Milani Cosmetics gets nostalgic with an ‘America’s Next Top Model’ homage

“I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you! How dare you?”

Tyra Banks’s infamous words, which first aired on an episode of America’s Next Top Model in 2005, have lived on as a meme for years—and in Milani’s latest campaign, it’s not a model, but a makeup primer that pushes its Tyra stand-in over the edge.

To promote the brand’s newest product, the Conceal + Perfect Blur Out Smoothing Primer, the Milani team re-created a short episode mirroring ANTM, with three primers competing to be crowned America’s next top primer. The early-aughts homage is running across digital and social platforms, as well as in Entertainment Weekly’s nostalgia TV issue, which Milani is sponsoring.

It’s the beauty brand’s take on nostalgia marketing, and is also designed to connect the brand to top cultural moments, according to Milani CMO Jeremy Lowenstein.

“We really were going back to what is resonating right now with consumers. What cultural inflection point can we lean into, especially as an indie brand, that also makes sense for Milani and for this primer?” Lowenstein told us. “We saw the opportunity to lean into a sort of SNL-style spoof on America’s Next Top Model, which [also] elevates Milani’s brand around prestige and luxury.”

Runway ready

Milani’s campaign was ideated and created in-house, with additional writing from comedy writer Molly Mitchell, who has worked on Grown-ish and The Late Late Show with James Corden, and director Jordan Moran. The team re-created ANTM’s iconic set, while also infusing it with colors and imagery designed to nod to the Milani primer and its periwinkle-hued packaging.

“If you look at the video itself, and the whole episode, we brought in the lavender color that’s reminiscent of the product. There are a lot of abstract shapes…that are reminiscent of the bulk, so the actual formula,” Lowenstein said. “[There’s] a wavy pattern texture throughout with the curtains [and] the desk shape that has that oval and circular shape at the end to go off of the package itself.”

Throughout the ad, dialogue calls back to well-known ANTM moments and borrows similar editing and musical styles as the original series. The judges in “America’s Next Top Primer” also make quippy one-liners like viewers of the original series came to expect from original show judges Janice Dickinson and André Leon Talley.

Comedy was top of mind when scripting and casting, according to Lowenstein, especially as the entire cast was composed of creators rather than more traditional talent. Instead of working with just beauty creators, Milani cast comedian and actress Zainab Johnson, sketch comedy actors Ele Woods, Amber Joy, and Joe Hegyes, and lifestyle creators Natalie Shine, Zoe Kim, and Imani Blackmon.

“Working in an ensemble is very different than working on a solo spot,” Lowenstein said. “A lot of times you have creators who are used to just being behind their iPhone in their room, which is not a bad thing, but when you’re creating a scripted piece of content like ‘America’s Next Top Primer,’ it’s an ensemble, so they have to be able to feed off of each other.”

America’s next top creator

Milani is no stranger to working with creators. In 2023, Lowenstein told Creator IQ that a big part of strengthening Milani’s earned media value was “going deeper” with creator relationships, which can help enmesh creators into the brand’s story over time.

And while working with beauty creators is “the expected answer,” Lowenstein said the comedic and entertainment creators brought a different energy and process, particularly when it came to improvising lines.

“The whole thing was scripted, but we also allowed for improv moments,” Lowenstein said. “ I think that’s important. When you bring their personality to the table, you want to make sure the lines feel authentic to them, and their comedic style. That’s why you do a table read and then you do an in-person run-through. Our copywriter was on set for all of it, so that way we can make sure it still lent itself to the brand and the product, but also had a little bit of their voice in it.”

Lowenstein said he recognizes that creators are taking a lead in the advertising world, and leaning into it with a creator cast was just one way of riding the wave.

“For us, it’s about, how do we leverage other people’s audiences that we think would also be a good fit with Milani and vice versa?” Lowenstein said. “The world of creators has to be sort of symbiotic. It benefits both the creator and the brand, and feels like an authentic partnership.”