Unlocking relevance across the future of beauty

The challenge

The marketing department of a cosmetics brand needed to understand the future of beauty. Operating in European and US markets, they needed to gain and maintain relevance within an increasingly crowded and noisy category.

The team recognised that identity, technology, and cultural expression are reshaping consumer expectations, but they lacked a clear framework for understanding how tomorrow's beauty consumers would want to interact with brands.

They needed insights that would translate into actionable marketing strategies, product storytelling, and creative development.

Strategic framework: future-facing beauty trend platforms

Our Future of Beauty research delivered a framework of strategic consumer insights rooted in global trend research and cultural analysis, with a focus on Gen Z and millennial consumers. Drawing on adjacent categories as well as beauty insights, we showed where future beauty customers would come to the brand with new emotional needs, greater knowledge, and enhanced expectations.

The resulting deliverable included five future-facing beauty trend platforms, each brought to life with consumer language, moodboards, product implications, and brand tone guidance. This offered clear direction for marketing, product storytelling, and creative development for brand assets and activations.

The client team particularly valued our inclusion of brand guardrails and ‘what not to do’ watchouts, as well as our investment in regional research, which highlighted where category expectations, benefits language and brand activations might differ across regions and markets.

Video Storytelling for Internal Activation

We created a series of short videos that brought the trend platforms to life through fast-paced cuts of visuals, music, social video and consumer insight headlines. These videos became a versatile internal tool: the brand initially used them to share insights with regional and brand teams, then repeatedly to kick-start idea generation for new campaigns and activations.

The format ensured insights didn’t just sit in a presentation, but became a living resource that could inspire and align teams across the organisation.

The global head of brand said that the work “unlocked a new level of relevance by giving our teams language, visuals, and the confidence to tell a richer, more forward-looking brand story.”