How the Body Shop used a drag queen affirmation session to engage a young audience
At The Drum Awards for Content 2022, One Green Bean won in the Best Content Marketing DE&I Program/Initiative category for its ‘Reverse Roast’ campaign. Here, we find out more about what went into this successful campaign.
Lawrence Chaney and Tia Kofi ready to affirm the hell out of each other
The brief
The brief for One Green Bean was simple: help The Body Shop raise awareness of the crisis the LGBTQ+ community was facing and inspire a moment of selflove for everyone, encouraging others to find the good in themselves and those around them during Pride.
Advertisement
The idea
The Body Shop flipped the traditional format of a ‘roast’ video – where people insult each other to win laughs – by creating an ‘affirmation session’, where influential members of the LGBTQ+ community focussed on building each other up.
The Body Shop’s target audience is young, ethically engaged people – specifically Gen-Z and Millennials - along with those who have the power to influence them, so One Green Bean needed influential figures that spoke to this younger audience while also appealing to trend-setting media both within the LGBTQ+ community and the wider cultural zeitgeist. They chose UK drag queens Lawrence Chaney and Tia Kofi. Famous for never letting anybody – including themselves – tear them down, their approach to life was just what the community needed.
Lured in with the promise of a traditional ‘roast’, One Green Bean confronted the queens with shocking stats and flipped the switch, turning the traditional roast into an ‘affirmation session’, capturing them building each other up with compliments and accolades instead of the tradition of breaking each other down.
The campaign was launched with a hero film on The Body Shop’s YouTube page, accompanied by a suite of images and social cut-downs for use across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. A strategic social plan was developed and implemented for The Body Shop global and UK channels, with channel-specific messaging for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For TikTok, One Green Bean created a channel-specific influencer brief, encouraging them to create their own Reverse Roasts, celebrating and empowering friends in the community.
The results
- Best ever performing organic content on The Body Shop’s YouTube page
- Dwell time on The Body Shop increased by an average of 226%
- +4M impressions
- 3M engagements on TikTok
- Content featured in 34 media titles
This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Content 2022. You can see all the winners here. The Drum Awards for Marketing are currently open for entry. Find out how you can enter now.
Advertisement