NYX Turns HR Training Into a Viral 'Corporate Baddie' Campaign

Quick listen: NYX reimagines HR training for Gen Z professionals — in under 2 minutes.

NYX Professional Makeup is turning the dreaded HR training video into something younger workers might actually want to watch.

Created with GUT Los Angeles, the brand’s new campaign titled "Brow Compliance" takes the world of office onboarding and injects it with Gen Z humor and beauty culture.

Marked by a social series, the efforts hope to highlight NYX’s "Brow Glue Crazy Lift," a product pitched as the perfect finishing touch for those stepping into corporate life without leaving their identity at the door.

“Nobody ever said, 'I just finished my compliance training and now I look gorgeous.' Until now," said Bruno Acanfora, CCO of GUT LA.

"We wanted to take the universally dreaded, mandatory workplace training and turn it into a moment of fun, beauty, and self-expression."

The campaign enlists TikTok creator Corporate Natalie, whose comedy sketches about workplace life have built her into a relatable voice for younger audiences entering the professional world.

For Acanfora, she "perfectly captures the humour, hustle, and side-eye of Gen Z entering the working world."

This makes her an ideal face for a concept built around showing up as a "corporate baddie."

And in reframing compliance as a cultural moment, NYX can both sell product and sharpen its brand voice to connect with consumers who see work and self-expression as inseparable.

A Training Video Glow-Up

Directed by Patrice Lighter, the spots mimic the look and feel of old-school HR compliance videos, but twist them with beauty tutorials and funny commentary. 

Employees are shown running through office rules, only this time, they’re stopping to touch up brows and break character with satirical punchlines.

From desk scenes to banter in the boardrooms, the humor is made to resonate with an audience that grew up on memes, not memos.

The partnership with Corporate Natalie amplifies the campaign’s reach on social platforms, where Gen Z professionals share stories about their first jobs.

Instead of telling them to leave their personality at home, NYX’s campaign begs to differ.

It wants you to know that you can be professional and still look and feel like yourself.

Our Take: Can Humor Sell Makeup?

NYX is proof that it can, especially when it’s tied to the hyper-specific aspects of corporate life.

What the beauty brand and GUT LA have done is flip something universally boring into something playful and relatable.

More importantly, they’re showing that a beauty brand can own workplace culture conversations without losing credibility.

It all goes to show that humor, partnered with cultural timing, can make a simple product pitch into a solid brand statement. 

In other news, Skims tapped on Post Malone to be the face of its new menswear collection.