The Brief
Develop and launch a communications idea for NIVEA’s first-ever oil control brand that will best resonates with the teenager to young adult, mid to lower SEM female consumer.
Strategic Springboard
Human truth:
Oil control is a daily issue that holds me back from freely experience life, without feeling stressed and self-conscious
Product truth:
This is NIVEA’s first ever all-day oil-control range at an affordable price, from a trusted brand
Competitor truth:
Competitors promise that they can manage excess oil with affordable products
Strategic Positioning
The freedom to face the world
We’re not just removing excess oil from your day, we’re removing the stress and embarrassment that comes with it, so you can do the things you want to.
Treatment
Say goodbye to shiny skin:
Shine-free, grease-free skin for up to 12 hours
The Idea
The before/after construct is a well-trodden one in the beauty industry.
Here we acknowledge that life before NIVEA Perfect & Matte Effect was already filled with happy memories – this product is, after all, an oil-controlling face care product, and not some life-resetting magic button.
There is a catch though – all of these memories are tainted by oily, overpoweringly shiny skin which obscures our heroine’s face in all her photographs.
Using visual hyperbole, we injected a sense of playfulness into the campaign which was aligned to the audience age range.
TVC Script
We open in a living room. The camera pans along the top of a display cabinet, displaying an array of photos you’d expect to find in most family homes, all featuring one girl/woman. As the camera pans, we hear the voiceover below.
FVO:
*Sigh* Some girls are so lucky. But my skin has always been a challenge. Oily. Shiny. Umanagable.
We pan through past a photo of a group of girls at a matric dance. They all look amazing, but one of the girls’ faces is concealed by a large glare – almost like when you take a picture of a shiny surface.
We see more pictures of her: her at her graduation. Standing with her new car.
Meeting a famous local celebrity. In every photo, her face is just one big reflection.
FVO:
But thanks to NIVEA Perfect & Matte Effect, I’ve now got shine-free skin to face the world.
Announcer:
Say goodbye to oily skin for once and for all with New NIVEA Perfect & Matte Effect Vanishing Cream: made with lemon and Vitamin C extract to give you beautiful, oil-free, non-greasy skin for up to 12 hours.
We cut to an application sequence where the woman stands in her bathroom at home, smiling confidently as she applies NIVEA Perfect & Matte Effect Vanishing Cream.
Titles animate onto screen:
OIL-FREE, GREASE-FREE, UP TO 12 HOURS
We cut to a beautiful packshot before closing to the NIVEA logo.
Extending the campaign
As proof of concept, we explored some additional channel options, as well as activations, POS, transit branding and influencer drops.
The Debrief
Client felt the concept was too humorous and requested further treatments. We were also instructed to focus primarily on the TVC and Key Visual for the campaign due to limited budget.
Treatment 2
Shine-free, oil-free, look-at-me skin
for up to 12 hours
The Idea
Our research shows that oily, shiny skin dampens a woman’s confidence and makes her self-conscious. We want women to let go of worrying about oily skin and let their natural confidence shine.
Treatment 3
Pass on the confidence
The Idea
Tapping into the understanding that women value word-of-mouth recommendations, especially on beauty products, we treated this route as linear narrative between two friends. Using the friends’ experiences with their skin, we could set up a before and after usage example without the typical splitscreen device.
We injected a bit more of a youthful feel through the combined use of illustration and photography.
The final treatment
Pass on the confidence
The Rollout
We began with a reworked script of two colleagues in an office bathroom, discussing skin care. This was tweaked to the point where storyboards and animatics were tested with an audience sample, before the script was finalised and the TVC was produced.
The illustrational route was dropped in favour of a cleaner, more standard approach. With the script finalised, we could now move away from using stock images and into art direction and pre-production for a stills shoot.
I provided creative direction on the stills shoot for the key visual production, following through with the art direction of the print and digital assets, and adaptions of the TVC for digital channels.
