Get Lifted: How Murad's Bold Campaign Transformed NYC Streets

In the concrete jungle of New York City, where thousands of advertisements compete for attention daily, truly standout campaigns require something special. The recent collaboration between skincare powerhouse Murad, creative agency Quan Media, and the authorized SEEN Poster network delivered exactly that—a vibrant, eye-catching campaign that brought luxury skincare to street level with the memorable tagline "Get Lifted From Cheek To Cheek."

The Power of Urban Advertising Done Right

The advertising landscape in New York City is notoriously competitive. Brands fight for consumer attention across subway stations, bus shelters, and street-level displays. What made the Murad campaign particularly effective was its strategic placement within the SEEN Poster network, positioned at eye level in high-traffic pedestrian areas where potential customers interact with the urban environment daily.

The campaign's thoughtful placement ensured that Murad's message reached consumers during their natural city routines—walking to work, heading to lunch, or exploring neighborhoods. This approach transformed ordinary commutes into brand engagement opportunities, creating those valuable micro-moments where consumers connect with products in contextually relevant settings.

Breaking Down the Visual Impact

The visual design of the Murad campaign masterfully balanced several key elements:

• Bold Color Contrast: The vibrant green background created immediate visual distinction against the typical urban landscape. The bright yellow text "GET LIFTED" repeated along the right side of the display established a rhythmic visual pattern that drew the eye.
• Product Showcase: The left panel featured Murad's distinctive green skincare products, clearly displayed with the signature packaging visible to passersby even from a distance.
• Authentic Representation: At the center of the advertisement, a smiling model with closed eyes and a genuine expression conveyed the joy and confidence that comes with healthy skin—connecting emotional benefits to the physical product.
• Clear Brand Messaging: The "FROM CHEEK TO CHEEK" tagline cleverly referenced both the physical benefits of the products and the emotional outcome (smiling "cheek to cheek"), demonstrating sophisticated brand messaging that works on multiple levels.

Where Digital Strategy Meets Physical Presence

In today's marketing landscape, the integration between digital and physical advertising creates powerful amplification opportunities. While this campaign made its primary impact on NYC streets, its design was inherently "Instagram-ready"—creating shareable moments that extend beyond physical viewership.

The campaign demonstrates how traditional out-of-home (OOH) advertising continues to evolve in the digital age. SEEN's poster network represents the new wave of physical advertising that understands its dual purpose: capturing attention on the street while creating visually distinctive moments worthy of social sharing.

The Strategic Advantage of Street-Level Engagement

What makes street-level advertising particularly valuable for premium skincare brands like Murad is the contextual relevance. Unlike purely digital campaigns that compete for attention on crowded social feeds, physical advertisements become part of the consumer's environment, creating a different quality of engagement:

• Unavoidable Presence: Unlike skippable online ads, physical displays become part of the urban landscape
• Brand Legitimacy: Presence in authorized physical advertising spaces signals brand establishment and credibility
• Localized Impact: Targeting specific neighborhoods allows brands to reach demographic segments in their natural environments

Behind the Scenes: Creating an Effective Collaboration

Successful advertising campaigns rarely happen in isolation. The collaboration between Murad, Quan Media, and the SEEN Poster network demonstrates the value of partnership in modern advertising. Quan Media's creative direction combined with SEEN's strategic placement network created the perfect vehicle for Murad's brand message.

For beauty and skincare brands specifically, this type of collaboration offers unique advantages. The ability to showcase products in environments where consumers are already thinking about their appearance (on their way to social engagements, work, or other public settings) creates natural moments of relevance that pure digital advertising struggles to replicate.

The Future of Beauty Advertising in Urban Spaces

The Murad campaign represents a broader trend in beauty and skincare marketing: the return to thoughtfully designed physical advertising as a complement to digital strategies. As consumers grow increasingly fatigued by endless digital advertisements, well-executed physical campaigns offer a refreshing alternative that engages different cognitive pathways.

For beauty brands specifically, physical advertising solves a critical challenge—showing rather than telling. While digital campaigns can describe benefits, seeing a large-format image of radiant skin on a daily commute creates a more immediate and visceral connection to the promised outcome.

Measuring Impact Beyond Impressions

While traditional metrics like impressions remain important for campaigns like Murad's NYC takeover, sophisticated marketers are increasingly measuring additional factors:

• Environmental Context: How does the advertisement fit within its physical surroundings?
• Brand Perception Lift: Beyond awareness, how does physical presence enhance perception of quality and legitimacy?
• Cross-Channel Amplification: How effectively does the physical campaign drive digital engagement?

For Murad, the SEEN Poster network placement likely delivered on all three dimensions, creating a campaign that worked at street level while supporting broader marketing objectives.

Conclusion: Bringing Great Brands to Life

The Murad "Get Lifted" campaign exemplifies how great brands can truly come to life at street level when advertising is approached as an art form rather than merely an exposure mechanism. By combining strategic placement, vibrant design, clear messaging, and authentic representation, the campaign transformed ordinary city walls into compelling brand moments.

As consumer attention becomes increasingly fragmented across digital channels, thoughtfully executed physical campaigns like this one demonstrate that sometimes the most effective way to cut through the noise is to become a welcome part of consumers' physical world—meeting them where they are with messages that genuinely enhance their daily experience.

The success of this Murad campaign reminds us that in a world of fleeting digital impressions, there remains something powerful about a well-crafted physical advertisement that becomes, even briefly, a memorable part of the urban landscape.