CREATING A NEW CATEGORY

'Make Peace With Your Skin', Creative Director

Dove was preparing to launch a product range, Dove DermaSeries, developed for people with chronic skin conditions, expanding their reach beyond beauty into therapeutics. 

THE BRIEF Develop a global launch campaign to successfully position Dove DermaSeries. The strategic and creative challenge was to understand how to connect with a guarded audience, often distrusting of beauty brands.

THE PROCESS Teaming up with a very talented brand strategist to work as an agile duo. I leaned on my multidisciplinary skillset to take on the role as Creative Director, Art Director, Copywriter and Designer.

THE IDEA The category was swamped with unrealistic photography and cold messaging, talking only the superficial impact caused by a skin condition. The creative was centered on the strategic insight that living with a chronic skin condition is like being at war with the skin you live in. And addressing the mental stress and anxiety caused by the physical condition is the key to physical recovery. Our campaign idea spoke to the person under the skin condition. Because it's only when you reach acceptance and 'make peace with your skin' that the healing can begin. 

In true Dove style, we delivered a launch campaign with purpose and authenticity at its heart that successfully demonstrated an understanding and solidarity with a niche audience. 

ART DIRECTION The campaign heroes the stories of six women who’ve gone through the emotional journey and come out the other end, stronger than before. Our key visuals futured empowered portraits of our real women. We worked with the amazingly talented fashion photographer Amy Troost known for her unique ability to bring out the authentic character of her subjects, something that was key for “under the skin” of our cast.

Deliverables included messaging variations stretching between functional product information to more emotive, including copy lines with personal messages from the real women featured in the campaign.

PR ASSET Working with a small media and production budget, we needed a highly PR-able marketing asset to create buzz. We came up with a coffee table book to collect all the our hero stories in one place and with additional expert advice. Using the power of the Dove master brand to help build awareness through the talkshow and radio circuits.

POS Utilizing e-commerce to provide extra value for the audience by bundling the 'Make peace with your skin' book with product purchases.

SUPPORTING CREATIVE Additional deliverables included a full suite of branded PR activities, ambassador activities on social and creative executions to differentiate Dove DermaSeries by demonstrating a true understanding and empathy for the person under the skin condition. Examples of the creative executions included:

THE SKIN SCHOOL SERIES

Knowledge being the key component to healing process  - a branded 'Skin School Series' explaining things in human terms. 

ITCHY WEARABLES APP

Itching is one the key aggrevators to a breakout - a wearable device to promote habit reversal in sufferers.

COLLABORATION

And a HeadSpace collaboration to manage the skin-mind-health.

THE BRAND BOOK As a final deliverable, I created a global brand book complete with visual and TOV guidelines for the local markets to use when activating the launch campaign.