“Our culture is obsessed with romance and reality dating, so we knew anchoring the campaign in the romcom genre would resonate with audiences,” he added. 

Like its Super Bowl initiative, in which creators spread rumors about Michael Cera being a skin care guru before anyone realized it was an ad campaign, CeraVe’s romcom project led with influencer activity. The brand partnered with 40 reality dating stars, movie reviewers, filmmakers, movie poster designers and dermatology influencers to build buzz ahead of its cinematic launch. 

For example, some influencers posted double entendre-laden matchmaker videos between April 8 and 11. The film will premiere today (April 12) on the TikTok channel of dermatologist Dr. Wallace Nozile, who plays the matchmaker. 

Following the premiere, movie reviewers will post their reviews of CeraVe’s romcom on their channels. 

CeraVe is hoping its romcom spoof captivates viewers as much as its Super Bowl campaign, which “beat every KPI (key performance indicator) we set at the start,” Kornblum said. 

The effort with Cera, in which the actor pranked people into believing he was the founder of the brand in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, tallied over 2.3 million earned engagements across social media and more than 32 billion impressions across the length of the campaign, according to Kornblum. ADWEEK ranked it the No. 1 Super Bowl ad of the year.