Beauty Banks
By Design Bridge - London
For Beauty Banks
Highly Commended in category Design & Branding
In subcategory Craft - Writing for Design
Project Description
Beauty Banks are essentially food banks but with beauty and hygiene products instead.
In 2018 esteemed journalist Sali Hughes and PR Jo Jones decided to use their considerable weight in the beauty industry to highlight the inherent hygiene poverty currently happening across Britain, and ask the public to collect items such as shower gel, deodorant and razors and make them available at food banks.
Acting as conduits, collecting the items and then delivering them up and down the UK, Sali and Jo established Beauty Banks to give those who can’t afford the basic the ability to experience the same essential confidence we take for granted every day – clean teeth, a spray of deodorant or washed hair.
We approached the founders as we recognised that this was a cause that needed a bold aesthetic presence and confident branding to really stand out and stand for something. We set ourselves the brief of turning Beauty Banks into a movement, spreading the word about the positive impact of hygiene products on every day life and everyone’s ability to help eradicate this problem.
In 2018 esteemed journalist Sali Hughes and PR Jo Jones decided to use their considerable weight in the beauty industry to highlight the inherent hygiene poverty currently happening across Britain, and ask the public to collect items such as shower gel, deodorant and razors and make them available at food banks.
Acting as conduits, collecting the items and then delivering them up and down the UK, Sali and Jo established Beauty Banks to give those who can’t afford the basic the ability to experience the same essential confidence we take for granted every day – clean teeth, a spray of deodorant or washed hair.
We approached the founders as we recognised that this was a cause that needed a bold aesthetic presence and confident branding to really stand out and stand for something. We set ourselves the brief of turning Beauty Banks into a movement, spreading the word about the positive impact of hygiene products on every day life and everyone’s ability to help eradicate this problem.
Agency Solution
This was about creating a brand, yes, but above all a movement that would work from a grassroots level up.
From the strategic thought of ‘Every body is a somebody’ we decided to focus on bold, empowering and uplifting messaging rather than shameful, depressing or apologetic appeals for help. It was about raising awareness and empathy without creating ‘victims’ or focusing on the negative. We used the language of the beauty industry but gave it a fresh imperative, with big, strong statements acting as a call to arms.
Instead of ‘collection points’ we now have Beauty Spots, and we use social media to really emphasise the ‘live’ requirements of the cause – for example in our advent campaign, where we turned the idea of giving on its head to do a daily appeal for individual items such as sanitary wear. We playfully term our givers, both in the public and corporate arena, ‘bankers’ – because with this movement, being a banker isn’t such a bad thing.
From the strategic thought of ‘Every body is a somebody’ we decided to focus on bold, empowering and uplifting messaging rather than shameful, depressing or apologetic appeals for help. It was about raising awareness and empathy without creating ‘victims’ or focusing on the negative. We used the language of the beauty industry but gave it a fresh imperative, with big, strong statements acting as a call to arms.
Instead of ‘collection points’ we now have Beauty Spots, and we use social media to really emphasise the ‘live’ requirements of the cause – for example in our advent campaign, where we turned the idea of giving on its head to do a daily appeal for individual items such as sanitary wear. We playfully term our givers, both in the public and corporate arena, ‘bankers’ – because with this movement, being a banker isn’t such a bad thing.