Environmental responsibility has become ingrained in the minds of modern consumers. Over the last few years, the need for ‘sustainable lifestyles’ has become imperative.
But as consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their global footprint, they’re looking to brands to help them minimize their environmental impact – especially in the beauty sector.
As our insights showed, 99% of women say environmental factors impact their selection of beauty products, and 1 in 3 are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products.
Garnier is one brand that takes sustainability seriously. It is actively encouraging people to be mindful of waste production by reusing and recycling product bottles.
It is also developing an increasing number of products with naturally derived ingredients whenever possible.
To encourage more people to “Beauty Responsibly”, we needed to convince beauty users that Garnier was fully committed to making the cosmetics industry a more environmentally friendly place.
While consumers want brands to work for good, they are wary of brands that are inauthentic in their claims. 90% of people say that authenticity is important when deciding which brands to support (source: SocialMediaToday)
This insight inspired our idea. To convince our target of Garnier’s sincerity, we’d share our message through some of their most trusted advisers: the beauty editors of the websites and magazines they look to for beauty advice.
Introducing: “Beauty Responsibly, Together”, a campaign which invited 8 beauty editors from key publications – People, People En Español, Real Simple, InStyle, Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes and Garden – to work together for the very first time.
To increase awareness of the environmental impact of common beauty products and practices, our editors spoke directly to their readers and shared a simple pledge: “Together, we have the power to define our ‘beauty mark’ and build a more beautiful world for future generations”.
To explain how, we launched a multi-format content series, combining native video, digital, print and social content with targeted digital and social distribution.
We launched our campaign with a native video PSA highlighting our pledge to “Beauty Responsibly, Together”. Within, our 8 Beauty Editors explained the steps we can all take to ensure less waste and environmental impact in a powerful and personal context.
We hosted our video on a dedicated landing page on each of our magazine’s websites and drove traffic via display ads on site. Additionally, we developed a 15-second cutdown for social and shared across all magazine and Garnier social channels.
We also developed native articles – online and in print – explaining how to improve your sustainable efforts (while highlighting the steps Garnier has already taken). People focused on highlighting natural beauty products, for example, while Real Simple dedicated a feature to ‘green’ beauty and upcycling in its “spring cleaning” issue.
We supported our message with additional Insta Stories, and on Earth Day – the global day for environmental protection – we placed high-impact ads on all magazine digital and social properties. We also worked with trusted influencers to commit to “Beauty Responsibly, Together” and promoted via dark posts on Meredith social channels.
Our campaign resulted in excellent performance across all relevant metrics.
Overall, the campaign resulted in a unified, engaging campaign that was both socially responsible and effective at raising the profile of Meredith and Garnier brands across all media.
