B (5:17)

Donna Martin, are you asking me to marry you?

C (5:20)

Yes. David Silver, will you marry me?

B (5:23)

I think I will.

C (5:26)

I love you.

A (5:27)

I love you.

C (5:35)

If you remember rooting for Donna and David, it may be time for to start using Neutrogena retinol renewal serum. Restore smoother, younger looking skin with one bottle. Sorry, this is weird. Take care of that young skin.

A (5:59)

So Leah, how do you, how do you look at the category?

C (6:01)

Well, I mean I think that they're the category when it comes to communications is kind of in two camps, like on two sides. Medicinal, clinical. Absolutely. Like it's been very functional, very to the skin. Like that's just one sort of been caught in this claims game. Like 48 hours, 72 hours, you know, 9 times, 10 times it's just been this functional pathway or on the other side you have this like ethereal glamour and celebrity faces. And I think that that has worked for a long time because beauty is just the most fundamental need and desire. It has stood the test of time. It is always there and we've been in a boom of skincare and beauty. So it's just been growing and it doesn't matter, you know, there's been no incentive to change because it works. But I think what we've seen or what especially this team, is that we're kind of at this reckoning where people are a bit overwhelmed with choice. People are kind of getting tired of seeing all of that and it's just noise. So I think that's why for us, we knew we wanted to set out to do something extremely different and kind of disrupt what has been happening on both sides of those spectrums.

A (7:22)

So Chris, the business had been with DDB for a couple of decades. Was it a pitch that went to BBDO or how did it end up, why did it end up at bbdo? What was the ask that you had for them?

D (7:38)

Yeah, that was a, that was absolutely a pitch. So I mean we've been working for what, a year together right there at X times?

C (7:46)

Just, just over a year.

D (7:48)

Yeah, it felt like decades, but yeah, dog years.

C (7:51)

Yeah.

D (7:53)

But you know we're, you know, we're coming from, I mean what we want to achieve with the brand, Fergus, is, is really turnaround, you know, so we wanted to really a breakthrough versus what the, what has been the communication of the brand, especially for the last five, six, seven years. You know, the, the brand is a, again, it's a Massive mega brand. It's quite challenged in beauty. There's a lot of new entrants all the time. And you know, and beauty is such a high energy category. You know, there's something new happening every six months, a lot of new communications. You need to be on, on edge, on top of the game on your toe, you know, to be, to be competitive in that category. And I think this is what we wanted to do. Put the brand, you know, get the brand back into on edge of the category and get the brand back in culture. And we felt that we needed a partner that, that is different. That is, you know, social, social focus.

B (8:44)

So what Chris was saying is when we look at it like you look at Skin Talk, which is its own subset of TikTok, there's something like 4.3 or 4.4 billion posts just, just sitting in that subsection of TikTok. So the whole industry has shifted away from like, significantly away from like traditional media and, and the way we used to do things and the way we used to consume, you know, where we'd get out, where we'd get our beauty info from, like the ads that Leia was talking about, like, where a celebrity would just be, you know, someone that you would aspire to look like. Whereas now a celebrity is someone that has a voice and has a very kind of, you know, a set of opinions that they, they put out into the world and you can attach yourself to them and get their audiences. And so much of this is happen beauty space and within TikTok in particular, that like, we have to be culturally relevant to get those eyeballs and to get those people talking about us as the brand and like Chris is talking about, get that relevancy back for Neutrogena. Because if you think of us as a brand, like, awareness isn't, isn't a problem for Neutrogena. Everybody knows about Neutrogena and they've known about it for the last 50 years. It's. Is Neutrogena a relevant brand to me, and I think that's where we're trying to find our little space within that TikTok area or within social in particular, to really carve out a voice for ourselves and build back that relevancy that we need for the brand.

A (10:17)

So Leah, for you, when you came onto this pitch or were part of the planning team, what sort of things did you guys do and what were some of the key things you learned?

C (10:27)

So, I mean, we did all the usual suspects. You know, I wish to say we did something radically different to find things. I think what was different though was we set out with a really clear goal. Like because skincare is so it all looks the same. So we knew, and it's very surface, we knew we wanted something very deep and to bring a totally unique perspective to the category, which is hard. So we did a deep dive and we did a deep dive of aging in general. Like aging, the culture of aging. Not just for this specific, specific assignment, not just aging on the skin. Obviously we looked at the category because it's.

A (11:05)

So why did you do aging? Why? Because of a particular product that you were marketing.

