic and luxurious vibe that's been signature to the beauty brand for decades. Both companies are leveraging the visual focus of Instagram to drum up some engagement and user-generated content on the platform while growing their individual followings. Consumers, particularly younger ones in the millennial and Gen Z age groups, often seize opportunities to share selfies showing their experiences on social media through photos of them with their favorite places, products or brands.
Sweepstakes like this are one way brands can ride that trend in order to encourage customer participation. The collaboration with Estée Lauder echoes other recent social media-focused travel getaway contests. In December, the Expedia-owned site Travelocity ran a contest on Tinder where users could win a 10-day Caribbean vacation by interacting with a "Roaming Gnome" statue and posting photos or videos of why they are the perfect travel companion. People could also enter via Instagram with the hashtag #BeMyGnomieContest.
Estée Lauder has been expanding its digital offerings and enhancing its social media strategy to offer more personalized experiences. In July, the company unveiled a lipstick-advising chatbot on Facebook Messenger, where customers could search the line's vast lipstick color collection and virtually try on selected colors through an augmented reality selfie. Estée Lauder has also used similar tech to create a virtual reality platform to train its 17,000 beauty advisers.
