E.l.f. Cosmetics is tapping into the cultural conversation around Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl halftime show with a purpose-driven campaign, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The effort, which will kick off with a 30-second spot airing on Peacock during the big game, developed due to a confluence of factors, according to CMO Kory Marchisotto.
“It’s what I call constellation building. There are signals that hit you at a variety of points, and when they all connect and the constellation forms, it’s bingo — go,” Marchisotto said.
The idea for the campaign germinated while the E.l.f. marketing team was working on the next batch of telenovela-inspired content for its “Descubre e.l.f.ecto” series. During his “Saturday Night Live” monologue in October, Bad Bunny joked that English speakers had four months to learn to speak Spanish in time for his groundbreaking halftime show. E.l.f. decided a mashup of its telenovela content and Bad Bunny’s challenge would require the appropriate platform.
“This might be the right moment for us to get into the Super Bowl conversation, which was not actually part of our plan at that moment. We were not planned to be playing in the way that we we are now,” Marchisotto said of the brand’s thinking.
The resulting campaign includes “Melisa,” a telenovela-inspired video featuring Melissa McCarthy, Nicholas Gonzalez of “The Good Doctor” fame and iconic telenovela villain Itatí Cantoral. Produced with the visual standards of the medium, including 30 frames-per-second video, hypersaturated color and unnatural lighting, “Melisa” brings melodrama to McCarthy’s use of the E.l.f. Glow Reviver Lip Oil, the company’s best-selling product for the last two years.
“What is the new superpower that [the product] can give you? We came up with the idea that it’s so absurdly good at moisturizing and hydrating that it’ll help you roll your Rs in time to speak Spanish for the big game,” Marchisotto said.
“Melisa” was created with 72andSunny Amsterdam and was directed by Tim Heidecker. After a 30-second cut of “Melisa” debuts on Peacock during the Super Bowl, it will run for eight weeks on Spanish-speaking networks like Univision and other broadcast networks, as well as in social, gaming and digital channels. As part of the campaign, E.l.f. will be giving its Beauty Squad loyalty members a free two-week subscription to Duolingo’s Super subscription to help democratize access to learning a second language.
Celebrating community
E.l.f.’s latest campaign builds on the brand’s previous activations around the big game. The brand made a regional ad play aimed at women in 2023 before airing a national Super Bowl ad in 2024. E.l.f. pivoted to a live, second-screen experience on Tubi during last year’s game in a bid for Gen Z consumers.
“This year, it wasn’t actually about the Super Bowl to begin with. It was about being woven into the fabric of culture,” Marchisotto explained. “What’s the best way to come in with a different strategy so that we can test and learn and discover a new way to get into the game?”
With that in mind, the streaming-only approach — along with being less expensive than a national broadcast ad — allowed E.l.f. to reach a high-affinity audience that has moved from broadcast to streaming.
E.l.f.’s latest Super Bowl effort also continues the brand’s embrace of Latino consumers and Hispanic culture. Along with its continued “Descubre e.l.f.ecto” series, the brand produced a song and music video with Colombian singer Manuel Turizo called “ojos.labios.cara.”
Hispanic households are highly penetrated in the cosmetic category at large and E.l.f., specifically. Hispanic households spend $250 per year on cosmetic and nail grooming, 27% more than non-Hispanic households, and they represent 18% of E.l.f.-buying households — 29% higher than the category average, per statistics shared by Marchisotto.
“We do everything in service to the community. We’ve been showing up for the Latino community since the beginning,” the executive said. “What I’m looking at is a community that is calling for us, a community that loves us, a community that we’ve been serving for years.”
The brand’s embrace of the Latino community comes amid increased immigration crackdowns by the Trump administration that have put ICE under greater scrutiny. Bad Bunny’s selection as the first Latin American male artist to headline the Super Bowl halftime show — where he will likely sing and rap exclusively in Spanish — has faced conservative backlash, with nonprofit Turning Point USA promising to run counter-programming. None of the backlash is affecting E.l.f.’s decision making, which remains committed to its purpose-driven work.
“They can all go stress about that,” Marchisotto said. “I’m stressing about how to best show up for the community, to make the world a better place for every eye, lip and face.”
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