The Sparkle of Summer: e.l.f. Beauty x Poppi Campaign Concept
The Sparkle of Summer is a campaign concept that reimagines lip gloss as a fizzy, sensory experience inspired by soda. Rooted in the culturally driven, playful identity of e.l.f. Beauty, this project explores what happens when beauty intersects with refreshment culture through a collaboration with Poppi, a modern prebiotic soda brand.
The project was developed through iterative visual exploration, building a system inspired by gloss, effervescence, and light. Hero imagery and macro compositions highlight texture and shine, while social-first campaign visuals emphasize bold color and movement. Packaging concepts draw from soda aesthetics, blending familiar beverage cues with contemporary beauty branding.
Together, the visual identity, product direction, and campaign assets create an immersive and cohesive experience that reflects a playful, culturally resonant approach to beauty marketing.
Process
While exploring beauty trends and futuristic mockups, I noticed a strong visual pattern emerging around glow, translucency, and bubble-like forms. This naturally led me to think about carbonation and soda as a sensory and visual extension of that idea. Knowing how popular Poppi has become as a modern soda brand helped ground the concept in something culturally relevant, allowing the idea to feel both imaginative and familiar.
Poppi became a key reference point due to its visual energy—bubbles, fizz, and gloss—offering a way to reimagine lip gloss as an experience rather than just a product.offering a way to reimagine lip gloss as an experience rather than just a product.
The concept was developed through trend research across beauty, beverage branding, and youth-focused marketing, identifying the rise of “sensory beauty” and nostalgic, flavor-led storytelling.
Gemini AI was used to explore cultural and visual trends and refine campaign direction, while Canva AI supported rapid ideation, moodboard generation, and early visual compositions. Iterative experimentation helped translate ideas of carbonation, gloss, and movement into a cohesive visual system.
Experimentation included consistently playing with key phrases of:
“Exploring carbonation through bubble overlays and gloss textures”
“Testing color palettes inspired by citrus sodas and artificial flavor tones”
“Refining typography to feel bold, youthful, and digitally native”
The visual language was designed as a flexible system, allowing the “fizz” concept to scale across social media, digital ads, and potential in-store experiences. Repeating elements such as bubbles, gradients, and gloss highlights create consistency while allowing variation across formats.
This project explores how cultural trends can be translated into visual systems that feel immediate and engaging. It reinforced the importance of balancing playful experimentation with clear brand alignment, which is how brands like e.l.f. Beauty and Poppi
consistently set the tone for our generation: bold, playful, and deeply tuned into culture.
© Concept project. e.l.f. Beauty and Poppi are referenced for non-commercial purposes.