Calling all Vampire Diaries stans, makeup lovers, and do-gooders.
The UK-based and very online beauty brand Lottie London is launching an online campaign for their latest makeup collection in an unorthodox fashion. The “Love Sucks” collection, which features seven pieces of makeup based on the teen drama The Vampire Diaries, comes at an already affordable price point. But if you want to get your hands on it for free, all you have to do is donate some blood and post about it on social media.
Credit: Lottie London
Lottie London prides itself on creativity, inclusivity, and affordability, and the company markets to Gen Z beauty lovers by quickly hopping on social media trends and plugging into what matters most to young people. In creating this campaign, dubbed Blood for Beauty, it honed in on two dominant online conversations: nostalgia and social justice.
“Nostalgia is really one of the driving efforts, driving trends within beauty collaboration overall for the Gen Z audience,” Lottie London’s Global Marketing Director, Nora Zukauskaite, told Mashable. “So we were thinking, if we were to do something for Halloween, what would be the truly iconic show we could work with? Which [show] would resonate with the theme, would be a bit nostalgic and absolutely loved by our community? And surprise, surprise, Vampire Diaries came up.”
Though TVD started in 2009 and last aired in 2017, its fanbase is currently stronger than ever. As Gen Z looks back to the early 2000s in search of the comfort of a pre-pandemic world, the hit teen vampire show fits right in. On TikTok, audio clips from characters like Caroline and Stefan constantly go viral. On DePop, sellers will market long sleeve t-shirts as “Elena GIlbert-core.” The combination of campy teen vampire drama and steamy romance hits just the right nerve, giving the show such impressive staying power that fans were devastated when Netflix announced it would be leaving its lineup earlier this month.
On the other side of the campaign, Lottie London is hoping to tap into young people’s passion for social issues. In a press release, the brand cites research that 85 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds do not currently donate blood, and in accepting blood donations as a form of payment, it’s hoping to galvanize its young fanbase into helping to fight the U.S.’s current blood shortage.
“I really strongly believe that Gen Z is really a godsend,” said Zukauskaite. “They’re the people who really put the social costs at the center of everything they do. And the response so far that we’ve received is really, truly overwhelming on our social channels. The engagement of the posts was unbelievable. Our post engagement increased by 500 percent [while] our reach increased by 80 percent. And that’s a fantastic stat, which completely shows that putting the social costs at the center of a campaign for a Gen Z audience really resonates.”
The Blood for Beauty campaign will run throughout the month of October. To participate, fans can take a selfie outside a blood donation site, preferably with donation proof like a sticker, and post to Instagram or TikTok, tagging both Lottie London and #BloodForBeauty. The “Love Sucks” collection is now available online and in-store at Walmart.