Douglas believes the conventional beauty industry and its traditional beauty standards are outdated. For the 111th anniversary Douglas therefore wanted to initiate a brand revolution that clearly shows the brand’s position. What first was planned as a brand positioning quickly became the chance to revolutionize far more than just the brand, but as a first mover the whole beauty industry…

Is the physical appearance all we should talk about when defining beauty? No. Beauty is so much more than that. It shows itself first and foremost in beautiful actions. In terms of content, this was solved by images that break with previously accepted ideals of beauty, for example by defining body parts differently and showing models who have real stories, combined with challenging lines of text that emphasize true beauty as the result of beautiful actions.

In the past many beauty brands have made an attempt to redefine the perception of beauty to abandon old standards. “Diversity” became the go-to buzzword – a development in the right direction, but just not sufficient to overcome the outdated image of beauty. Analyzing the target group, we discovered a strong insight: Looking at ourselves, we still value physical appearance the most. When looking at others, we perceive kindness as the most beautiful feature.

The campaign started in May 2021 with the awareness phase - parallel in 26 European countries. Our big idea of doing beautiful - based on the new Douglas brand purpose - was the start of a campaign and a communication strategy, which is and will be ongoing for several months and is the core of every piece of communication that will follow. The campaign took place through several channels - and worked for different media budgets of the different countries.

A 360° campaign serving a toolbox for 19x European countries including a 60sec hero online film, more than 10x TV cuts, 39x print and OOH motifs as well as a social media package with around 90x playouts. The campaign is still ongoing, therefore we do not have any results yet.