C (11:10)

So talking about this, this campaign, this was, I mean we looked at every, every sub genre of beauty, but this campaign was specifically for aging skin. Retinol is a gold standard when it comes to aging. And it is, you know that that's what we're selling. So we wanted to understand beyond just what's happening on the skin and why people reach for anti aging products. Like what, what does that mean? So I think the first thing that we learned was society and the category. It's like a horror genre. I mean literally if you think about the substance, you know, it's. Body horror is a new genre of horror films. And the industry preys on that. You know, there's a lot of fear based advertising, a lot of problem solution, like combat fight, you know, it's like a battle. And I think that we wanted to be very different than that. So that was one insight that we had. Another is when it comes to our own appearance, like the relationship we have with our own appearance has fundamentally changed in recent years. Because, because of this, because you're staring at your face every day, you just are confronted with change. So it used to be that like a trigger point for aging was a wrinkle. That is no longer what gets people thinking about aging. You know, it starts much earlier. The signs of aging, you're just much more attuned to changes in your face. So people are treating with retinol specifically like so much younger and you're just so hyper aware of your own appearance today. And then another thing that we found, I think this was really the unlock was we looked at culture like how, how are people talking about aging? And it was radically different than the category. It wasn't fear based, even though people are scared of it. It was largely through humor and nostalgia. And you're seeing a lot of things in social media of people saying like how Was this movie 20 years ago? Like how was that not yesterday that I was wearing these, you know, this style of its back, you know already. And I think that insight that it's actually nostalgia, that's the first sign of aging. It's actually looking at a show and wondering and feeling like it just happened yesterday and realizing it happened decades ago. That's actually the real first sign of aging. And that, you know, we used a meme to brief and it has ruined my team's life because now that has set the bar very high for what briefs, creative briefs should look like on Neutrogena. Like, you know, and Booker is relentless. Like, he'll look at a creative brief and say, no, that's not a Neutrogena brief like that. So it has to have that culture.

A (14:03)

Booker, what is this meme that's being referred to here?

B (14:08)

So Leah shared me a picture of a troll with pink hair, the Troll Dolls. And she's like, if you remember playing with one of these, then you're old. And that was like, I just set off the. I mean, it was just such a great insight into, like, you know, me as a 46 year old. Something that now when I look at Instagram, I'm constantly fed things. Like, all these bands I grew up with are celebrating 30, 35 years of these iconic albums that I used to listen to, still listen to. But I think for me, it's like once we found Leah found that insight around nostalgia, and I want to unpack that a little. Like, nostalgia has been used a lot in advertising beforehand, but I would say it hasn't been used in an interesting way. Like, a lot of brands will bring out retro things or they'll hark back to a time that was an awesome time, like yesteryear. But what they don't do is find that cultural tension in there that, oh, my God, that thing now means I'm old. And I think when Leia unlocked that for me, it was just like, we have to run at this so hard because it's not about finding a particular piece of IP or a show that we can connect ourselves to, even though one of our execution does that. It was more about how do we use this nostalgia as a trigger to remind people in all different aspects of their life that this is a sign that you are maybe a little older than you think, done in a very fun, humorous way, and then using that as something to motivate people to go and pick up some Neutrogena retinol and start taking care of their skin before it gets to that next step where it's maybe too late.

A (15:52)

Give us an example, Booker. Give Us an example that sort of explains even deeper what you were talking about in terms of the distinction between doing it in a culturally interesting way and how others have done it.

B (16:04)

Okay, so others might bring another brand, may bring back a retro pack from a certain period. So I'll use Narragansett as an example. They have a beer that comes out. They make the can that was the same can used in the Jaws film. So you can go and buy that beer and like, the packaging's wonderful. Love it. But it's a, it's kind of surface level in the insight, right? It's like you remember Jaws, you remember the captain drinking this beer. You can be like that guy, drink the beer and enjoy it. And you remember that time fondly where taking those moments like the Jaws film, for example, and using that to be like, if you saw this the first time it came out, that means a long time has passed in your life. And then we're using that as the motivation to go and take care of your skin. Which I think is radically different for the category. Like Leah was pointing out before, instead of telling people seven times faster or removes wrinkles in one week, which we do in lower tier work, the bigger cultural hook is using nostalgia as that driver to go and get people to spur into action. And I think that's where it gets interesting. So yes, we use 90210 to do that, but then there's audio ads where in Spotify, for example, we're doing very targeted placements within 90s playlists so that all of a sudden you're using that music as a trigger. Or it might be that we make some swag that looks like it came from the 90s. Or it might be that we take over an old Blockbuster video store and turn that into an activation. If you remember going down there on a Friday night and sifting through countless tapes and be kind rewind or whatever it may be, we can use those things. So I think it opened up a real, a huge area for us to play in that, like drove it, that cultural relevance that we're talking about in, in the sense of like, people can relate to it instantly. They get a smile out of it and then, and then they go on and be like, oh my God, Neutrogena, you just called me old. But I love it. And, and there are videos. I mean, if you go and search 90210 Neutrogena on TikTok, you'll find like a whole slew of videos of people like, did you just call me old? Like oh, my God, I can't believe you did that. But respect. I love it. And I think that's to us where we're starting to find those. A long way of getting back to your question around the cultural relevance and layer, creating these briefs that I now hold up as the benchmark. It's like it has to have something that drives a cultural response in it versus just telling us like this product does xyz, which will, you know, have these results. And I think like when we with this whole category moving so heavily into social, first we need to find those insights that live in a social space that people do relate to, be it aging or be it, you know, hair care or whatever the next product is that we're working on.

