Sugar Cosmetics – Wheel of Love
Client
Sugar Cosmetics
Year
2022
An award-winning Instagram AR campaign that transformed a lipstick launch into a highly shareable social experience through gamification, virtual try-ons, and facial expression challenges—generating over 350,000 user-created reels and 500M+ impressions.
Scope of Work
Overview
Sugar Cosmetics wanted to launch a new lipstick range in a way that felt native to Instagram and encouraged people to actively engage with the products. Rather than creating a standard virtual try-on, I designed an experience that combined product discovery, gamification, and social sharing into one interactive journey.
The Challenge
The brief was intentionally open-ended: increase awareness and engagement around the new lipstick collection. The challenge was designing something people would genuinely enjoy and voluntarily share, turning a branded experience into organic user-generated content.
The Solution
Users spun a virtual "Wheel of Love" to randomly receive one of the new lipstick shades, which was instantly applied using AR face tracking. They were then given a random emoji challenge, and once their expression was detected, the filter automatically captured a shareable photo. By combining randomization, virtual try-ons, and gameplay, the experience felt more like a social game than a promotional campaign.
Results
350,000+ user-generated reels
500M+ impressions
Winner of Best Engaging AR Filter (Marketing Category)
Massive organic reach driven by user participation and sharing
Key Takeaway
This project demonstrated how thoughtful experience design and gamification can turn a simple product launch into a viral marketing campaign, creating measurable business impact through creativity rather than traditional advertising.
