Herbal Essences’ dumpcupid.com

Who needs Cupid when millions are already swiping left on him?

Valentine’s Day was stuck in the same tired script—while women were looking for something that actually made them feel good.

So, to promote Herbal Essences during the holiday, we turned “Dump Cupid” into an unbranded platform and cultural movement—using humor and shareability to position luscious, great-feeling hair as the real source of confidence.

From viral content to a Times Square takeover and the most-entered sweepstakes in P&G history, the idea didn’t just drive engagement—

it reframed a daily hair ritual as a simple, tangible lift in mood, self-esteem, and overall quality of life.

The Website

Women can learn all about being luscious, tell their VDay stories, send “lusciousisms” to deserving friends and – ultimately – win a $25,000 shopping spree!

Event

An arrow hits Times Square on Valentine’s Day

Results

People didn’t just engage—they kept it.

Postcards, rack cards, and campaign artifacts became collectables, resurfacing years later as cultural souvenirs rather than discarded ads.

A sign the campaign moved beyond media—turning a moment of self-confidence into something tangible people wanted to hold onto.

Results

Program launched on Dec. 31st, 2006. By the time the program ended on February 17th, 2007 total sessions on dumpcupid.com reached 1.5MM with the average consumer spending over 4 minutes on the site.

Notably, traffic to the Herbal Essences main site more than tripled following the launch of the dumpcupid program—without any decrease in time spent on the site—driven primarily by users who first visited dumpcupid.com.

Over 337,000 consumers opted-in to receive emails from Herbal Essences - a 246% increase from previous database size.

Sweepstakes entries totaled 985,000 making the Dumpcupid contest one of the highest entered sweepstakes at P&G.

During the 7 week program, the 3 viral webisodes had over 13,000,000 combined views. Don’t forget that this was 2007.