A (19:09)

So, Chris, it's interesting when you look at a brand like Neutrogena, been around for decades, it has been marketing for a certain way for a long period of time. A lot of times that becomes sort of a result of the organization culturally itself being used to that way of advertising, that way of messaging, or it looks at the category and it says, well, this is the way other people are doing it. We're big by scale, so we can just continue to do that. So my question is, when you bring this work, let's talk about like the Beverly Hills 90210 concept. When that comes to you and then you're thinking in your head, I've got to get this sold in internally. Not that it's radical in any way, but it's different. How did you anticipate people reacting and how did they actually react?

D (20:01)

What's specific to the category Beauty is that there's so much content out there. So much content. So there's so much clutter, there's so much noise. And especially people love products in beauty. They just love products. So it's so easy to just dump content on products all the time. Right. And it's comfortable for a beauty brand to do that. And for me, the challenge that we have to solve and especially when again, we're coming from a place of challenge, like I was saying before, for you to be competitive again, I mean, you need to break through that clutter. We obsess by making through the clutter and to get the organization and because you're right, you're right. I mean, an organization like ours is big. We're sort of be a bit too conservative sometimes or be sometimes and get the right incentive for us to, I mean, to take. To be bolder and more daring. How we are postponing questions to Be obsessed by breaking for the clutter because if you're not bold enough, you're just.

B (21:06)

Not heard at all.

A (21:08)

So one of the things that struck me is that you were talking earlier when we were talking earlier about the idea this is part science and it's part beauty. It's interesting that you guys kept a dermatologist in the spot Booker. Was that in the original concept or was that something that you later felt you needed to do? You did it really incredibly well because she comes across as more actress than dermatologist. She's almost comedic.

B (21:39)

Yeah.

A (21:40)

Tell me about that role.

B (21:42)

I can tell you about that role and a fun story that goes with it. So the fun part first is that role is our directors, David Shaffee and Lizzie Bourne. That's actually David's dermatologist. So we did cast for a dermatologist. So everything we do and Chris touched on this at the beginning. Our brand platform is beauty to a science. That means beauty and science are inseparable. Those two things are a huge part of everything that we do to bring the science and give the credibility. We always use a real dermatologist within our marketing. So we find interesting ways to bring that dermatologist in. We don't just want them to be the voice of science that just kind of stands there and delivers the boring stuff. We want them to feel like they're inseparable from the work that we do. And we feel like having someone like Dr. Shawna, who is a very real dermatologist who just happened to have great comedic timing come in and give you that message. It was done in a way that felt like it was a truth bomb that was being dropped on you, but done with a smile and a nod and a little bit of a. So it didn't feel like she's just, hey, you're old. It was more like, you know, if you remember this, it maybe time. And it's just that little elongation on the maybe that allowed her to come across as someone that's quite sincere. This week on Neutrogena Remembers. La Donna Martin, are you asking me to marry you?

C (23:12)

Yes. David Silver, will you marry me?

B (23:15)

I think I will.

C (23:18)

I love you.

A (23:19)

I love you.

C (23:28)

If you remember rooting for Donna and David, it may be time to start using Neutrogena retinol renewal serum. Restore smoother, younger looking skin with one bottle. Sorry, this is weird.

A (23:44)

Take care of that.

B (23:45)

Young skin.

C (23:51)

Dermatologists are a core equity for Neutrogena. So nutrition.

A (23:55)

Tell me about that. Has it always been that way?

