TikTok is cluttered with skincare-related videos, from disgustingly fascinating pimple-popping clips to influencers’ extensive skincare routines. So, when Neutrogena set out to craft a TikTok campaign highlighting its Hydro Boost facial cleanser, the brand knew it had to think beyond the traditional model of influencer marketing to stand out from the dozens of rival cleansers being peddled by TikTok creators. 

Rather than partner with skincare influencers to praise its cleanser or subtly weave the product into their “get ready with me” videos, Neutrogena instead tapped former dating show contestants—and a handful of TikTok creators—to star in a made-for-TikTok reality dating series called “Hydro House.” 

“We wanted to approach [this campaign] by looking at two things: one, what’s happening in the skincare space on TikTok; and two, what's happening in culture,” said Megan Herren, strategy director at creative agency Movers+Shakers, which partnered with Neutrogena to produce the series. 

While working with Neutrogena to conceptualize the campaign, her team noticed that many TikTok users were “settling for a cleanser they thought was just ‘good enough,’ and tolerating downsides like dry skin or failure to treat their acne. At the same time, Herren noticed the buzz around reality dating shows on TikTok, with hashtags for series such as “Love Island” and “The Bachelor” having collectively amassed over 25 billion views on the platform. This led to the realization that dating series contestants’ search for “the one” mirrored consumers’ struggle to find a facial cleanser that worked for their skin.

The TikTok-native series pits dating show alumni—including Harry Jowsey of Netflix series “Too Hot To Handle” and former contestants on “The Bachelor,” Hannah Ann Sluss and Danny Padilla—against TikTok creators such as Boman Martinez-Reid and Cyrus Veyssi, whose content often parodies reality show tropes. But, rather than competing for a chance at love, the “Hydro House” contestants’ object of affection is a bottle of Neutrogena’s Hydro Boost cleanser. 

Neutrogena and Movers+Shakers sought to make  “Hydro House” resemble an actual dating show as closely as possible, renting a luxurious Los Angeles home to serve as the backdrop for the series to evoke the “villas” at which the drama of each “Love Island” season unfolds. And they drew upon the expertise offered by the cast of the series—half of whom were former reality dating show contestants themselves, with the other half frequently playing on reality show themes in their own content—to craft the series’s dialogue and key moments. 

They encouraged the group to deviate from the script and freely improvise any lines that “[felt] natural and true to the reality dating show style,” a Neutrogena spokesperson wrote in an email. The brand also aimed to have the humor “be at the core” of the series, the spokesperson added, and looked to the influencers to infuse that comedy into the series with exaggerated spoofs of reality dating tropes. 

For example, many of the episodes involve various cast members staging heated confrontations about which of them gets to spend time washing their face with the Neutrogena cleanser, while another stars Veyssi on a disastrous date with a bottle labeled “basic cleanser” and mouthing “help me” to the camera. 

These moments of drama also work in messaging about the Hydro Boost cleanser itself, too. During a confrontation between Martinez-Reid and singer and actress Jazmine Robinson, complete with exaggerated zoom-ins and tense music, the former refers to the cleanser’s ability to foam while interrogating Robinson about whether she snuck off with it: “Were you alone? Do you feel refreshed? Was there foam?”

“It would have been a total missed opportunity to not have someone like Boman and these other creators—when this is their bread and butter—not help us with that script,” Herren said. “When working with influencers, especially on TikTok, if it's very clear that this is not something they would normally say or do, it's just not going to perform or resonate with audiences at all.”

TikTok users, for their part, have eagerly embraced the series. Two teaser videos offering previews of “Hydro House” received 9.7 million and 10.7 million views, respectively, and the series’s seven episodes amassed over 25.7 million collective views. Neutrogena also gained thousands of new TikTok followers during the two weeks the brand was releasing episodes to its channel, a brand spokesperson said. 

But the most notable metric of the campaign’s success for Herren has been the overwhelmingly positive response Neutrogena has received from TikTok users in comments on each of the videos, many of them stating they enjoyed the various episodes despite knowing they were ads. “This is the first time I’ve willingly watched an ad!” user @jaybaebay commented on one of the series’s trailers. On another video, @hellenkellers0nlyfanz’s comment “now this is an ad,” received over 19,000 likes. 

“It's so gratifying to see the hundreds of comments on the videos being like, ‘I usually skip ads, but this is amazing,’ or, ‘We need more ads like this,” Veyssi said in an interview. “I think because the script allowed us to be so silly and relatable when we weren't talking about the product, it made it so that when we do have a soundbite about the product … it made it seem less like an ad.” 

Movers+Shakers has worked with Neutrogena for three years, helping the brand establish its TikTok presence and connect with Neutrogena’s largely “Zillennial” audience on the platform, Herren said. But “Hydro House” represents the brand’s most significant push into the entertainment-oriented style of campaign that Movers+Shakers has launched with other brands, such e.l.f’s holiday film created using videos sourced from TikTok users. 

“When we work with brands, we really try to convince them that that is the strategic breakthrough, because it shows that brands aren't really tone deaf on the platform,” she said. “They know what this platform is used for; they know consumers are on it just to look for a laugh. It might feel jarring for them at first, because maybe humor isn't in [the brand’s] tone of voice. But there are ways to find a comedic angle that still aligns with the brand's voice … and gives [consumers] what they want and are expecting from brands who enter the TikTok platform.”