LOVETC’s ‘Who Wore Who?’ makes makeup an identity game

The new film

After a 48-hour tease, LOVETC, the colour cosmetics brand from Birla Cosmetics, has revealed its six-product Alter Ego collection in a campaign film starring brand ambassador Tamannaah Bhatia. The film is for shoppers drawn to bold 1990s beauty cues—strong colour, metallic finishes, defined looks—but it sells them something more than product. It resolves a trail of clues left on the brand’s Instagram: a distorted logo, a rewritten bio, cropped product labels and fragmented posts that hinted at the collection before it appeared.

The film is built around the campaign line, “Who wore who?”, and frames makeup as a way to show different sides of a personality. Creators and actors, including Fatima Sana Shaikh and Diana Penty, had already received PR boxes addressed to different names; LOVETC replied using those same incorrect names, pulling the launch together just before the reveal.

The levers it pulls

First, the campaign runs on a curiosity gap. Behavioural science treats an open, just-out-of-reach question as a source of tension that people feel compelled to close. The distorted logo, partial visuals and mis-named packages are all gaps. The film does not simply close them; it replaces one question—what is being launched—with a bigger one: who wore who.

Second, it uses identity-based motivation. The tagline flips the usual beauty-sales logic. It does not ask whether the product looks good on you. It asks which self is wearing the product. That gives the makeup a job beyond coverage or colour: it becomes a signal for an alter ego, and makes the purchase feel like self-expression rather than vanity.

Third, social proof arrives through people, not just claims. Tamannaah shows the polished version, while the PR boxes sent to Fatima Sana Shaikh and Diana Penty under different names show the alter-ego idea happening in public. Their posts and LOVETC’s replies make the “wrong” names feel like an inside joke the viewer can join.

The bet the brand is making

LOVETC is betting that the path to desire runs through identity rather than ingredients. Instead of leading with the collection’s six shades, metallic finishes or 1990s inspiration, it leads with a question about who is in control. The underlying wager is that a consumer will pay more attention to a product that promises a new version of themselves than to one that promises a better complexion.

It is also a bet on pre-launch mechanics. By spreading clues across Instagram, creator PR moments, out-of-home and cinema, LOVETC treats the product reveal as a story resolution, not a catalogue update. That only works if the 48-hour build-up leaves enough unfinished business for the film to resolve.

What to borrow for your next campaign

You do not need a film star or a huge teaser budget to use the same mechanics. The transferable parts are:

• Seed a question before the reveal. Give people a “wrong name”, a changed bio or a cropped label and let them fill the gap.
• Let the “mistake” travel through creators. PR packaging, delivery notes or replies that play along create shareable proof of the idea.
• Keep the tagline open. A line that asks rather than tells gives the audience a way to participate in the meaning.

In markets where every beauty shelf promises confidence, the more interesting move is to ask which version of the buyer is showing up that day.

Watch the original: LOVETC on YouTube

Source: Afaqs!