The goal of this campaign was to build mass awareness and spark genuine trial for Cake Beauty’s Curl Friend™ collection. Rather than relying on paid partnerships, the brand wanted to mobilize an earned-first influencer strategy that focused on authentic recommendations and community-driven content. Sundae Creative managed all aspects of the campaign, from mass casting and curation to shipping logistics, creator communication, content monitoring, and performance reporting. The mailer was intentionally designed to encourage GRWM, routine-style content, unboxings, and styling tutorials that felt natural to the creators’ everyday routines. By targeting creators who already produce texture-focused or curl-related content, the mailer successfully captured an audience genuinely interested in haircare, leading to strong performance across platforms.

The Curl Friend™ is a highly specific product, designed for textured and curly hair. This created an initial challenge: finding creators who genuinely fit the product profile while still maintaining efficiency and scale.

The campaign required balancing:

• A niche target audience
  
• Fast turnaround for mailer distribution
  
• High-volume casting to offset slower response rates
  
• Creator selection that remained authentic to texture-focused content
  
• Ensuring that the final roster could generate meaningful user generated content
  
• Keeping the content formats diverse (beyond unboxings alone)
  

Because the product’s use was very specific, early casting involved significant filtering to ensure creators had the right hair type, content style, and audience relevance. This made the process more time-intensive, especially with varying response rates across creators.

To maintain momentum and meet campaign deadlines, Sundae Creative needed a flexible, scalable system that allowed real-time adjustments in casting criteria, expanded outreach when needed, and strategic prioritization of mid-tier creators known for GRWM content.

Sundae Creative built a targeted and agile influencer seeding strategy optimized for efficiency, authenticity, and high-volume earned content.

1. Strategic Mass Casting Approach

We initiated a wide-scale outreach process, ensuring enough volume to offset slower response rates. This allowed the team to maintain momentum even when working with specific product criteria.

2. Flexible Recipient Criteria

To avoid bottlenecks, the team eased certain initial restrictions (content category, audience size) when necessary, enabling faster identification of qualified recipients without compromising alignment.

3. Focus on Mid-Tier GRWM Creators

Performance insights revealed that mid-tier creators produced the most impactful content, especially those who integrated the product into routine-style videos. Notably:

• @grwm.solene1 delivered 1.4M+ impressions
  
• @theemily_jane exceeded her potential reach 4x through GRWM integration
  

This insight shaped an ongoing strategy to prioritize creators who could turn a simple mailer into storytelling-driven, high-retention content.

4. High-Quality Mailer Concept

A curated PR box helped elevate the unboxing experience, driving 171 stories and 211 in-feed posts, well beyond industry averages for earned mailers.

5. Streamlined Content Tracking & Reporting

Our centralized system tracked all 382 content pieces, ensuring performance insights immediately informed casting and creative recommendations.