Last week, the 5-year-old beauty brand Merit debuted a video-based brand campaign starring and written by former “SNL” stars Ego Nwodim (679,000 Instagram followers) and Heidi Gardner (385,000 Instagram followers). The campaign, dubbed “The Five Minute Faceoff,” debuted across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube on November 17.
“The Five Minute Faceoff” is Merit’s first evergreen brand campaign and marked its highest investment in a campaign’s production, said CMO Aila Morin, noting that the set required a 40-person crew.
In the campaign video, Nwodim and Gardner are challenged to get ready in less than five minutes while their phones ding with notifications and they’re reminded by an unseen narrator of the onslaught of pressures facing women daily: to hit their step counts, eat healthy, etc.
“They specifically have such an incredible dynamic as storytellers, and we were aware that they love to work together, so it felt really intuitive [to let them do that],” Morin said of the casting.
“Women are always juggling a million things, all while trying to look our best. It can get overwhelming,” Nwodim said. “This project with Merit pokes fun at the unrealistic expectations women face and shows that beauty doesn’t have to be another source of stress in our busy days,” Gardner added.
The campaign was posted to Merit’s Instagram, as well as Nwodim’s and Gardner’s, and the brand did not put paid media behind it.
The campaign has received a positive reaction, with double Merit’s average “entertainment score,” on Instagram, according to Dash Hudson metrics. The average entertainment score, among brands tracked by Dash Hudson, is around 3.6 for beauty brands, and Merit’s average is 6.45 — this video has a 9.11. Morin said the one-minute and 36-second video has also seen an unusually high watch-through rate. “In a world where people watch one second, that’s actually the most important thing to me,” she said.
Within the first 48 hours after going live, the Instagram post featuring the campaign surpassed the views of Merit’s second-largest campaign, for the recent launch of its glimmery eyeshadow dubbed the Solo Shadow Sheen — the campaign featured actor Christina Ricci.
So far, feedback received via social media DMs has included, “More makeup brands need to hire comedians, “This is literally the way I multitask,” and “This is everything and more, so funny AND relatable.”
The brand has worked with plenty of celebrities. In 2025 alone, it has tapped Cazzie David, Martha Stewart, Padma Lakshmi, Lauren Graham, Issa Rae, Aimee Lou Wood and Brenda Song to create ad-libbed “GRWM” content on behalf of the brand. These videos, which live on Merit’s social channels, feature the stars using Merit’s products while talking about their getting-ready process. They are often light-hearted and humorous — but not to the same extent as the scripted video written by Nwodim and Gardner.
The new campaign, Morin said, speaks to “the same message we always have, [but] humanized in a different way.”
“We are very close to how the consumer is feeling and what the consumer sentiment is. And right now, it doesn’t feel like the time to talk about how the expectations we have of women are impossible to meet,” she said. So, addressing the topic via humor was a way in. “[Humor was] a way to make something that can feel really heavy [more] relatable, and a lot lighter; it gives us a new way to talk about the same sentiment in a more digestible format.” Plus, she said, humor can elicit an emotional and longer-lasting response to a campaign.
Merit has always leaned into storytelling and ambassadors who are more than just a pretty face, Morin said. “It’s not only having a celebrity face who’s beautiful and marketable, but it’s also having people who have unique stories to share,” she said. According to Morin, Merit builds relationships with the talent it admires and sees if they happen to be fans of the brand before approaching them for deals.
Unlike the Ricci video, “The Five Minute Face Off” does not promote any particular Merit product. Morin’s goal is instead to increase brand awareness and improve brand sentiment. “People share it because it’s interesting content and it’s not just about a product. So then you get people into the top of your funnel,” Morin said.
Morin said she wanted to launch the campaign before the brand’s upcoming Black Friday-Cyber Monday sale so that any new-to-Merit consumers would have some time to potentially convert into customers.
Morin said she constantly draws inspiration from a statistic from a study the brand ran in partnership with BCG, which found that 80% of makeup consumers say they don’t know how to use it. Those are the women Merit is targeting, she said.
“We’re feeling a little bit more confident in saying that this is what we’re built for,” she said, noting that makeup for makeup experts is abundant, but makeup for that 80% is not as readily available. Ultimately, she said, the message Merit wants to send to women is this: “You have enough demands on your day, and if you’re feeling overwhelmed by what else is going on in your life, this makes it easier for those five minutes you have; those five minutes are going to be really easy and straightforward.”
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