C (23:57)

Always so that, that was what the brand. Chris can speak to this better than me, but that was what the brand was founded on. It was a dermatologist endorsed developed formula. And it was this belief that you could get something that was very effective, dermatologically advanced, but also mild and gentle. And that was, that was what the brand was, was built to do. And Neutrogena gave birth to what we see today is called Dermo cosmetic skincare. So dermatologists developed all of those dermatologists recommended and that is the category that is booming and why things are so clinical. So we invented this category and everyone else came in and overtook it. So we had to find a diff, we had to find a new way to bring dermatologists in that wasn't just education, skin benefits, giving, democratizing access to derm advice. We've, I think what Booker has done that's so amazing is made them part of our storytelling. Like they're part of the cultural storytelling. They're not just there as a sort of scientific sign off. And that was really important to, to take back the category we created and, and start talking about it in a new way.

B (25:09)

And on social. I mean durms are rock stars now. Like one of the derms we work with has 20 something million followers and huge amounts of engagement on their posts. I mean people are seeking out information from people they trust. You know, as, as we get more and more information that's less trustworthy thrown at us. Like derms do bring that credibility. So we very, you know, it's very important for us to work with derms that lend that credibility to our story. And they don't love all of our products either, which I think is crucial as well, that sometimes they won't work with certain things, sometimes they'll call out the fact that this one over here, stay away from that. But when they give us the endorsement on the good ones, it's worth its weight in gold for us.

A (25:59)

So Booker mentioned beauty to a science. Is that a Neutrogena enterprise wide platform or is that for regeneration and hydro boost? Is it just for certain product lines?

C (26:16)

No, that is for the brand. That is a brand. That is what the brand stands for. We are a beauty brand powered by science. And you know, going back to that dichotomy that we talked about of there's clinical and then there's that ethereal glamour. Chris mentioned the no compromise. You, you shouldn't have to compromise like and that is our fundamental belief, you should be able to want to pursue whatever beauty ideal you want. And science is the best means to do that. We have the best. Our science is not in service of science. We're not celebrating labs, we're not celebrating chemistry. We're getting you the beauty you want through the most powerful platform there is, which is dermatological science.

A (27:03)

So where does this all start for you, Chris, in terms of the executions? For me, I feel like it started when I began to see the regenerating cream work. But then I'm confused because maybe the first time I saw it was with John Cena in the super bowl for a different product. Where did the new BBDO work start to roll out?

D (27:25)

So actually the first campaign we've launched was if. So it's the Collagen bank campaign that we launched. So I was.

A (27:34)

Which one?

D (27:34)

Collagen Bank. So a campaign where we had Dr. Dumasian and Haley Steinfeld, you know, signed together.

C (27:40)

We lose one of our collagen every year starting in our 20s, which means we must start banking collagen for plump or glowing skin. Do it with Neutrogena Collagen Bank. Trust me, I'm a banker.

A (27:50)

Shouldn't they trust me, the dermatologist?

C (27:52)

It's not a competition.

D (27:55)

Then we had Tate McRae and Dr. Shah together. Then we had, you know, John Cena and Dr. Neera Nathan.

C (28:02)

Hi, I'm Dr. Neera, here to interview John Cena, the new face of Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunscreen.

A (28:08)

What's up, up? Let's do this.

C (28:09)

But as you can see, he flaked.

A (28:12)

What? I'm right here.

C (28:13)

Anyway, Ultra Sheer gives you high SPF protection and it has an invisible finish.

A (28:19)

Hello.

C (28:20)

You can't see it.

A (28:21)

And cut. You know, you can't do that. Register trademark. You can't see me. My time is now. You can't see me.

B (28:30)

My time is now.

A (28:32)

So you probably at this point have a pretty good sense, booker of what worked better than another. Because for me, this sort of influencer and celebrity connection, connected work. You've got sort of a baked in audience there of people who are fans of those influencers or not influencers, but those celebrities. But then you go to a different direction. It feels when you go with Beverly Hills 90210, you go with Landline, you go with magazines which are these icons of the 90s. Conceptually, it's a very different direction. But what was your sense of it and how has it sort of been playing out?

B (29:10)

Yeah, so we very deliberately go in different directions depending on what the cultural tension is that we're chasing. I think like the John Cena thing, we were really looking at bringing the product benefit, right, which was invisible sunscreen. So we were looking at really driving that home. And then as we started thinking into that, it would be like, well, who was the most interesting kind of person that we could bring, bring an invisible sunscreen to life with? And if you look at it, there's 20 years, 20 plus years of Internet talk around John Cena being invisible. Now, we could have just. We could have just lent on the meme and added to it. But to me, that it's a little lazy to just do that. What we needed to do was really find a new way to give that life, give that meme new life. So it was really John Cena struggling with the fact that maybe he has become invisible. And him realizing that in front of you for the first time is like, that's how we can start to get the interest around that product in particular. And we did a lot of stuff, starting with memes and very small pieces that even a teaser that kind of retracted his name and things like that, that starts to get that Internet chatter talking. But it was very much that campaign was very much about how do we get the Internet talking about what we're doing before we drop the big reveal? And then, obviously, we had a lot of fun with John cen, and you get a lot of press and PR associated with that and how that came out into the world. Then the 902101 was deliberately quite different because we didn't want to.

