Brief:

• Perfect Corp.'s YouCam Makeup app is running a contest to find the coolest and spookiest looks for Halloween, per an announcement. The winner of its Halloween Costume Makeup Contest will be featured as an augmented reality (AR) filter in the YouCam Halloween Look Collection that debuts next month as people get ready to dress up for the occasion.
• The grand prize winner also will win an editorial feature in YouCam Makeup spotlighting the look and $500 cash. To enter, contestants need to upload pictures of themselves wearing their Halloween makeup to a microsite and to vote on their favorite looks by Sept. 22.
• YouCam uses AR, facial recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help bring Halloween costume beauty looks to life. Virtual try-on technology has expanded beyond makeup effects to include hair color for a more complete look, per the announcement.

Insight:

Augmented reality and makeup have been a popular pairing and YouCam is looking to shore up its pioneering role in this area via a costume makeup contest as YouTube enters with its own AR try-ons and Amazon integrates AR lipstick trials via L'Oreal's Modiface. 

As consumers get ready to celebrate Halloween, Perfect aims to leverage the publicity for the occasion with its costume makeup contest to boost downloads and awareness of the YouCam Makeup app. Last year, U.S. consumers were expected to spend about $9 billion to celebrate Halloween, with more than a third of that amount going to costumes, per an estimate by the National Retail Federation.

Perfect has made online contests a bigger part of its marketing to engage and inspire fans of its YouCam apps, which let mobile users try on makeup from a variety of brands. Last week, the company launched a photo editing contest timed with New York Fashion Week to promote its YouCam Perfect app, giving users a chance to see their pictures on its Instagram account. People use YouCam perfect to take 25 million pictures a day, and 58% of them use filters in the pictures. In May, Perfect launched its YouCam Beauty Star contest that offered entrants a chance to become a beauty influencer. As with its Halloween contest, Perfect urges people to upload their pictures to a microsite for a chance to have their look recreated as a virtual makeup filter in its YouCam Makeup app.

Perfect has built out its technology to engage users with a variety of beauty products, including hair and nail colors. The company in July launched YouCam for Web that lets consumers test products using AR tools. Perfect's clientele includes brands such as Estée Lauder, MAC and YSL on its YouCam platform. Direct-to-consumer hair color brand Madison Reed and Jerome Russell brand Punky Colour last year partnered with Perfect to show off their products to mobile users. Aside from beauty brands, Perfect also partnered with more retailers and brands including Target and QVC, and introduced mobile features like livestreaming.