For almost a year, beauty brand Avon has been undergoing a makeover of its own with the introduction of a new logo and brand campaign, which has led to producing its first “John Lewis-style” Christmas campaign. It’ll debut later this year while its portfolio revamp and packaging redesign get set for release in early 2024.
“You don’t completely change a 136-year-old brand overnight,” said global chief marketing officer Kristof Neirynck as he discussed the 18-month process he is overseeing. He admits that he had never initially intended to commission a rebrand when he set out to introduce a packaging redesign across the main brand and its sub-brands of 120, which it is currently in the process of reducing to around 30.
Having joined Avon from Walgreens Boots Alliance in March 2022, where he was also CMO, one of Neirynck’s first acts was to commission design consultancy Free the Birds to redesign the brand’s packaging: a brief that would quickly expand to something revolutionary for the brand.
An unplanned rebrand
Neirynck discussed the project alongside Free the Birds CEO Nick Vaus, revealing that the agency suggested the new identity design without a brief. The previous marque was found to be applied inconsistently across the various brand touch points, which led Vaus to suggest the need for a rebrand ahead of the packaging redesign, offering just a single suggestion that was quickly adopted to represent the strength of its community of women customers and representatives.
“The brand was apologetic, the brand was misused, the brand needed some strength behind it,” claimed Vaus.
As a result, they decided not to release everything at once. Instead, they began with the release of the new digital identity, followed by the first element of the new campaign while drip-feeding more changes over the following 18 months.
“I felt because it was such a powerful brand transformation, a much more modern expression of the brand, that it was better to do it in every touch point as soon as we could. And yes, it was a bit messy for six months, but I’d rather have that than the contrary because our packaging will start flowing in from early next year. We could have waited, but that meant sitting on something good for a year,” said Neirynck.
This strategy aims to build momentum around the redesign and give time for stakeholders and the community to embrace the changes at headquarters, in retail stores and pop-up booths around the world.
The first phase of the rebrand began in February with the release of a new ongoing campaign, “Embrace Your Power,” developed by Wunderman Thompson.
It is now in its third phase with the release of an ad focusing on the ambitions of an astronomer to promote its fragrance “Far Away Beyond the Moon,” featuring the new pink logo at both the beginning and end.