International beauty company, Sephora, came to us in the Fall of 2008 looking for a social media campaign to improve their sales for the upcoming Holiday season. But we didn’t just want to boost the number of shoppers shopping for their product, we wanted to boost the number of shoppers shopping in their product. Isn’t Holiday shopping a Holiday unto itself?

With that in mind, we created the Mistletoe Makeover, a site that gave users the opportunity to give themselves an interactive makeover, which they could personalize with a greeting and then send to their friends, family and ex-boyfriends. There was a choice of four themes; O Tanen-Babe, Smokey Sugar Plum, Merry Berry and Santa’s Little Temptress, that would determine the style of makeup applied to the user’s uploaded image. With a look selected, their Sephora-fied face would then be added to a custom winter scene, complete with unique wardrobes and animations.

Aside from finally giving our male staff a legitimate reason to see how they look in bright green eye shadow and sparkly pink lipstick, the site turned out to be a favorite among Holiday media and shoppers alike. In the short time that it was up, Mistletoe Makeover received nearly half a million visitors, 300,000 social media hits and over six million PR impressions.