CeraVe makes Kevin Durant the ‘new face of legs’ in dry skin campaign

CeraVe has named NBA star Kevin Durant its ‘new face of legs’, turning a years-old internet joke about his dry ankles into a campaign about body skincare.

Durant’s ankles have long been a running gag on social media, during game broadcasts and among fans. Rather than ignore or play down the joke, CeraVe chose to amplify it and then manage what followed.

“We live in an attention economy where good disruption is hard to come by,” said Adam Kornblum, chief creative officer for L’Oréal US brands. “It can’t just be disruption for disruption’s sake. You have to earn it first. The question we always ask is whether an idea can live beyond a single video. Can it spark conversation? Can people build on it?”

A slow-burn reveal

The campaign launched on 3 February and continues CeraVe’s habit of breaking the fourth wall. Previous work persuaded consumers that actor Michael Cera had helped develop its products, and spoofed NBA insider culture with ‘heads of CeraVe’. This time the brand pushed further into live sport and real-time fan behaviour.

Instead of a conventional launch, CeraVe let the idea build gradually. Paparazzi-style shots of Durant moisturising his legs spread online. A fan holding a ‘Show us your legs’ sign was placed courtside, and a journalist at a post-game press conference quizzed Durant on how he looks after his skin. Nothing about it resembled an ad, yet all of it played into a joke the internet had already started.

“We like to build campaigns in chapters, like a book,” Kornblum said. “You need an opening that grabs attention, a middle that keeps people invested and a payoff that makes them want more. If you jump straight to the conclusion, you lose the audience.”

That approach left room for speculation. Fans, meme accounts and commentators debated whether Durant’s legs looked different and what he might be using, with CeraVe letting the online conversation run first.

From banter to education

Viral moments can spiral, become distorted or fade fast. To keep control, CeraVe brought dermatologists into the conversation while keeping its tone intact.

“Those moments when skin suddenly ends up on display are incredibly common,” Kornblum said. “Someone rips their jeans. Someone tears an elbow in a shirt. All of a sudden, body skin is the focus. We call them skincidents. They’re real and they happen all the time.”

Board-certified dermatologists and skinfluencers weighed in on the online talk, setting out why people so often overlook the skin on their bodies and how it can be as much as twice as dry as facial skin. The experts also referred to the science behind CeraVe, such as its MVE delivery technology and three skin-identical ceramides, shifting the jokes towards a wider discussion of hydration for the whole body.

“The goal isn’t to shame anyone,” Kornblum said. “It’s to destigmatise something a lot of people deal with and show that there’s a solution that actually works.”

Why Durant

CeraVe already holds the title of the NBA’s Official Skincare and Haircare Partner, which puts it close to basketball culture. Kornblum argues that athletes are a natural stress test for therapeutic skincare.

“They put an incredible amount of stress on their skin,” he said. “If something works for them under those conditions, it can work for a lot of people. And the NBA audience is incredibly diverse. Everyone watching has skin. That’s the common ground.”

Durant joined in. In one video he reads mean tweets about his legs; in another, his moisturised legs extend endlessly along a corridor, a playful answer to years of online mockery.

Joining the conversation

The brand avoids over-explaining or over-polishing, Kornblum suggests, creating room for people to take part and then using expertise to give that participation a direction.

“We don’t think of out-of-home, social or influencer work as separate things,” he said. “Out-of-home becomes something people talk about online. Influencers amplify it. The campaign lives where people already are. If the internet is already talking, our job isn’t to interrupt. It’s to join the conversation in a way that adds value.”

OBB Media produced the campaign. Its branded entertainment and content arm, Bolded, led the creative.