How Do I Look?

Read the campaign story

Lenskart’s 2017 How Do I Look campaign promoted a virtual try-on and feedback feature. A film with Katrina Kaif translated asking others about eyewear into an exaggerated real-world scenario before revealing the app context. A creator portfolio and contemporary launch report credit Enormous and Chrome Pictures. The portfolio’s later publication is not used as the launch year. This case covers the feature-led campaign rather than every Lenskart celebrity partnership.

Editorial interpretation: an unfamiliar digital interaction becomes easier to grasp when it is first shown as a familiar social behaviour. The comic mismatch between physical space and app functionality supplies a reveal, but the reveal must clarify the actual feature rather than merely entertain. Asking for an opinion is also a sensitive design choice: useful feedback should remain optional and should not imply that someone needs public approval to choose how they look.

The sources document the feature and creative approach, not a controlled evaluation of trial accuracy or commercial effectiveness. Reported platform activity is not adopted as campaign impact. A virtual image cannot establish optical prescription suitability, comfort or physical fit. The proposed adaptation avoids faces, biometric information and appearance ratings altogether. It tests how clearly a social-feedback function is explained using ordinary objects and private, consented participation.

Use the reveal to explain one interaction precisely

A metaphor can make a feature memorable while leaving users confused about how it works. Identify the single action the audience should understand after the reveal: choosing an option, sharing it or receiving a response. Do not combine several unfamiliar functions in the same dramatic moment. Show enough of the real interface to connect the metaphor to a usable next step, and make clear which scenes are fictional exaggeration. Test unaided comprehension before asking whether people enjoyed the film. If viewers remember the celebrity’s behaviour but cannot describe the interaction, the entertainment is not yet doing the required explanatory work.

Keep feedback under the chooser’s control

A request for advice should let the person decide who sees it, what they are asked and when the conversation ends. Avoid automatic public posting or broad contact access. Give the chooser a way to ignore feedback without being scored as unsuccessful. For appearance-related categories, frame responses around the person’s stated preferences rather than ranking attractiveness. A private comparison can be helpful, but a campaign should not normalise seeking approval from strangers as a necessary purchase step. Map the entire sharing journey, including deletion and accidental disclosure, before celebrating how easy it is to ask other people for an opinion.

Separate visualisation from claims about suitability

A digital preview can help someone compare styles while still failing to establish comfort, fit or technical appropriateness. Explain those limits in the product journey instead of relying on a general disclaimer far from the preview. The same principle applies beyond eyewear: a simulated room, garment or colour does not guarantee an identical physical result. Use labels that describe what the tool actually shows and provide a route to the information it cannot supply. When evaluating a feature campaign, measure whether viewers understand both the capability and its boundary. Confidence based on a mistaken assumption is not a successful explanation.

A bounded test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: a stationery retailer could prototype a private feedback tool for choosing between three notebook-cover colours. Create one original storyboard showing the interface directly and another using a brief physical-world metaphor followed by a clear interface reveal. Ask consenting adult volunteers to explain who receives the request, whether a response is required and how they can close it. Use fictional recipients and no contact uploads, account creation or real messages. This tests whether a playful explanation improves feature comprehension while preserving user control, without collecting facial images, assessing appearance or copying the campaign’s film treatment.

Measure correct descriptions of sharing scope, optionality, deletion and the feature’s limitations. Track mistaken public-posting assumptions separately from entertainment ratings. Do not infer virtual-trial accuracy, product fit or purchase conversion.

Stop if the prototype exposes real contacts, makes feedback compulsory, implies technical suitability from a preview or turns personal appearance into a public rating.