NBA superstar Kevin Durant was declared CeraVe’s “New Face of Legs” this week, the culmination of a guerrilla-style marketing campaign designed to leave the ball player’s gams sufficiently moisturized. The reveal on X from Durant, featuring a video clip of his rejuvenated skin and seemingly never-ending legs, has already racked up 41 million views.
But to ensure the campaign caught fire — and stayed lit — required careful orchestration, guerilla tactics and a deep familiarity with social buzz and meme culture.
It all started with an insight spotted by the social team: the internet already knew that KD had dry skin — and often teased him for it. A viral photo featuring a peek of Durant’s dehydrated skin during a basketball game first caught fire on the internet a few years ago — in what CeraVe is calling a “skincident” — making him an excellent candidate for a makeover. The team then built the phases of the campaign around that conversation.
First, Durant hilariously addressed “mean tweets” about his dry skin. Then, he was spotted working out legs in the gym next to a bottle of CeraVe moisturizer. Other elements included fans chanting “you need lotion” at games and the player himself requesting a Super Bowl ad for next year. Fast-forward to today, and CeraVe’s “Moisture Like a Derm” campaign has achieved its goal of drawing attention to body skin health through engaging consumers at every step.
“We live in this attention economy, and for brands, good disruption — good attention — is few and far between. But at the same time, it’s not just disruption for disruption’s sake,” said L’Oréal Chief Creative Officer Adam Kornblum. “We need to tell good stories. These stories need to be truly earned first and also have guerilla marketing tactics baked in to cut through the noise.”
We went behind the scenes with Kornblum to discuss the strategic thinking behind the viral campaign; the role played by social listening and influencers; the brand’s “medutainment” philosophy; and his approach to brand storytelling.
Chief Marketer: What was the thinking behind the “Moisture Like a Derm” campaign?
Adam Kornblum, Chief Creative Officer at L’Oréal: We needed to focus on body moisturizers. Interestingly, body skin is really important because it’s often neglected, despite being up to two times drier than facial skin. And 87% of dermatologists agree that moisturizing the body is actually as critical as facial care. The thinking is, we need to change behavior. And we know we have a great product. So it’s going to take a special form of communication: brand marketing, guerilla-style creativity.
We asked ourselves, how do we get people to care about body skin? How do we put body skin at the forefront? How do we get body skin on people’s minds in some natural way? We took to social listening to figure out, when do people actually talk about body skin? Or when is body skin shown organically? We started to find that this does in fact show up in everyday lives, and it does so under specific circumstances. And these circumstances are actually quite common.
For example, a lot of people post videos … where they accidentally rip their pants, and all of a sudden their knees are on display … I’ve also seen someone with a dress shirt rip the elbow, show off their elbows all day, and then go to work. These are what we refer to as “skincidents,” and they could be positive or negative. For those who have drier body parts, it might be something they need to address and start to moisturize.
CM: How did you ensure the conversation continued on social?
AK: We have a full influencer program around this. CeraVe recently became the Official Skincare and Haircare Sponsor of the NBA in the U.S. and Canada. So it naturally makes sense to lean deeper into athletes, playing into also the success we had with the “Heads of CeraVe” campaign, which was for our haircare launch, featuring Anthony Davis and Paige Bueckers. This led us to a very special skincident moment with our friend Kevin Durant.
Naturally, as a dermatological brand, a therapeutic skincare brand for all, for real, we had to step in with dermatologists to help KD strengthen his skin barrier. And we knew if Kevin moisturized like a dermatologist with CeraVe, we could naturally up his game and make him the New Face of Legs. In true, CeraVe “medutainment” style, we took this immersive campaign approach, designed to encourage audience participation and build anticipation.
CM: Tell me about the flow of the campaign and how you revealed it to consumers.
