88 days after the rebrand.
What the video really says.
"Please enjoy responsibly" launched Jan 12. This report measures the 88 days that followed — 227 videos, 40.8M views, 199 creators — the first full read on whether the new era is actually landing.
The rebrand landed quietly.
The organic conversation is where the real story lives.
In the 88 days after "Please Enjoy Responsibly" launched, Drunk Elephant earned 40.8M views across 227 videos. Only 9 of them explicitly discuss the rebrand. The adult-skincare reset isn't trending — but something much more interesting is happening underneath it.
Drunk Elephant spent the last 88 days paying 10 creators to generate 21.5M views — and the 217 creators who talked about the brand for free generated 19.3M more at 3.3× the engagement rate. The rebrand didn't buy attention. The community never stopped giving it.
The 22.3M view blind spot.
173 videos (76% of the dataset) mention Drunk Elephant only in spoken audio — never in captions, hashtags, or @mentions. These 22.3M views are invisible to Brandwatch, Talkwalker, Meltwater, and every text-first listening tool Shiseido currently pays for. Only multimodal AI catches them.
Sponsored is hemorrhaging engagement.
10 sponsored videos drove 21.5M views at 2.28% ER. 217 organic videos drove 19.3M views at 7.45% ER. Paid creators got the reach; the audience didn't react. This is the clearest early signal that the rebrand's paid push is buying impressions, not belief.
The rebrand barely made the conversation.
Only 9 out of 227 videos (4.0%) reference the rebrand, "new chapter," or "please enjoy responsibly." Two of them are critical takedowns — including @ialuronicoh's viral Italian analysis and @lenadepons' Spanish critique. The press release landed. The creator class hasn't picked it up.
C-Firma is still the hero.
Vitamin C serum drives 12.5M views across 13 mentions — by far the most reach of any DE product. It is the single asset keeping DE in the cultural conversation. A-Passioni, Protini, and Lala Retro (the "adult skincare" hero actives the rebrand wants to foreground) barely register.
Length works for this audience.
Videos over 90 seconds average 8.08% ER — the longest bucket is also the highest-performing. The DE audience wants depth: honest reviews, routines, ingredient breakdowns. Under 30 seconds averages 4.01%. This is an audience that will sit through a 3-minute POREless tutorial. Stop making them watch a dance.
The non-English half is wide open.
Roughly 40% of videos mentioning Drunk Elephant are in French, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese. The brand has no regional creator infrastructure reflected in this data. Meanwhile, Rare Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury (top co-mentions) already have localized creator programs. Europe and LATAM are the unattended flank.
Weekly Volume · Post-Launch Trajectory Jan 16 – Mar 23
The conversation Shiseido can't see with its current listening stack.
173 of 227 videos mention Drunk Elephant only in spoken words — never in captions, hashtags, or @mentions. 22.3M views. 7.45% engagement. Text-based social listening (Brandwatch, Talkwalker, Meltwater) misses all of this. If Shiseido's internal reporting says Drunk Elephant drove ~18M views post-rebrand, they're under-counting reality by more than half.
"Please Enjoy Responsibly" — did anyone hear it?
The campaign launched January 12. Four days later, the first creator video in our dataset appeared. Here's what the video ecosystem is actually saying about Drunk Elephant's new chapter — including the two critical voices Shiseido needs to know about.
What Rebrand-Aware Creators Are Actually Saying 9 videos · Verbatim analysis
"Drunk Elephant prend une décision radicale contre les Sephora Kids... un phénomène qui inquiète les dermatologues et impacte de façon négative l'image de la marque."
"Lo que hizo triunfar a Drunk Elephant es exactamente lo que la está hundiendo... su packaging colorido o su divertida forma de dispensación, puede ser también su propuesta de venta."
"È difficile riuscire a cambiare la propria immagine quando questa è associata involontariamente o anche volontariamente al fenomeno dei Sephora Kids..."
