Company: GES, Irving, TX
Company Description: GES is an award-winning experiential marketing agency known for creating meaningful and memorable connections between leading companies and their customers.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Beauty

Nomination Title: Made for Each Other - Zombie Boy Wedding

Tell the story of this nominated marketing campaign for the judges (up to 525 words). Describe the genesis, planning, execution, and results to date of your campaign. If applicable, remember to describe what's unique or innovative about your campaign:

Goals: The clients objectives for the American Academy of Dermatology show were:

1.Get Dermatologists to visit the booth, receive product detailing on Cover Crème and their new primers.

2.Dermatologists will recognize Dermablend for its life-enhancing benefits

3.Garner and drive more brand awareness for Dermablend and create excitement and interaction with the Dermatologists and engage with Zombie Boy through wedding photo op and makeup application.

Challenges:

Already the number one brand, Dermablend wanted to raise brand awareness even further – particularly among younger dermatologists. The challenge for Dermablend was to stand apart not just from the other attractions at the show.

Solution:

Marrying the two together
The key was to bring both the functional and the fashionable together into a single event. And since Dermablend itself is a unique marriage of dermatological and cosmetic benefits, what better event than a wedding? A very non-traditional wedding.

Creative Strategy
Zombie Boy is a performance artist whose body is his canvas. His face is covered in distinctive, artistic – some might even say creepy – tattoos.

To emphasize the beauty-enhancing side of the story, we introduced a very beautiful woman into the mix – inviting dermatologists and medical practitioners attending the AAD Convention to the “wedding” of Zombie Boy and the girl of his dreams.

But there was an added surprise, the bride revealed her beautiful complexion to be a Dermablend creation, too: Like Zombie Boy, only half her face was covered with Dermablend. But unlike his tattoo artistry, her skin showed patchy areas of depigmentation – a serious skin condition known as vitiligo.

Apart from Zombie Boy and his bride, the most astonishing and unique aspect of this Dermablend marketing program is that it was communicated through only two emails.

The first of these invited convention attendees to the event – a wedding invitation.

The second was a ‘thank you’ email after the event to drive further communication between Dermablend and its audience and included a pass-along coupon for $10 off Dermablend products dermatologists could give to their patients.

Despite the minimal communication support, the program was the most successful trade show program in Dermablend’s 30 year history!

Results:

To the first objective of getting Dermatologists to visit the booth, to receive product detailing on their Cover Crème and their new primers, the attendance was off the charts thanks to the pre-show email (see results below)

Pre-Show Email
Email sent to 1689 registered guests to AAD.
Response rate was 40% – nearly ten times the average email response.

To the second objective of having Dermatologists recognize Dermablend for its life-enhancing benefits, this could not of been demonstrated more clearly than how it transformed our newlyweds: Zombie Boy and his bride.

Third goal of garnering, driving more brand awareness for Dermablend and creating excitement and interaction with the Dermatologists and engage with Zombie Boy through wedding photo op and makeup application, look no further than the fact the line to have pictures taken with the newlyweds was literally out the door.

Post-Show Email
Email sent to 1366 attendees of the Dermablend event at AAD
Response rate was 29% – or seven times the average email response.

Upload a collection of supporting files and web addresses to our server to provide more background information to the judges. You may upload any number of attachments and URLs through the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above. (Do NOT list your URLs below.)

2. Provide a brief biography of the leader of the team that planned and executed this marketing campaign (up to 125 words):

Frank Laudo
SVP, Executive Creative Director

With over 30 years in the marketing, advertising industry, Frank brings a stellar track record of breakthrough creative to his position as Executive Creative Director. Frank is responsible for the quality of every creative execution, from integrated marketing campaigns to experiential brand activation for GES. Frank’s overall goal is to help GES clients make meaningful connections with their customers through the most engaging experiential activations and marketing solutions.

He is known for ensuring that everything has a ‘big idea’ that resonates with the target audience.

Frank has lectured on marketing at NYU’s Masters Program and holds a degree in Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and as acted as judge for The Direct Marketing Association’s ECHO Awards.