AK: I look at this like a good book. You need a strong introduction, a good body — the meat of the book — and then a conclusion that makes you want more. We’ve all read books where [after] the first few pages we’re like, I’m done with this. Telling the story from a brand marketing perspective is very similar, which is why we break up our campaigns into different chapters.
Our chapter one is what we call “I hear y’all.” This is where we grab attention. This is through the speculation and teasing phase. The campaign kicked off with a viral tease moment where KD is reading these dry tweets in a video that he posted on X. And then there was this candid paparazzi-style photo that was posted around Kevin, where he is in the gym, on a leg press, and right next to him is CeraVe Moisturizing Cream. So there are two ways to look at it. One way is Kevin is doing leg day, and the second way is Kevin is doing leg day. One is with muscles, the other is his skincare routine.
CM: I saw that and didn’t realize it was part of a campaign—so you got me.
AK: There were a lot of meme accounts that also posted it and zoomed into CeraVe, with the goal of being subtle and playing into the storytelling. We had a lot of buzz and had different sports commentators, fans and meme accounts also spark conversation around this. And then of course, we had dermatologists immediately intervene, going into this skincident and essentially joining the conversation and transforming that viral banter into valuable educational lessons around the science of skin, the science of CeraVe’s Moisturizing Cream’s superiority.
Chapter two, which we refer to as “It’s official,” is the “Legs on Legs” video, where Kevin’s officially announced as the New Face of Legs. The video shows this never-ending journey up Durant’s moisturized legs — that seriously look amazing. This is serving as the ultimate rebuttal to the years of social media discourse regarding his very dry ankles.
Chapter three is the full campaign reveal. We refer to this as “The gloat.” And this is where we have this Face of Legs video with a board-certified dermatologist, Dr. Nozile. This is where it’s truly announced that he is the Face of Legs, with the derm, and also that we are the official moisturizer of Kevin Durant’s legs. And then for chapter four, we are launching limited basketball cards featuring KD’s legs.
CM: With so many brands under L’Oréal, and the company’s size, how do you move quickly and keep that guerilla marketing spirit?
AK: That is how this whole operation has been built — under the lens of, we know we need to move fast. We know we need to be agile. We know we need to cut through the noise. How do we be disruptive, be unhinged? So when a message does come out, from me or someone on my team that there’s an idea, it typically goes to people within a brand — different GMs or what have you — and it’s pretty quick to put in play. There’s maybe a six-week window for some of these ideas to come to life.
CM: How do you balance the fun, viral part of the campaign with the educational component? How do you make sure that it’s still entertaining?
AK: I think it’s also the delivery, which is super important. Who’s delivering it, what’s that tone, what’s the messaging, what’s the format? That’s probably one of the most critical [parts]. We are often here to solve a problem. And I think there’s a way to destigmatize a lot of these issues by doing it in a fun way. Depending on who’s delivering it, it might be more comedic or it might just be amusing and entertaining. And then we always have a dermatologist to weigh in, so we’re able to take a situation that’s serious, make light of it in a smart, medical way, a clinical way, and really be able to help people. We’re not just sharing some mundane information that can go over people’s heads or maybe not stop someone in their feed. There’s a blend between the humor and the serious that CeraVe has done quite well.
CM: Any advice to marketers who may have a great idea but don’t have the budget to work with an NBA superstar?
AK: Not to get too cerebral, but the book “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell [says] you don’t necessarily need the biggest person, the biggest voice, to cause virality. It’s about even finding a nano-influencer or just a community that you could tap into. This skincident idea is actually a full 360 program that we have, and it doesn’t just include Kevin. There are different athletes, there are pranksters, sports and culture creators — and obviously our dermatologists.
But to that point, Kevin is a part of a skincident story that is a guerilla play. There are fitness influencers that are going to the gym that are playing off of this skincident moment that will also get some great virality as well. And they’re not necessarily an NBA superstar. They’re a superstar in their own right. A good guerilla marketing idea you could put in play; it’s really about the amplification and who sees it, and how they share it.