"Starting off with Drunk Elephant. They have not been able to replicate the success of their bronzing drops. And that's because their target demographic are Sephora kids who can't afford those prices."
The "Please Enjoy Responsibly" campaign has not been adopted, debated, or celebrated by the creator community. It's been briefly acknowledged and politely questioned. For a $850M brand 88 days into a turnaround, that's not failure — but it's not the earned-media tailwind Shiseido needed.
The influencer spend is underperforming the unpaid community.
Ten sponsored videos. Two hundred and seventeen organic ones. The paid push drove more views than the organic conversation (21.5M vs 19.3M) — but at a third of the engagement. This is the most actionable finding in the report.
The Two Videos That Distort the Whole Dataset Sponsored outliers
"Opening a new C-Firma serum this morning... it's like a little science experiment. This is the C-Firma Fresh Day Serum from Drunk Elephant..."
"I'm just using Old Faithful here. This is the Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum. Me and Drunk Elephant go all the way back..."
Per-Video Performance Breakdown Avg per video
The Unpaid Loyalists Oriane Discovery
| Creator | Videos | Total Views | Avg ER | Followers | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| @allierosss | 3 | 580.5K | 12.73% | 838.7K | MID |
| @susiefan5 | 3 | 122.3K | 14.08% | 17.3K | MICRO |
| @mariaacastaneda | 2 | 2.11M | 13.52% | 1.1M | MACRO |
| @b_woodard | 2 | 203.5K | 12.91% | 923.9K | MID |
| @estefanibarbosa_makeup | 2 | 12.0K | 13.09% | 71.9K | MICRO |
C-Firma is carrying the brand. A-Passioni doesn't exist.
The rebrand positions Drunk Elephant as high-performance, active-ingredient skincare for adults. The video data shows a portfolio dangerously concentrated on one hero SKU — and the "serious actives" the new campaign wants to spotlight are completely missing from the conversation.
Product Mentions by Volume Video count
Product Views (Reach) Total views
The "Please Enjoy Responsibly" campaign promises "effective actives" and "scientific reliability." Yet A-Passioni Retinol and T.L.C. Framboos — the two most active, adult-coded products in the Drunk Elephant range — generated zero detected mentions in 88 days. The rebrand's hero ingredients are invisible to the rebrand's own creator ecosystem.
Product Engagement Rates ER by SKU
DE is in the makeup bag — just not the main character.
When creators mention Drunk Elephant, they also mention other brands. This co-mention data reveals which brands DE is actually competing with in the audience's mind — and which brands are converting the same attention into higher engagement.
Brands Co-Mentioned Alongside Drunk Elephant Top 15
Engagement Rate in Shared Videos Who wins the attention?
The Dupe Threat 25 videos · 2.2M views
"Told you once and I'll tell you again, if you are not checking out TJ Maxx for some of your skincare, you are missing out on huge savings on some of your favorite things... Drunk Elephant..."
"We're off to a really good start because I was not expecting to find the Touchland hand sanitizer dupe so I'm excited. Like really cute almost drunk elephant vibes..."
Meet the 199 creators quietly rebuilding Drunk Elephant.
Most of them have never been paid. Many of them are posting in French, Spanish, or Italian — markets where the brand has no active ambassador program. All of them are the core of the turnaround.
