Clinique
Transforming a beauty pioneer to reclaim category leadership
The challenge
Fifty years after its founding, Clinique’s product (and radical promise, that “great skin can be created”) still delivers. But when COVID-19 shut down the beauty counter and accelerated the digital brand experience, Clinique’s challenges became apparent.
It was saying so much – more SKUs, more proof points – that it wasn’t cutting through. It had lost its clarity, humanity, and joy.
Our brief: leverage the equity and power of the past to meet a radically different skin landscape, and the discerning next-gen consumer.
Decode
Optimism is in Clinique’s DNA. We recognized a globally emergent opportunity for the brand to re-imagine optimism – not as the pursuit of perfection, but as a purposeful, individual practice. We simplified Clinique’s complex brand ‘house’ into a core strategy based on three differentiating principles: safety, efficacy, and optimism. And we identified a globally resonant tone and actions which bring the positioning to life with the brand’s trademark bravery and clarity.
Recode
To tell our new story, we transformed Clinique’s brand world – starting with a refresh of core brand elements to better deliver on its strategic principles.
We streamlined and digitally optimized the brand style guide and trademarked a proprietary Clinique Green. We introduced a science-inspired secondary typeface to represent Clinique’s commitments to safety and efficacy – and to create more room for design creativity. And we removed all taglines and product messaging to focus equity on the Clinique wordmark and icon.
We developed a new set of visual codes that reimagined the sterile, white-coat science lab as an inclusive salon – a place to play with light, texture, and tactile materials.
And to ensure global adoption, we built The Foundation: a digital Center of Excellence for Clinique employees to learn and execute on the brand vision and story.
Transform
Based on our new brand principles and visual identity, Clinique successfully launched a new flagship retail concept (The Lab) in the US and China. Our brand strategy was directly attributed to double-digit global sales growth, and landed Clinique on Ad Age’s Hottest Brands and WWD’s Most Powerful Brands in Beauty lists.
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