Combining LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events helped the beauty brand’s showpiece student innovation competition set records and share inspiration in challenging times

For 28 years, the Brandstorm competition has played a central role in L’Oréal’s employer brand strategy, engaging hundreds of thousands of students worldwide in innovation challenges. With nearly 48,000 participants and an inspiring theme of building a plastic-less future for the beauty industry, Brandstorm 2020 was set to be the biggest competition yet. L’Oréal was determined that it would continue to be, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Re-imagining the final as an ambitious LinkedIn Event, streamed through LinkedIn Live, set new records for reach and engagement with over 2,000 unique viewers tuning into the two-hour broadcast.

The Challenge

•  Recreate the Brandstorm 2020 final as a digital event
•  Drive engagement and views among students, employees, schools and other sources of talent
•  Support an ambitious game show format with a panel of judges on location and teams presenting from around the world
•  Maximise reach and engagement

The Solution

•  Integrating LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events to build a community experience around the final
•  Organic and paid promotion with 40 LinkedIn posts culminating in a teaser video
•  Sharing and advocacy through the #Brandstorm2020 hashtag

Why LinkedIn?

•  Top performing talent brand platform for L’Oréal
•  Integration of LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live to create bespoke digital events
•  Proven track record for organic and paid promotion

Results

•  Just under 2,000 unique viewers – a record attendance for the final
•  Viewership peaked at 521 and never dipped below 400 during the two-hour-plus broadcast
•  The event generated 947 comments and 594 reactions as viewers clocked up over 1,100 hours of viewing time
•  The extended campaign reached over 8.5 million people and generated over 33,000 engagements, more than double the reach of the previous year
•  The #Brandstorm2020 hashtag generated 1,414 posts on LinkedIn