Sophie Maxwell, Futures Director, Pearlfisher12.04.13
The beauty industry is no longer just in the business of “covering up” as society’s view opens up to positively embrace imperfection in a way we could not have previously imagined.
From advertising to new product formulations, it is increasingly advocating the other face of beauty, found in our differences.
The new inspiring truth of beauty today, is the untapped opportunity to innovate and create desirable and aspirational brand design for the previously unmentioned and unaddressed side of it - the largely hidden underworld of beauty that provides solutions for the ill and the injured.
Missed Marketing Opportunities in Hair Care
Let’s start with hair care. In an industry where hair extensions have become as commonplace as lipstick, hairpieces and wigs are still rarely discussed or designed.
New technology means that today’s wigs are unbelievably realistic in feel, color match, style and fit. Wigs have become part of a large demographic’s daily routine, but the market is still desperately in need of an image overhaul – and this is largely down to the consumer-facing design and communication.
Today there are fantastic role models and resources to give us a very different perspective and new positivity. The Katie Piper Foundation, which is dedicated to “making life easier with burns and scars,” has a website that provides recommendations for “hair replacement systems” and the Foundation partners with the uber glamorous and exclusive Lucinda Ellery Hair Consultancy, London and LA.
It is this level of treatment and its desirability and specialness that we need to harness and filter down to the mass market, changing the perception and premise of hair replacement products on shelf, by creating a more aspirational verbal and visual language.
Skin Care Brands Are Doing Slightly Better
When it comes to skin care, there currently seems to be more product innovation for cancer sufferers than for other illnesses. Brands such as Lindi Skin own a great naming strategy with, for example, its Lindi Fight Back Pack, but it still needs a bolder and more beautiful design to put this mission statement into proper practice - it is not just the functional, but the emotional need that should be addressed by brands.
The same is true of Jeans Cream – a specially prepared aloe & Vitamin E balm for skin irritated by radiation or chemotherapy. Great innovations, but when we look at how many regular items – Ghd straighteners, Tweezerman tweezers - have become sexy (and successful) with strategic brand design and naming innovation, it just shows that there is still work to be done for these offers to reach their true potential.
So the mainstream should be doing more. It’s not necessarily about finger pointing, but about being more inclusive of the ill or injured day-to-day...rather than just producing a limited edition or dedicated charity product.
For example, how many of us know that chemo can turn your nails black?
As brands today become ever more collaborative, couldn’t these kind of needs be addressed with products that open up a whole different level of product function, to a whole new audience truly in need of a beauty fix?
This is a huge marketplace, but we are only just skimming the surface of what is a very real and necessary innovation arena.
Any of us at any time may be looking for cosmetic solutions of a million different kinds but, currently, those who are looking for the greatest cosmetic effect are just not being designed for. There is a very real opportunity and responsibility to design well and with specificity – to inspire and support - rather than ignore.