Creator Tier Distribution By follower count
Tier-Level Engagement ER by tier
Top 12 Creators by Reach The Voices Amplifying DE
| Creator | Videos | Total Views | ER | Followers | Tier | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| @megslifebelike | 1 | 11.10M | 2.27% | 335.6K | MID | SPONSORED |
| @ssandrineseguin | 1 | 4.67M | 0.02% | 51.5K | MICRO | AMBIENT |
| @aprilmbuckles | 1 | 4.20M | 1.76% | 1.3M | MACRO | SPONSORED |
| @mariaacastaneda | 2 | 2.11M | 13.52% | 1.1M | MACRO | ORGANIC |
| @ladyblue_official | 1 | 1.60M | 4.00% | 1.1M | MACRO | CRITICAL |
| @danielledchung | 1 | 1.20M | 7.41% | 61.1K | MICRO | ORGANIC |
| @gloss.andtell | 1 | 785.5K | 5.96% | 5.7K | NANO | ORGANIC |
| @corinnepino | 1 | 701.6K | 10.06% | 1.1M | MACRO | ORGANIC |
| @oliviaagrosso | 1 | 652.1K | 7.81% | 17.6K | MICRO | ORGANIC |
| @yabishtiff1 | 1 | 631.9K | 7.55% | 96.1K | MICRO | DUPE REF |
| @allierosss | 3 | 580.5K | 12.73% | 838.7K | MID | ORGANIC |
| @preppyannafaye | 1 | 578.5K | 8.85% | 393.8K | MID | ORGANIC |
🏆 Hidden Gems — Highest Engagement Creators Oriane Discovery
| Creator | Videos | Total Views | ER | Followers | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| @margaret_kov | 1 | 253.4K | 24.43% | 919.6K | English |
| @kjordyn03 | 1 | 231.6K | 21.24% | 401.8K | English |
| @nerea.laandaa | 1 | 462.3K | 18.35% | 1.2M | Spanish |
| @luisabossle | 1 | 296.4K | 15.83% | 596.0K | Portuguese |
| @anastowell | 1 | 59.4K | 15.36% | 1.8M | English |
| @noemiemtouch | 1 | 230.7K | 14.10% | 1.8M | French |
| @hay_hess | 1 | 196.6K | 14.06% | 2.0M | English |
| @susiefan5 | 3 | 122.3K | 14.08% | 17.3K | English |
| @mariaacastaneda | 2 | 2.11M | 13.52% | 1.1M | Spanish |
| @allierosss | 3 | 580.5K | 12.73% | 838.7K | English |
Drunk Elephant's paid influencer budget is going to American macro creators at 2% ER. Its highest-performing creators are European mid-tier skinfluencers — many in Spanish, French, and Portuguese — posting for free at 12–24% ER. The turnaround strategy already exists. It just isn't being funded.
The sentiment is positive — but there's one voice Shiseido needs to hear.
Across 227 videos, the ratio of positive to negative mentions is 4.5:1. The creator community is not hostile to Drunk Elephant. But a small number of critical voices are doing disproportionate damage, and the "Sephora Kids" narrative is still alive in the comments.
Positive dominant, but not clean.
147 videos carry positive signals ("love," "obsessed," "holy grail," "staple"). 33 videos carry negative language (mostly "overrated," "disappointing," "broke me out"). Only 6 are genuinely critical product takedowns — but those 6 videos reached 822K viewers, and one of them (@ladyblue_official) alone reached 1.6M. The rebrand has not reset the critical narrative; it's layered on top of it.
Sentiment Distribution Across 227 videos
The Critical Voice Shiseido Needs To Address 1.6M views · Macro creator
"Drunk Elephant. The brand is a mess. The formulations are just not intelligently created. They sell you a ton of products. You end up haphazardly applying all those active ingredients without understanding what and how and when to apply, what to mix, what not to mix. It doesn't make any sense. Your skincare has to be minimal and intentional."
"Products People Stopped Talking About" Cultural signal
"Products that used to be super viral that I feel like no one talks about anymore. Starting off with bronzing drops, especially the drunk elephant ones. Literally, everybody was making skincare smoothies with them back in 2023. And they're getting re..."
The Kids Are Still In The Chat Sephora Kids persistence
"I'm now a Sephora kid 🩵✨ @sephora @laneigeca @Bubble Skincare @Glow Recipe @rhode skin... We not getting up drinking elephants, so what you need from Sephora?"
Eight moves for the next 88 days.
