At a time when mental health awareness is resonating more than ever with young consumers, Maybelline is scaling its commitment to the cause.
As part of its broader Brave Together initiative, launched in 2020, the L’Oréal-owned brand is expanding its 5-year-old Campus Tour — combining IRL impact with a digital-first strategy targeting Gen Z.
Launched in 2019, the Maybelline Campus Tour has become a hallmark of the brand’s mental health advocacy efforts. Five years in, the tour has reached 2.5 million people globally and donated $7 million to various mental health organizations. In the U.S., the tour has reached more than 340,000 students, distributed over 140,000 product samples and generated 1.8 million social impressions across Instagram and TikTok. User-generated content has played a key role in amplifying reach, Maybelline told Glossy.
This year, Maybelline is going bigger: adding more campus stops, layering in gamified mental health tools, launching new social collaborations, expanding creator partnerships, and bringing two makeup artists on the tour to perform in-person shade matching and on-the-go makeup looks for students.
“The way we show up for Gen Z has to be rooted in both emotional connection and cultural currency,” said Sam Vittengl, head of cause at Maybelline. “While Gen Z lives online, they crave in-person experiences that feel memorable and worth sharing. It’s not just about reach – it’s also about resonance.”
The spring leg of the tour kicked off in April, and the company has already visited two campuses — Prairie View A&M University and Texas Christian University — with plans to visit at least five in the Western region before the end of the semester. In the fall, Maybelline will visit another six campuses in a different region. And in November, the tour will also make a stop in New York City for the New York City Marathon Expo.
A key part of this year’s push is Brave Talk, Maybelline’s gamified digital tool, which launched in August 2024 in collaboration with The Jed Foundation. The tool walks users through Maybelline’s mental health resource, BRAVE — an acronym for Be present, Right setting, Ask questions, Validate feelings and Encourage action — and will be promoted not just on campus but also through influencer mailers, in-person events with press and makeup artists, and a presence on Maybelline.com.
Maybelline is also partnering with Lennie the Blob (@itslennnie, 2.2 million Instagram followers), a social media character that posts encouraging quotes, helpful advice and words of affirmation across its accounts. Maybelline created Lifter, its own character, that will collaborate with Lennie on videos about mental health and other related subject matter throughout the year.
Of the 340,000 students reached through the tour since its launch, more than 40,000 have directly interacted with Maybelline’s mental health programming, according to the company. Vittengl credited this to Maybelline’s ramped-up user-generated content and student influencer partnerships — two key pillars of Maybelline’s digital-first strategy.
“Gen Z is redefining beauty, and we’re evolving with them,” Vittengl said.
This evolution comes at a time when the pressure on student mental health remains high. According to the Mental Health Coalition, 73% of college students report experiencing some form of mental illness during their academic journey. And while advocacy around mental health has increased, a 2019 study by the Healthy Minds Network found that over 53% of students hadn’t heard anything about their campus counseling services.
The destigmatization of mental health resources and advocacy has opened the doorway for many purpose-driven brands to find success on college campuses. Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty, dry shampoo brand Battise and hair-care brand Hally are a few that have shown up for a cause at colleges and universities throughout the years.
Vittengl said Maybelline has no plans to monetize the Campus Tour program. Instead, the team is “committed to offering free product samples and mental health resources as a way to support and connect with students in a meaningful and accessible way.”
On April 17, Maybelline’s parent company, L’Oréal Group, reported first-quarter earnings of €11.73 billion ($13.3 billion), indicating a 4.4% year-over-year increase.