A (30:47)

That's for a different product, right? That's where this is.

B (30:49)

It's a different product.

A (30:50)

Regenerating cream is.

B (30:52)

So we are trying to make sure that we find different ways in for each thing. Like, even though we have the consistency of dermatologists through everything that we're doing, and we have the cultural insights that Chris, like, hounds me on, like, on a daily basis. He's like, what's the cultural book in that? But it's so important to the work that we're doing is we're talking to a different audience. And so it wouldn't make sense for us, like, when we're selling sunscreen to someone that's going on vacation, that's a different person. That's like using a retinol regenerating cream, which is very different to, like, someone in their 20s using Hydro Boost. Like, that's why we go with Tate McRae in that instance. And we're building, like, the relevancy to the audience that we're talking to. So every idea does have to be different. But the red thread between all of them is that derm integration. We're always talking about the beauty. We're always talking about the science that gets you the beauty. And then the cultural hook is like, where we find that relevancy. And then the last thing I would say on that is the use of celebrity. You know, it's not a mandate that we use it, but, like, celebrity has changed a little bit. To the point earlier was celebrities used to be just used as the someone that you would try and uphold yourself to or someone that you wanted to be like or look like. Now they're very much a media channel and we really do use them in that sense. It's a way to connect with an audience. It's a shortcut to getting 20, 30 million eyeballs looking at your thing. You can use them in a more engaging and deeper way and tap into their communities and then use those communities to amplify your message. So for us, it's like the. The coming together of all of those things is starting to build out, like who Neutrogena is. I've got to give Chris all the credit because when we started this journey, like, it's a lot of theory and it's a lot of, like, trust. Trust us, we. We know what we're doing or we think we know what we're doing. But Chris has been the champion of this the whole entire time and his team, it's been wonderful. And then like, like, you know, it's very hard to get everyone to buy into that on the first execution. Now that there's like six or seven things out there where you start to see it come together, even though in on paper they don't look anything alike. It's like, oh, that's exactly what you were saying. And that's why this is working so well for us.

A (33:18)

So I don't remember the guy who played David, but Tori Spelling, Brian Oin Green, Brian Austin Green. Were they in the spot? Because I've read that they needed to be. There was a combination. You needed them for some aspect of the idea. Is that true or was it just the original footage from the show?

B (33:38)

It's original footage from the show with some lookalikes just to give us some camera angles that didn't exist from the real footage. And then our VFX team went and recreated Manhattan, Manhattan Beach. So we laid the sand out, the big I love you, Donna in the sand. We recreated that for real. We recreated a lifeguard tower. And then the rest is all vfx.

A (34:05)

When you look at the signals that you're getting right now, obviously it's relatively new, although you're coming up on eight months, so it's relatively new still. Are there signals that you're getting that lead you to believe you're doing the right thing? And what are they?

D (34:21)

We are super focused on the engagement because it's about the short term sales and pipe. It's also about building by the relevance of the brand and building back the equity. So the engagement is all forms of engagement. We've been tracking those very closely and the impact is awesome. And I think Alex, you were saying it but just even the comments, I mean how people have engaged with the content in their feeds, it's actually a source of content as well because of how smart and how hilarious are the comments with the content. So we love it. And just like Leaza said, what we love also is the reaction to because you know, the beauty industry, it's a small world, you know, with some very important drivers and tellers or the germs influencers. I mean their opinion is super important. And honestly this reset of the communication has been turning heads and this company especially is getting so much like good vibes from our partners. So yeah, I mean for sure. Thanks for this content.

A (35:28)

We are excited that you guys came along. I really love this work. It's Chris Reatt is a VP Global Neutrogena Brand Leader for Kenview. Alex Booker, Colin Booker is Executive Creative Director at BBDO in New York and Leah Griton or Grit is EVP Group Director of Integration Strategy for bbdo. Thank you to the three of you for spending some time with us. Brilliant work. We're going to drop it in and we'll put it on our website for everybody to see and we'll be watching what comes next. Thanks to everybody for your time.

B (36:03)

Thank you.

D (36:03)

Fergus, thank you so much.

B (36:05)

Great to be here.

C (36:06)

Thank you.

A (36:06)

And we'll see everyone on the next episode.