Case Study: Rimmel London Turns Its Spotlight on Social Purpose

Every business should have a story – something that expresses your brand purpose and values. Now, what if you could showcase your purpose in an authentic way?

Working with Delineate, Rimmel London used original market research to showcase its social purpose and differentiate itself in a competitive market.

The Challenge

In the business of self-expression since 1829, Rimmel London is a makeup brand that prides itself on pushing boundaries through innovation. The $9bn beauty company wanted to identify social issues that affected their target audience. To raise awareness of this shocking truth, Rimmel wanted to understand the beauty cyber bullying landscape and create an edgy campaign that would deliver on its mission to empower young women to express their individuality.

The Solution

Delineate was commissioned to deliver original market research which would be used to brief into creative and media agencies, to support a complex global social purpose campaign. The global study interviewed 11,000 young women about their personal experiences of online beauty bullying. The report and findings presented in a beauty cyber bullying report gave Rimmel the credibility to speak with authority, about a topic that would benefit society on a global scale.

Our Approach

Define

To understand societal issues in the beauty arena, the first step was to build a social conversation territory map. Using desk research and qualitative interviews with industry leaders and other stakeholders, the team sharpened its focus on beauty cyber bullying.

Design

Once the audience and hypotheses were established, the team set about engaging with collaborators and experts in the field, such as The Cybersmile Foundation. Delineate designed a questionnaire and then executed the field work in multiple languages around the world. Interviewing 11,000 young women aged 26-25 to examine:

-    Their social media usage and habits

-    Attitudes towards beauty

-    The impact of beauty cyber bullying

Deliver

The results of this global study provided quantitative insights, along with qualitative comments, that revealed interesting trends. The findings formed the foundation of an academic white paper on the issue of beauty cyber bullying.

For Rimmel, this thought leadership paper would support its aim of speaking with authority, about a topic that would benefit society on a global scale.

By using the research, the beauty giant was able to:

-    Build a partnership with The Cybersmile Foundation that would provide an assistant tool for victims of beauty cyber bullying.

-    Gain the support of global celebrities to add weight to the campaign

-    Launch a campaign video

-    Devise a robust paid and earned global media plan

Image source: Rimmel London beauty cyberbully campaign – rimmellondon.com.