BUSINESS CONCEPT AND SERVICE BRAND DEVELOPMENT
Redefining the Business of Beauty
My client Ingrid Broeren had owned and operated a busy, high end hair salon for 20 years. After she sold up, she wanted to use what she’d learned to create a new kind of service. Something that spoke to her creative professional skills and personal ideals, while responding to current market trends in the beauty and fashion industry.
Ingrid was interested in the effect of her work on her client's confidence and how this confidence positively impacted their lives, both personally and professionally. She wanted to use the "chair chit chat", which forms a large part of the salon experience, to help define a visual identity, or a 'signature look' for her clients. She called it 'Style Coaching'. It tied perfectly into the current Authentic Beauty movement, imperfection and uniqueness is something to celebrate and accentuate.
PROJECT Highlights
I was given the creative freedom to consolidate client needs, wishes and ideas – taking special note of the traps she wanted to avoid in her new practice. I disseminated Ingrid's verbal and visual input, and I developed this into a working business model, supplying full production on- and offline resources communications solutions, including copywriting and design.
• Replacing the standard salon-service pricing structure (piecemeal per action) to a 3-tier product/package system, selling blocks of time, rather than individual actions and material use.
• Devising a data capture system that collected information about the client's background story, goals and social media feeds to inform the personalised service and style decisions
• Designed and implemented a brand system to back-up and support the concept, which was flexible enough to absorb an eclectic range of client content and visual styles.
• Communications plan, including a launch strategy and quarterly campaign plan.
• Customised workflow designed for a sole operator, creating automated communications processes that reduced manual handling and supported trust in the one-on-one customer experience.
• Devising a data capture system that collected information about the client's background story, goals and social media feeds to inform the personalised service and style decisions
• Designed and implemented a brand system to back-up and support the concept, which was flexible enough to absorb an eclectic range of client content and visual styles.
• Communications plan, including a launch strategy and quarterly campaign plan.
• Customised workflow designed for a sole operator, creating automated communications processes that reduced manual handling and supported trust in the one-on-one customer experience.
Communications Strategy
The communications strategy outlined key messages, a launch strategy and a quarterly website and social campaign plan. The visual concepts focus on images that reflect (looking beneath) surface, identity and transformation, while aligning with current fashion trends.
Pre-launch Teaser (SOCIAL) Campaign
I started with a social teaser campaign to explore relevant themes and test her followers for their receptiveness to the new concept of "Beauty from the inside out'. Copywriting focussed on self reflective questioning.
Identity design
The brand is aimed at the mid-to-high end of the market. It delivers a more defined visual identity. It values authenticity, courage and welcomes change. The service is local, personal, trusted, customised and private.
Target market: Women who are in a period of biological, emotional or social change in their lives, who are about to embark on a new trajectory and are looking to boost their confidence. Ie: Young career women, new mothers, middle-aged menopausal women, women in an influential professional phase and/or women recovering from health issues.
WEBSITE, CRM and AUToMATED workflow SYSTEM
As a sole service-operator, it's important to have the time to serve your customers well. My client wanted to be completely independent in her daily (social) marketing activities and managing her client database.
Off The Grid's website was built in Wix due to the simple WYSIWYG editor, supporting client independence. Wix's social media integration, built-in CRM and email marketing capability supported personalised contact with her client database, collecting relevant, in depth information from clients to support a customised service while enhancing user experience overall.
PHOTOGRAPHIC Art Direction And VISUAL DESIGN
For the launch of the new business and to website, I devised visual concept for the launch that focussed on visually communicating what Off The Grid was all about. This involved forming an idea in the customers' mind about a new attitude to beauty - one that is centred in authentic self expression and celebrates individuality. A new salon service specialising in defining your own look. This idea was visually represented by using visual references to contours (boundaries), reflections, multiple viewpoints, layers, shadows and frames. I created high-resolution composites from the RAW files supplied by the photographer. Clothing and hair styling was done by the client.