Each recommendation is tied to a specific finding in this report. None of them require a new budget line — most of them redirect existing spend toward signals the data has already confirmed are working.
Redirect 70% of paid creator spend toward mid-tier organic advocates.
The 24 creators already posting multiple DE videos without sponsorship average 12–14% ER — 5–6× better than current sponsored creators. Build a "Drunk Elephant House" seeding program for this exact list: @mariaacastaneda, @allierosss, @susiefan5, @b_woodard, @estefanibarbosa_makeup, and 19 others. Free product, early access to A-Passioni reformulations, quarterly co-creation briefs. Cost: a fraction of one @megslifebelike post.
Stop sponsoring C-Firma. Start sponsoring A-Passioni.
C-Firma is doing fine on its own — organic mentions alone drive 1.4M views at 7% ER. The sponsored push is wasting budget on a product that already has gravity. A-Passioni Retinol has zero mentions in 88 days and is the "serious active" the rebrand needs to make famous. Take the exact budget of the @megslifebelike campaign and spend it on three mid-tier retinol-category creators posting honest A-Passioni reviews over 60 days.
Launch a European creator program in Q2.
~40% of detected DE conversation is non-English. Mariaa Castaneda (1.1M Spanish), Nerea Laanda (1.2M Spanish, 18.3% ER), Luisa Bossle (596K Portuguese, 15.8% ER), and Noémie M Touch (1.8M French) are already choosing DE without any activation. DE has no regional ambassador infrastructure visible in the data. This is a greenfield — competitors Rare Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury already have localized programs.
Own the Beste Jelly Cleanser whitespace.
Beste has the highest product ER in the dataset (9.78%) from just 4 mentions. Cleansers are the daily ritual step the rebrand audience values. Low competition in the category mention space, high engagement when content is made. Seed 10 cleanser-focused creators with Beste + a 30-day "first step, done responsibly" prompt. This is the cheapest hero-product narrative DE can build right now.
Brief every creator to make videos 60+ seconds long.
90s+ videos average 8.08% ER. Under 30 seconds averages 4.01%. The DE audience is skincare-literate and wants depth — honest reviews, ingredient breakdowns, full routines. Shift every creative brief, partnership contract, and content guideline to require 60–120 seconds minimum. Kill the quick-tip format. This one change would lift sponsored ER by an estimated 50% based on the duration curve.
Commission a response from Marie Beauté, Lena Depons & Ialuronicoh.
The three skinfluencers who most publicly questioned the rebrand combined for 203K critical views in French, Spanish, and Italian. Don't argue with them. Invite them. Offer early access to the "Please Enjoy Responsibly" methodology, the clinical study data, and Tiffany Masterson's founder POV. Let them make follow-up videos on their own terms. The creators who critique you most loudly are the ones whose audiences will trust their endorsement most when (if) it comes.
Track shadow reach as a core KPI — not just tagged mentions.
If Shiseido's current social listening is Brandwatch or Talkwalker, internal reporting is missing 76% of the Drunk Elephant conversation by definition. The 22.3M views in the shadow reach layer are not optional intelligence — they are where the rebrand is actually being processed. Replace or augment text-based listening with multimodal detection for every Shiseido brand. The blind spot is the same across NARS, Dr. Dennis Gross, and Clé de Peau.
Measure the next 88 days against this baseline.
This report is Vol. 01. Re-run it in July and compare: Did rebrand-aware videos move from 4% to 15%+? Did A-Passioni register in the top 5 product mentions? Did non-English creator volume grow? Did sponsored ER climb above 4%? Did the @ladyblue_official-style critique videos repeat or disappear? Turnarounds are measured in 90-day increments and the story is in the deltas, not the snapshots. Commit to the cadence.
Your listening stack is missing 76% of the conversation.
Oriane detects what creators spoke, what was shown on screen, and what the algorithm amplified — across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The untagged, unhashtagged, uncredited layer where turnarounds are actually won or lost.
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