Nykaa Lovestruck and the psychology of Love At First Swipe

The ad in one paragraph

Nykaa Cosmetics’ Lovestruck Lipstick launch is a three-film story starring Rasha Thadani and Rohit Saraf, built on the line ‘Love At First Swipe’. The films borrow the familiar arc of love at first sight and stretch it across chance encounters. The first meeting lands as an unexpected moment that leaves a lasting impression. The second brings the pair back together at a party, where the connection deepens and the lipstick becomes part of the interaction. The third ends on an open note, leaving the possibility of another encounter. Across the films, applying lipstick is written into the developing attraction rather than pasted on as a product shot.

The levers it pulls

Three behavioural principles do most of the work.

• The Zeigarnik effect. People remember unfinished tasks and stories more than completed ones. The third film deliberately withholds closure, so the campaign stays active in the viewer’s mind after the film ends.
• Evaluative conditioning. The films repeatedly pair the lipstick with attraction, eye contact and connection. Over time, the product becomes a cue for romantic possibility, not just a colour payoff.
• The mere exposure effect. The same fresh pairing reappears across three films. Familiarity builds quickly, and a celebrity duo that could have felt like a one-off ad starts to feel like a story viewers have a stake in.

The three-part structure matters because each principle reinforces the next: the open ending creates tension, the repeated pairing builds warmth, and the product sits inside that warmth.

What it does for the brand

It turns a range launch into a serialised mini-romance with three shareable chapters instead of a single product reveal. That gives Nykaa Cosmetics a repeated reason to appear in feeds and stretches the launch conversation. Because Thadani is the face of Nykaa Cosmetics, the campaign strengthens continuity; adding Saraf widens the pull. Positioning a lipstick as the thing that makes a character memorable is a sharper emotional job than promising shine or wear time. The open ending gives the brand a playful, confident tone: it does not need to close the sale, only the story.

What to borrow for your next campaign

The useful part is how little the campaign needs to say.

Borrow the open loop: release a product story in chapters and end the last one a beat before resolution. Borrow the product role: make the product the action that changes the scene, not an item someone holds up. Borrow the twist: take a universal trope and swap one word so it belongs to the category, love at first sight becomes Love At First Swipe. And borrow the casting logic: a new pairing can spark organic sharing when the story gives them something to do beyond posing. The takeaway is not to copy romance; it is to copy the structure.

Watch the original: Nykaa on YouTube

Source: ETBrandEquity.com