Over 13 million people have watched the trailer for Maybelline New York’s microdrama, Maybe This Christmas, on YouTube.
The cosmetics brand launched the five-part series promoting its Instant Eraser Concealer on YouTube and TikTok on 24 November, and on the short-movie platform ReelShort on 2 December.
The microdrama stars Lacey Chabert and Dustin Milligan — who appeared together in the 2024 Christmas romcom Hot Frosty — and is divided into five 31-second episodes that feature both romance and mystery.
Over the past two weeks, Maybe This Christmas has gained strong traction on YouTube, with each episode garnering around 2 million views. But the microdrama has been less successful on TikTok, where each part has drawn fewer than 10,000 views. This gap could be because of TikTok’s recommendation system, which tends to favour creator-led, native content over polished branded clips.
A week after Maybelline shared these episodes on social media, it uploaded them to ReelShort, one of the leading short-drama streaming apps. Research by Sensor Tower shows that global downloads of short drama apps exceeded 370 million in Q1 2025 (6.2 times more than in Q1 2024).
Omdia also reported in October that it expects the microdrama format to generate $11 billion in general revenue by the end of the year — nearly double the $5.8 billion it forecasts for free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.
Although microdramas are most popular in China (which accounts for 83% of total revenue, according to Omdia), the US ranks second in its adoption of the format. Maybelline New York’s microdrama may, therefore, just be the beginning of US brands investing in this format.
US retailer JCPenney partnered with TelevisaUnivision last week to launch a five-episode ‘micronovela’ aimed at young Hispanic audiences.