Results and Effectiveness

SKI-II FTE achieved a +5% sales increase versus YA and grew new users by +43%! For 12 weeks, the brand held the #1 skincare product rank position with 90% positive comments – primarily from young adult women – in Japan’s most influential beauty & cosmetic website, @cosme. Despite being a 30-year old product, FTE was voted the “Winter 2010 Best Skincare Brand” by @cosme and three of Japan’s premier beauty magazines – VoCE, BITEKI & MAQUIA.

Creative Execution

Putting a fresh, young face on the brand, we recruited celebrity Haruka Ayase – ranked #1 for having Japan’s ‘most beautiful skin’ – and invited her to try SK-II FTE for 14 days. Young women followed her daily experience in Television and Print, generating newfound, relevant awareness of the brand. Key opinion leaders, beauty experts and other celebrities quickly followed suit, sharing their 14-day trial experiences in print titles, helping to generate excitement & desirability among young women. To battle the misnomer of anti-aging products creating “lazy” skin in young faces, superstar make-up artist Ikko – along with several fashion editors – told personal stories about the benefits of beginning to use FTE at a young age. Conversation was further ignited in online & mobile environments. We asked consumers to engage in their own 14-day trial and share their stories in top beauty blogs & websites, collectively generating powerful WOM within social tribes.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Facial Treatment Essence (FTE) – a 30+ year hero product within SK-II’s anti-aging line – faced an aging consumer base and hoped to boost sales by recruiting a new generation of users, young women 25-34. Endorsed for seventeen years by the same – now 59 year-old – celebrity, young women felt the brand was irrelevant. Additionally, they believed that introducing anti-aging products into your beauty regimen too soon would result in “lazy” skin by spoiling it before its time. While the desire to belong is not unique to young Japanese women, in Japan, this yearning creates an especially strong loyalty to a tight-knit social community. No individual moves without or beyond the comfort of the tribe, and precious few – namely celebrities – hold positions of influence to sway opinion. Our solution was to inspire a movement of sorts – a call to “Start now for your future” that would create relevance for FTE among young women.