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Overdone Glamour, Undone
After finishing our primary research on Max Factor, our first goal in tackling creative strategy was deciding to use the R/GA New York method to get to the unexpected insight. Using all of our primary research in addition to social listening, we were able to find paradoxes that existed within the image of the brand and how women in the United States wear makeup. Some of the paradoxes we found were:
Paradox: Max Factor is supposed to be glamorous (Marilyn advertising), but it’s seen as cheap and old-fashioned.
Paradox: High price point for being a drug store makeup brand, but packaging looks cheap.
Paradox: Women want variety, but Max Factor doesn’t have a large selection.
Paradox: Packaging looks cheap, but its actually good quality makeup.
Going through the paradoxes, we realized that women still wear a lot of makeup, but they want to look “natural” at the end of the day, i.e. themselves, but better. The insight we came to was, “people wear a lot of makeup to look like a natural beauty.” The shift would be from Hollywood glamour to natural everyday beauty with 100 days of #everydayglamour. In the 100 days, there will be a different YouTube celebrity blogger tutorial featuring Max Factor and shared on Twitter and Instagram. The bloggers are the brand ambassador’s and will be used in print and television campaigns as well as social media platforms. Currently other brands use bloggers, however, they are not the main focus of the campaigns; the focus is usually celebrities and models. We felt that by making the YouTube celebrities the focus of the brand, we could reach our target audience and connect to them on a more authentic level.
Since people were extremely confused by the brand positioning, “Makeup for Makeup artists,” we felt that Max Factor needed to position itself as a luxury brand that is sold in Sephora and Ulta. We decided to drop the tagline and change the packaging to sleek, high-quality material . Our art direction in print and social media is extremely clean and simple, with focus on the product and makeup blogger. We wanted to reposition the brand as, “approachable glamour,” and we didn’t want the makeup on the bloggers to look outdated or too colorful. We think that if Max Factor changes their approach to match their target audience, they can relaunch their brand in the United States.
