Grupo Boticário Introduces Responsible Skincare

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Skincare and beauty routines are a huge part of women’s lives and so they’re a huge topic on social media. But as with everything else on social media, there are risks and harms as well as benefits to the rise of beauty influencers. Cosmetics giant Grupo Boticario commissioned a survey looking at how adolescent girls approach skincare and beauty, and made some shocking findings.

Skincare is a part of girls’ beauty routines, so it’s not surprising that 99% of them are already using at least one skincare product. What is more concerning is that 22% of girls are already using anti-aging creams, which are designed for adults and include chemicals and acids that are entirely unsuitable for youthful skin.

The use of anti-aging creams by teenage girls is just the most obvious example of a wider trend of adolescents using products designed for adults. Grupo Boticario realised it was the job of the skincare companies to take a lead on this and show responsibility, and alongside agency Gut they’ve launched the Responsible Skincare initiative, involving all their brands. This involves a new, clearer labelling system and an educational initiative, and it all starts with this ad.

The minute-long spot clearly explains the problem and the solution. But in doing so it also manages to avoid several risks, as our Test Your Ad Pro results show.

The biggest of these is the problem of negative emotion. The idea of young girls using the wrong products which could harm their skin is a distressing one and you’d expect to see some fear or sadness turn up in the emotional trace that Test Your Ad provides. But by the end of the ad, Grupo Boticario has done such a strong job at reassuring viewers that there is zero negative emotion towards the commercial. Instead, surprise and happiness dominate – surprise at the study’s findings but happiness at the clear steps the brand is taking to tackle it.

The end result is a 3.6-Star Rating for Grupo Boticario, well above the 2.7-Star average for Brazilian TV ads. This is a strong result because the ad isn’t following most of the usual guidelines for entertaining commercials. There’s no storyline, no protagonist, and the ad is heavily factual and information-based. But it still scores well on our predictor of long-term growth.

The reason is that the key associations of the ad are so positive. “Care”, “responsibility” and “protection” are the top 3 associations on Test Your Ad Pro – all three are highly positive items and things any skincare brand would want to be associated with. So even though this is a commercial with an important message that is trying to help young girls rather than sell a product, it’s still an ad which will work hard to grow the brand.