Bend Beauty’s narrative shift during the COVID-19 pandemic
By Brooke Stephen
In a year that has demanded more honesty and transparency from the businesses we choose to support, consumers want more information about the ethos behind brands.
Communicating your brand purpose has therefore become more important than ever before. Creating affinity for your brand goes beyond the products you sell. It’s about why you do what you do and the feeling you inspire in the communities you are part of.
Bend Beauty creates premium skin health supplements that are designed to unlock your skin’s potential. The company was started in 2015, when our founder and CEO predicted we would see a future rooted in the convergence of wellness and beauty. The skin is our largest organ, and based on its physiology, it’s clear that treating it topically isn’t the opportune way to care for your skin.
This is what sets Bend Beauty apart from other beauty brands. We use research and innovation to deliver highly effective skincare treatments from the inside out.
At Bend Beauty, our brand purpose is about “creating a beautiful life”. This powerful purpose statement means something different to everyone who considers it. At a core level, we believe our purpose is to nourish all the connections in and around us.
Our brand conversations
In this year of the “great pause”, our team realized our purpose statement was more important than ever before. We began to have more conversations around what creating a beautiful life meant to each of us and recognized the positive and hopeful feelings these conversations evoked.
In May 2020 we engaged the help of Proof Strategies, an integrated marketing communications agency, to help us raise brand awareness of Bend Beauty across Canada and into the U.S. There were several exciting developments happening that we wanted to share, including the rebranding of our foundational product, Anti-Aging Formula.
Anti-Aging Formula is one of the first products of its kind that has been authorized by Health Canada to make the impressive label claims of improved skin hydration, elasticity and firmness, roughness and redness (from skin inflammation), while providing a dose of antioxidants for skin health.
Perhaps most impressively, this product has been clinically proven to help in reducing skin sensitivity to UV (ultraviolet)-induced sunburn. In a clinical trial, after eight weeks of taking Anti-Aging Formula, participants were able to stay out in the sun 84 percent longer before burning. This is not your average skincare product.
But the name Anti-Aging Formula has not felt right for our brand for some time. It also alienated a segment of our audience who didn’t feel they needed “anti-aging” products, but who we knew would really enjoy the product’s benefits (it is approved for ages 19-plus).
The beauty industry had been moving away from the term “anti-aging” for awhile. And we felt it was the perfect time to make the change and connect our foundational product to our brand purpose.
First, we landed on a new name, Renew + Protect. This name more accurately reflects what the product does for your skin and makes it a more appealing proposition to people looking to optimize their skin health.
Rather than focusing on “anti-aging”, we decided to shift the conversation towards “skin health and longevity”. Namely “what if we all changed the way we talk about ‘anti-aging’ and focused more on the concept of skin health instead?” and “how does that shift the way you think about your appearance, and what you want out of your skincare routine?” As to longevity we wanted to tie Bend Beauty to the concept of living a long and beautiful life, which includes the pursuit of a strong and healthy body, soul and mind.
A new kind of campaign
Second, with the help of Proof, we embarked on a campaign to highlight our brand purpose and celebrate our recent re-brand.
However, there was one key challenge: COVID-19. We couldn’t host an engaging kick-off event for beauty influencers and editors, and the whole Zoom cocktail hour thing was feeling pretty tired.
With collaboration between our marketing team and Proof Strategies, we undertook a different kind of campaign to showcase and celebrate beauty from within, in collaboration with world-renowned photographer Justin Wu.
The result? A first of its kind Canadian virtual photo shoot, shot safely from the comfort of participants’ homes, directed virtually by Justin. We carefully selected our photoshoot partners to include a group of compelling nano- and micro-influencers, who we knew could drive target consumer behaviour. More importantly, each participant embraced their outward natural beauty with a confidence that can only come from feeling good in the skin you’re in.
Our campaign purpose, to promote natural beauty from within, was rooted in a singular question that we posed to participants: “What does living a beautiful life mean to you?”
The results (and photos) were magical. How each participant described their version of a beautiful life is exactly the shift in narrative Bend Beauty hopes to see in the world, and more specifically, in the beauty industry.
Take this example from Narley Karikari, a model and mindset coach. “To me, a beautiful life begins with creating a beautiful mind. When you agree to be happy moment to moment, rather than milestone to milestone, then you’re on your way to true beauty…beauty is more than skin deep. A beautiful life is a way of thinking.”
We are proud to share the results of the #BendBeautyFromWithin campaign with our community online, and to continue to flip the script that typically surrounds discussions of beauty and skin health.
Brooke Stephen is marketing manager, Bend Beauty.
Bend Beauty creates premium skin health supplements that are designed to unlock your skin’s potential. The company was started in 2015, when our founder and CEO predicted we’d see a future rooted in the convergence of wellness and beauty. The skin is our largest organ, and based on its physiology, it’s clear that treating it topically isn’t the opportune way to care for your skin. This is what sets Bend Beauty apart from other beauty brands. We have a different approach: one where we use research and innovation to deliver highly effective skincare treatments from the inside out.
At Bend Beauty, our brand purpose is about “creating a beautiful life”. This powerful purpose statement means something different to everyone who considers it. At a core level, we believe our purpose is to nourish all the connections in and around us.
Bend Beauty Virtual Photoshoot Participants:
Emily MacCulloch @emilymacculloch
Ingrie Williams @ingriewilliams
T-Zone Beauty (run by Emily MacCulloch and Ingrie Williams) @t.zonebeauty
Narley Karikari @narleyk
Geri Jeune @mllegeri
Tara Salloum @taraleighrose
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