Revlon x WW84 collection, full range

The cultural moment disappeared. The campaign still had to land.

Launching without the moment we were given.

My role

I led the global GTM rollout for the Wonder Woman × Warner Bros. × Revlon licensed IP partnership, coordinating the Warner Bros. partnership side as the decision shifted from launching with the film to launching without it.

Revlon partnered with Warner Bros. on a full makeup collection inspired by Wonder Woman 1984, built to launch alongside the film's theatrical release. When the pandemic delayed the film indefinitely, the launch's entire premise (synchrony with a cultural moment) collapsed. The collection ultimately launched globally six months ahead of the eventual December 2020 release.

Company
Revlon
Partner
Warner Bros. · DC
Year
2020
Type
Global Licensed IP Launch · GTM
Results · What the launch held
−6mo
Launched globally across digital, retail, and partner channels six months ahead of the film's eventual release
Held
Retail distribution and partner commitments maintained despite the loss of the theatrical moment
Intact
Warner Bros. partnership structure preserved through sustained timeline shifts

Achieved strong sell-through across key markets without film-driven demand. Repositioned the collection as IP-led, allowing the film to act as a second wave rather than the launch driver.

Situation

A tentpole launch without the tentpole.

The collection had been designed for synchrony. Product launch, retail endcaps, influencer seeding, paid media, and editorial coverage were all built around the film's theatrical date. That synchrony was the entire point. A licensed IP launch borrows its cultural moment from the film it's tied to.

When the pandemic delayed Wonder Woman 1984 indefinitely, every channel's timing assumption broke at once. Retail partners wanted clarity. Warner Bros. had its own calendar to protect. Internal teams were holding finished assets with nowhere to put them.

The default move in this situation is to pause. Wait for the film. Relaunch when the moment returns. Most brands made that choice in 2020.

Revlon x WW84 partnership lockup
Insight
When the tentpole falls, the hidden assumption gets exposed. Either your cultural moment was borrowed from theirs, or the IP you chose had enough standalone weight to carry itself.
Strategic Approach

Decouple the collection from the film.

Instead of waiting, the decision was to launch the collection six months ahead of the film's eventual release, treating the IP itself as the cultural asset rather than the theatrical moment around it.

Wonder Woman is not a movie tie-in. She is one of the most durable female icons of the last century. The partnership was structured around her cultural weight, not the film's release calendar. That distinction is what made a decoupled launch possible.

Cultural asset
The IP
Wonder Woman as an icon. Standalone cultural weight, independent of any single film.
→
Carrier
The collection
Product as the expression of the IP, designed to stand on its own visual language.
→
Moment
The launch
Sized to what the IP can hold by itself, not dependent on the film's release cycle.
Key Decisions
01
Reframed the partnership around the character, not the film
The team and I partnered with Warner Bros. to reposition the collection as a Wonder Woman collection first, a WW84 tie-in second. This was the pivot that made every downstream decision possible. Without it, launching without the film is incoherent. With it, the film becomes the accelerant, not the foundation.
→ Shifted the launch from film-dependent to IP-led
Wonder Woman 1984 character imagery, cultural figure anchoring the collection
Revlon x WW84 nail enamel range, product as expression of the IP
02
Rebuilt the GTM system to carry its own weight
My team and I worked tirelessly to reconstruct the rollout so Revlon's owned channels, retail partners, and earned media could do the work the film's press cycle was originally supposed to do. The launch could no longer be downstream of a theatrical moment. It had to be the moment.
→ Moved channel plan from amplification to origination
03
Held the partnership steady through timeline turbulence
I partnered continuously with Warner Bros. as the film's release date kept shifting. Protected the partnership structure, approvals, and co-branded assets so that when the film eventually released in December 2020, the collection was already in-market and culturally present, and the film became a second wave rather than a first launch.
→ Preserved partnership integrity through six months of timeline uncertainty
Decoupled Launch Sequence · Revlon × WW84
Phase 01
Originate
July 2020. Collection launches globally with no film in market. Owned and earned channels carry the cultural moment.
IP leads, film absent
Phase 02
Sustain
Fall 2020. Retail, digital, and influencer layers keep the collection culturally active through continued delays.
Collection holds the room
Phase 03
Accelerate
December 2020. Film releases into a market already primed by the collection. The theatrical moment becomes a second wave, not a launch.
Film as accelerant
04
Let the product carry the story
The packaging, color system, and visual identity of the collection were designed to be recognizably Wonder Woman without requiring a single frame of film footage to explain them. That meant the collection could show up anywhere, in any channel, and still feel on-world. When the film wasn't available to do the cultural work, the product had to.
→ Product became the primary vehicle for the IP's cultural language
Revlon x WW84 Face and Eye Palette alongside Wonder Woman tiara, product as expression of the IP
Observation · What this taught me

Licensed IP partnerships are usually described as tie-ins, which is exactly why most of them feel transactional.

The stronger version is to treat the IP as a cultural asset with its own weight, and the partnering moment, a film, a show, a tour, as an accelerant rather than a foundation.

Borrowed momentum collapses when the partner's timing changes. Owned momentum does not.

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